HORIZON MC Read online

“You know, while we are all here together,” Jack said, and we groaned on cue. “What? I just wanted to know if everything’s ready for the park fundraiser.”

  “I thought this was social drinking,” I remarked, raising a plastic pitcher meaningfully. Haley caught the gesture from across the room and brought out a full one to replace the one we’d drained.

  “You’re taking this sick day pretty seriously, looks like,” she remarked.

  “All you need to do is let me know if you’re falling behind on anything, and I’ll jump right in,” I promised.

  “I’m just giving you a hard time,” she said, giving me a wink.

  “Oh, careful, there,” Sloan warned. “Chuck’s going to get jealous if you give Ace too much attention.”

  “Watch it,” Chuck complained, aiming a whack at the back of Sloan’s head. “Or I’ll give you some attention.”

  “The fundraiser,” Jack prompted. “What still needs to be done?”

  “Nothing, really,” Brody said. “Right? We’re ready to go?”

  “Well, practically ready,” I said. “We need to buy the hamburgers and hotdogs still, but no use doing that until the night before or the day of.”

  “I just want it to go off without a hitch,” Jack said. “I think there are going to be a lot of people there.”

  “That’s good,” Chuck said. “More people, more money.”

  “Should we adjust the meat we agreed to buy?” Jack fretted. “Should we get more?”

  “If we need more, we’ll get more,” I assured him. “No use worrying about it now. Let the grill master worry. I’ll be on duty to make another grocery store run, if it comes down to that.”

  “What about the raffle items?”

  “Those have been ready for days,” Sloan said. “Jack, you need to relax. Everything’s good to go.”

  “I just really want this to be big,” he said. “Super successful.”

  “People care about revitalizing the town, and the park would be part of that,” Brody said. “We have hundreds of people who said they were coming on the Facebook page. It’s going to be great.”

  “Are you the one who should be drinking to forget?” I asked Jack, pounding him on the back. “I thought this was my party, bud.”

  “Such a drama queen,” Jack sighed, shaking his head at me. “Last person to finish their beer has to buy the next pitcher.”

  We played a couple of drinking games to get things back on track, but the conversation eventually wound back around to the real reason of our gathering getting my mind off of my various failings with the mysterious redhead and reminding me of everything everyone had promised to help me forget.

  “So what do you think she does for a living?” Jack asked me, his eyes twinkling.

  “Who?”

  That earned me a cuff to the head via Chuck. “You know who. The redhead.”

  “You’d have to ask her,” I said with a shrug. “I have no idea.”

  “You have to have some kind of idea,” Brody cajoled. “Come on. Not even any guesses?”

  “I don’t know,” I mused. “What’s a career where you can be rude to people and cagey as hell and still get away with it?”

  “Department of Motor Vehicles?” Sloan guessed.

  “Receptionist at a public high school,” Chuck said, frowning as we all burst into laughter. “What, none of you had a bad experience? I swear, the woman who worked at my school would make you sweat if you wanted to use the office phone to call home in an emergency. She made girls cry who came down there asking to see the school nurse. Is it only me?”

  “Only you, Chuck,” Brody confirmed. “The office manager at my high school was a peach. Absolutely fantastic.”

  “Maybe the redhead’s a call girl,” Jack said, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

  “You’re just being a jerk,” I told him.

  “Hey, there’s a lot of men who’d pay good money to get talked down to like she’s been talking down to you,” he pointed out. “What, no humiliation kink?”

  “Not really my cup of tea,” I informed him. “Maybe we should change the subject.”

  “Wow, you don’t even know her name and you’re defending her?” Sloan gave a low whistle. “Does that raise a red flag for anyone else around this table?”

  “Red flags for the redhead,” Chuck said, waving an imaginary flag of his own.

  I shook my head. “How did this turn into a day to cause me pain?” I demanded. “This is supposed to be a sick day. A day of recovery for all the turmoil I’ve endured.”

  “The pangs of unrequited love have struck our comrade down,” Jack said, lifting his nose. “Let us drink to help him forget her.”

  “Unrequited love.” Brody heaved a sigh. “It’s the saddest thing in the world.”

  “Okay, first of all, it’s not unrequited love,” I said. “It’s not unrequited anything, because I’m not even sure I like the redhead.”

  There was a moment of silence before everyone in the booth roared with laughter. It was so loud that even the people bellied up to the bar, sitting on the stools, turned to ogle us to see if they could figure out just what was so funny. I was apparently the funny thing, and the rest of the guys were having quite a chuckle at my expense.

  “Ace, pal,” Sloan said, patting my hand fondly. “If you didn’t like her, there wouldn’t be any drama whatsoever. The fact that you’re pining over her”

  “There is no pining involved,” I cut in.

  He waved me away as if I hadn’t said anything at all. “Our friend doth protest too much. There’s something there. You have to at least admit that.”

  “I don’t have to admit anything.”

  “You decided to call in sick because she rejected you a second time,” Brody said, his eyebrows raised, palms turned toward the sky. “Isn’t that what happened?”

  “What the hell?” I complained, looking around the table. “What is this? You’re all worse than a bunch of old ladies with your gossip. See if I ever trust any of you with anything again.”

  “Hey, to throw a pity party correctly, people have to be well informed,” Chuck said. “Am I right?”

  “I have no idea what you are,” I said, pouring myself another glass of beer more out of disgust than true thirst. “You all are the sorriest friends a guy could ever have.”

  “Aw, we love you, too, Ace,” Jack said, clinking his glass against mine. “Now. Let’s work up a plan for you to get with Red.”

