Jacks

Mal and I ride in silence to our meeting with the graphic designer, Deena. We go along like normal, with no mention of or awkwardness about his recent discovery about his sister and me. We both go back to the club afterwards and once we are in our office, before I even sit down in my chair near the window, I know the silence is done.

“My sister,” Mal says, his voice gravelly.

“Listen, mate. I wanted to come clean to you right away. She wanted to hold off.”

“I know. She wanted to make sure you’re an okay guy.”

“So now?”

“She’s deemed you worthy.”

“And you?”

“I’m pissed you didn’t trust me enough to talk to me, but I understand.”

He does? I’m not even sure if I do.

“You do?” I ask.

“Cam needed the assurance. I guess my showing up may have fucked that process of hers, whatever it is, but ultimately she’s okay with you and I guess that has to do with building trust with her. But now, I need to trust you. You are both my family. I need to trust you now in this.”

“So much trust happening,” I mumble.

“Don’t get smart, arsehole. I have bigger muscles than you and can likely suffocate you if I get you in a headlock.”

Truth.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Don’t break her heart.”

“Promise,” I say without a moment of hesitation.

“So, you popped my sister’s cherry.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Shit.”

* * *

Today was a long fucking day. An incident occurred tonight and overall, I'm wishing I could restart this day.

It all happened in slow motion. Two female dancers were on stage and suddenly, they weren’t. They were supposed to stay on the stage for this routine, so when I looked below and saw a fight had broken out on the floor, I immediately ran downstairs and threw myself in the middle of it. Mistake number one. I now have a shiner and my face feels like it’s the size of a watermelon.

Our security was doing a good job at getting the guys away from the two dancers, who were at the bottom of a dog-pile. I had no business getting into the middle of it, but I acted before thinking. Mistake number two. Security needs to place some of its team differently. I make a mental note to discuss this further with Malcolm and coordinate a security meeting to discuss changes we need to make.

Trina, one of the dancers, twisted her ankle when a belligerent male guest pulled her off the stage by her foot. Amanda, the other dancer, tried to help, but was dragged down as well. And now she has a concussion.

The lights went on in the club and we shut down early for the first time since we've been in business, detaining several folks who participated in the fight. We issued refunds to people who purchased tickets to the last show. Afterwards, I personally checked in with each dancer as the throb on my face got worse.

“Bossman, you need me to call you a ride to get you home?” Janae asks as I walk up to the bar and sit down..

“No. It’s late. I can drive myself. Everything closed up out here?” I motion to the bar.

“The guys who got arrested have an open tab.”

“That’s fine.” I wave her off, remembering the notice that we have posted somewhere behind the bar.

Janae seems to know exactly what I’m looking for and moves so I can see the printed plastic sign behind her.

“Lock up their card in the safe. If the boneheads come back to retrieve it, charge the overnight fee of twenty bucks and then add up their tab. Technically, we can’t close out the tab without a signature, but we’ll give it a day or so. Otherwise, we’ll just call it a loss,” I say with a wince, as it suddenly felt like someone stabbed me in the nose.

“You should probably go see a doctor. Your face shouldn’t be so swollen and your nose shouldn’t still be bleeding. What the hell happened, anyways? Pretending to be security?” She tries to not laugh.

“I caught an elbow to the face or something along those lines. Hurts like a motherfucker.”

Janae leans in closer and inspects my face. “I’m calling Mal to take you home. You’re not driving anywhere.” She picks up her cell phone and, before I can say anything, she telling him to come to the club right away.

“You didn’t want to tell him why he was coming back to the club?”

“If I told him that your pretty face was all beat up, he would have taken his time. This way, he rushes over here.” She smiles, proud of herself.

I try to roll my eyes, but parts of my face hurt that I wasn’t aware would hurt. “Can I get an ice water?” I ask her.

“No straight up booze?” she quirks an eyebrow. “To dull the pain any?”

“I don’t think alcohol helps with swelling,” I reply dryly. I would love a drink right now, to take the edge off and to also make some of the pain go away, but I know that won’t help me any.

Five minutes later, Mal comes in through the back hallways. He looks frantic and looks around the space.

“Why are we closed? Where is every— Holy shit! What happened to your face, man?” he says quickly as he approaches. Mal starts to reach for my face but my hand blocks him.

He then looks to Janae and back to me, waiting for someone to answer his questions.

