Page 13 of Handful

I almost laughed. Held it. No way was I risking a bump back to prospect for disrespecting the Prez. Seen it happen once or twice — mostly in King’s day, but Dutch wouldn’t blink if he thought it was due.

“I’m not asking you to be someone you’re not,” Dutch said. “I’m asking you to be someone you haven’t been yet.” He picked up the sling from the table. “You’ve got one chance to show me it’s in there. Don’t make me wait.”

He walked past me. Stopped at the door. “Let me make one more thing clear. We are not buying a strip club.” He left.

The common room was half full by the time I came out of the room. Target had the pool table going. Somebody had put the jukebox on.

I went to the bar and poured myself a beer. Set it on the wood. Sat with it. Didn’t drink it.

After a while I pushed the glass away — still full — and went upstairs.

The Austen book was on the nightstand. I’d been chipping away at it for weeks. Couldn’t tell yet if I liked it. Not sure I even understood most of it.

I opened it. Mr. Darcy was being an asshole at a dance and Elizabeth Bennet was seeing through him in about four seconds.

Felt familiar.

Chapter 4

❧

— Austen —

He was back again.

Third time this week. Wednesday night, quarter past eight, same stool at the far end of the bar where the light was worst and the foot traffic was lightest. Cut on, because the cut was always on — Venom Riders MC, the patch across his back, the pin-up girl forearms on display were as much a part of him as the grin he walked in with. He’d nodded at me when he sat down, ordered an Old Fashioned, and opened a book.

A book.

The same book he’d been reading for ten weeks. Pride and Prejudice. Not even a cool edition — a trade paperback with a book club seal on the cover and somebody else’s margin notes in pencil. He read it slowly, turning pages like a man defusing a bomb, occasionally frowning at something Austen had written two hundred years ago as if she’d directed it at him personally.

It was, against every instinct I had, the most disarming thing I’d ever seen a man in my bar do.

“He’s back,” Jamie said, appearing at my elbow with a tray of empties.

“I’m aware.”

“That’s three times this week.”

“I can count, Jamie.”

“He’s on chapter twelve. I checked when I cleared his glass.”

“Why are you tracking his reading progress?”

“Because it’s the most interesting thing happening.” Jamie set the tray down and leaned against the back counter, arms folded. Twenty-three, wiry, the kind of barback who’d be running his own place in five years if he kept his head down. “He tips thirty percent. He hasn’t flirted with a single member of staff in two months. And he’s reading Jane Austen. In public. In a leather vest.”

“It’s a cut.”

“It’s a leather vest with patches sewn on.”

“Don’t let him hear you call it a vest.”

Jamie grinned. “I’m just saying. Either this is the most elaborate long game in the history of men, or he actually likes you.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“No. But it’s fun to watch.”