Janae decides to recap. “Some guy grabbed Trina off the stage, and Amanda reached after her and got dragged off too. Both girls fell to the floor and some assholes mauled them and then a fight broke out. This guy” —she jerks her thumb at me— “thought to be a superhero and dove in the middle of the mess. The staff was freaking out, the patrons were pissy and started peacocking, and security had their hands full. Police reports were taken, refunds were issued, and then we closed up for the night.”

“I checked in with everyone and they’re okay. Trina has a twisted ankle and Amanda has a concussion from being knocked around a bit, but overall they’ll be okay,” I add.

“And you look like shit,” Mal confirms.

“What you’re saying is that I wouldn’t win any beauty pageants right now?”

“Depends on what someone would count as beautiful, mate. C’mon, let’s get you to the hospital. Text Cam and tell her where we’re heading,” he instructs me, as he grabs my arm and helps me up.

“Nah, she’s sleeping. I’ll see her in the morning.” I follow behind him.

“Arsehole. She’s your girlfriend, yes?” Mal turns to me, stopping me just before the back door.

“Uh, yes?” I know that Cam and I said we weren’t putting a title on us, but I have to admit that Girlfriend sounds pretty fucking nice.

“Is that a question? Look, I’ll give you this one pass. For future reference, the rules of relationships include: when certain things happen, like your face looking like that, or bigger events like going to the hospital, thou shalt call and/or text her. Not keeping the girlfriend in the loop on these things is grounds for the doghouse. And you don’t want to be in the doghouse. Trust me.” He unlocks his car and we slide into the seats.

I text Cam with basic details.

Me: Fight at the club. I’m going to the hospital. Fill you in at home.

I don’t expect an answer right away and pocket my phone. It’s after midnight anyways; she’s usually asleep by now but my phone goes off and I pull it back out.

She’s calling.

“’Ello?” I answer with a wince.

“I think I need more details than that,” she says, her voice full of sleep.

I gave her the bare details as it was starting to hurt to talk.

“Shit. You right?” She sounds more awake.

“I am. I’ve got a bruise but I’m fine.” I downplay the injury so it won’t make her worry.

“He looks like the elephant man!” Mal yells for Cam to hear.

“What the hell?” she screams into the receiver.

“Calm down. I’m fine.”

“Then why is my brother driving you to the hospital.”

“Because my nose is swollen and has been swollen for a few hours now. It’s likely broken.”

“Where is he taking you?”

“Valley. Stay home, get some sleep, and I’ll wake you when I get home.”

“Don’t be dense. Doghouse,” Mal whispers.

“Fuck all. I’ll see you there.” She hangs up, not giving me the chance to respond.

I pocket my phone again.

“So, she’s on her way.”

“So is Beck,” Mal admits.

“I don’t need a welcoming committee,” I say.

“Did you let the paramedics check you out?”

“No.”

“Arsehole,” he mutters as he pulls into a parking spot. “How have you managed to survive this far in life?”

We get out of the car and walk through the doors to the nurse’s station. We approach the counter where a tired-looking, middle-aged woman sits. She’s looking down at whatever is in front of her and we’re not spared a glance. Instead, she hands us a clipboard and gives us instructions to have a seat and fill it out. Mal sits beside me and plays on his phone while I fill out the forms. When I turn it in, the same nurse finally takes a look at me. She leans to the side to look at Mal and then leans closer to me.

“That fellow you’re with, he’s not the cause, is he?” she whispers.

“No ma’am. He’s my business partner. This resulted from an altercation at our club.”

She nods, smacks her gum and then looks at her clipboard.

“We’ll take care of you soon. Take a seat. How’s your pain?”

“A dulling seven. I’ve grown used to it by now.”

“Take a seat, darlin’, I’ll see what we can do.” She winks at me.

* * *

Cam and Beck enter the emergency room doors at the same time in a hurry. Both wear worried looks as they search the room for us. The room goes silent when those two beauties walk into it and everyone turns to look at them. Men cradling their head with a head wound turn to stare, women who were crying moments before become silent, and even the fidgeting children still as they attempt to figure out what the big deal is. When Cam and Beck spot us, they quickly cross the room toward us. Cam crouches down between my legs and inspects my face, and Beck observes her seat by Mal’s side.

Cam reaches for me and, with a light touch to my temples, she turns my head from side to side, inspecting me. Her mouth falls open and her eyes look worried as she does her own examination.

“The fuck you do to yourself?” Cam asks quietly.

“I didn’t do this to myself, love,” I say, while attempting an expression I hope looks like a smirk.

“You put yourself in between something and another something. Foot to the face? Knee?” she guesses.

“Elbow. I think. It could have been anything. It happened so quickly.”

“Idiot.” Beck laughs. “You know security, those guys get in between the fights, that’s part of their job description. They get paid for that shit.”

That reminds me. “Speaking of which, we should rearrange the security posts and have a meeting about what took place tonight, how we can prevent it from happening again, and such. I’m going to encourage a workers comp claim from Trina and we’ll likely have to answer a series of ‘why’ questions,” I say, turning my gaze to Beck.

She nods and then smiles. “We’ll worry about all this tomorrow. Let’s get you checked out and then we’ll discuss the next steps. Were police reports taken?”

“Of course.” I nod.

“Refunds given for the rest of the shows that were supposed to happen or the remainder of the night?”

“For those who started to show up. Security gave them the option of a refund or show tickets for another evening. A few of the guys were going to stay until the original start time of the final show and hand out rain checks or whatever it takes to turn the disappointment of a cancelled show into a positive experience.”

The four of us fall into easy conversation for the next two hours while we wait for my name to be called. Cam rests her head on my shoulder with her hand in mine as Mal and Beck sleep in their chairs across from us.

My name is called from somewhere up front. Slowly, I maneuver as best as I can to not wake up Cam, but she wakes up. I stand and she takes my hand. I squeeze it in return.

“Be back,” I say quietly.

* * *

I have a broken nose.

The doctor wanted to wait for the initial swelling to go down, but when I explain that it’s been at least six hours since the injury occurred, he manually realigns the break, inserts an internal splint and packing, tells me to call my primary care doctor for a follow up appointment in a week, then tells me to take over-the-counter pain meds for the pain. I am in and out in under an hour, after waiting for what felt like forever. I approach everyone in the waiting room – they’re all sleeping sitting up or leaning against one another – and lightly wake them. Cam’s eyes blink a few times and then she smiles. Beck and Mal slowly begin to rise.

“Well, it would seem that we hired someone right in the knick of time. Do you think she can handle a few nights alone?” I ask.

“There’s no better way to find out other than to throw her in,” Mal says, stretching.

“Good. I’m going to take a few nights off. But if we can plan two meetings during the day that would be good.”

“What kind of meetings?” Mal asks.

“I want the security meeting that I mentioned. I think we need to up security, have them positioned differently, and then once we have that, I want an all-staff meeting – front of house and back of house. We’ll go over new security measures and just generally check in with staff. Trina will be out for a few days, so we’ll need to get someone to fill in for her. And I want another check in with Amanda, to make sure she’s good. If we can send flowers to her and Trina too, that would be good and—”

Beck interrupts me. “Okay, slow your roll, buddy. We’ll get this all ironed out later. I think that’s enough business for right now. It’s late, we’re all tired, and you need some sleep. Skype with us tomorrow, but for now you need to go home and rest. We’ll talk later,” Beck instructs with determination.

“No funny business. He needs sleep.” Mal shakes his finger at his sister.

“No funny business,” Cam repeats, nodding as we go our separate ways.

Once we’re in the warmth of her car she turns to me. “Thank you for texting me.”

I look over at her over and try to smile. I take her hand and squeeze it just in case the gauze on my face obscures my smile.

“If you came home like this, and I hadn’t known what was going on, I would have freaked out. I might have even hit you inadvertently and hurt you even more than you currently are.” She smiles.

“So, I’m your first real relationship?” I ask, leaning my head against the headrest of my seat, looking at her as she starts the car and pulls out of the parking space, puts the car into drive and heads in the direction of home.

“Mmmhmmm,” she confirms.

“Were you planning on telling me this?”

“Mmmhmmm. Eventually. I mean it’s not that important, is it?”

“I would tend to think so, yes.”

“Well, since you have a few nights off, maybe we can take this time to get to know one another a little better on a different level than we did as you being my brothers friend? I mean, I think we know the surface stuff, but it can’t hurt to go deeper,” she says offhandedly.

“Works for me. Unexpected days off, spent with you – I couldn’t ask for anything more.”