  “Red?”

  “She has to have a name. Calling her ‘the redhead’ is kind of impersonal, right?”

  I shook my head at him. “You just shortened it to Red. Now it’s not only impersonal, it’s lazy.”

  Jack chose to ignore me completely, even as I continued to be the focus of conversation. “So Ace hasn’t been able to get lucky with Red, and he needs to because how else is he going to get on with his life?”

  “Seriously, the worst friends ever.”

  “What, are you mean to her?” Chuck asked, fixing me with a frown. “You know I don’t like that shit.”

  “Who’s saying I’m mean to her?” I demanded, putting my face in my hands and barely resisting the urge to yank my own hair out of my head. “No one is saying that I’m mean to her. I’m not. If anything, she’s mean to me.”

  “But women aren’t mean to you,” Chuck said patiently. “Women love you.”

  “Believe me. I’m as puzzled as you.” I was beginning to sincerely regret skipping out on work tonight, especially if I was just going to get alternately grilled and roasted for the duration.

  “Man, if you can’t figure a woman out, there’s no hope for any of us,” Sloan moaned.

  “Now, now, that’s backwards thinking,” Brody said, wagging a finger in Sloan’s face. “If you don’t understand a woman, it’s because you’re not listening well enough. Not because she is unknowable.”

  “Where did you find this guy?” I asked Jack, raising my eyebrows. Jack shrugged in response.
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br />   “So, Ace,” Brody continued, folding his hands before him on the table like he was some kind of professional at this. “What has Red been saying? What have you been hearing?”

  “That she hates me on principle,” I said.

  “No,” Brody groaned, his face scrunched up in dismay. “Really?”

  “That’s what it seems like,” I said. “I mean, she hasn’t even given me her name. She called the club a gang. She doesn’t even like Rio Seco.”

  “Okay, this is…don’t get me wrong, for you, this sucks, but for humankind, this is good,” Brody said.

  “If you’re trying to cheer him up, I don’t think it’s working,” Sloan volunteered.

  “Ace, if you figure out what’s going on with Red, will it cheer you up?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Worth a try, right?”

  “You had an ailment, and I have a prescription to soothe your ills,” Brody declared. “She’s just not that into you.”

  Silence reigned over the booth before Jack spluttered into laughter.

  “She’s just not that into you?” he asked before his laughter entered the guffawing territory. “Is that supposed to make Ace feel better?”

  “Really thankful for your support, there, bud,” I said, rolling my eyes as, one by one, Chuck and Sloan started losing it, too. “Thank you, this night is exactly what I needed. Yes, excellent. Thank you for this.”

  “What’s funny?” Brody asked, genuinely at a loss. “That Red’s not into Ace?”

  “No, I think we’d call that an anomaly,” Jack said, one hand holding his stomach, the other thumbing tears of mirth away from his eyes. “Most women are into Ace. He’s obviously into Red, which is what makes it sad that she’s apparently not into him. The funny part comes in when you think your advice is helpful.”

  “What? It’s not?” Brody looked at me, the very picture of innocence. “Is it not helpful?”

  “It is not,” I said with some dignity. “Especially since I suspect that she actually is into me.”

  “Careful,” Chuck rumbled.

  I held my hands up. “I’m not suggesting anything untoward. I’ve been a gentleman.”

  “What on God’s green Earth makes you think, then, that you have a chance with her if she hasn’t even given you her name?”

  “She keeps coming back.” I smiled and spread my hands in front of me. “Twice.”

  “We’re the only bar in town,” Jack said, sympathy painted on his face. “Could be she’s just been thirsty for beer twice.”

  “If she was thirsty for beer, she could always pick up a six-pack at the grocery store,” I pointed out. “She’s come back here, to this bar, twice. The second time after the first time.”

  “That’s usually what ‘twice’ means,” Jack confirmed gently.

  “I mean that she came in again, even after the disaster that was our first interaction,” I said, more than a little flustered. “Even after she knew I worked here, and she’d probably be seeing me again, should she choose to return, which she did.”

  “Well, the first time she was here, she couldn’t take her eyes off you,” Chuck said. “That’s why I assumed you screwed it up.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, buddy,” I sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe I did screw something up. Came on too strong.”

  “She couldn’t take her eyes off you,” Chuck repeated, reiterating his point by clapping after each word. “She was into you until you opened your mouth.”

  “I thought you were on my side,” I complained.

  “Always,” he said, patting my head in a way that somehow wasn’t patronizing. “I just think you should give this one up, though. If she’d really wanted you, you would’ve known.”

  “But she came back.” This was key, in my opinion. She’d come back, even though our second encounter hadn’t gone any better than the first.

  “Think she’ll come back again?” Jack asked me.

  “I mean, it’s possible.” I blotted at the condensation rings my glass was leaving on the table with a damp napkin. “She came back once. She could come back again. I kind of hope she’ll come back again.”

  “Then maybe the third time will be the charm,” he said, his tone hopeful, indicative of an olive branch extended. “Maybe you’ll at least get her name the third time you interact with her.” A snort of laughter, and olive branch retracted.

  “She’s just not that into you,” Brody offered again.

  Sloan plopped a twenty-dollar bill down on the table. “My money’s on Ace.”

  “Literally?” Chuck asked, his eyebrow arched.

  “I mean that I bet twenty bucks he’ll get her name next time,” Sloan said.

  Brody sucked in air through his teeth. “Assuming there’ll be a next time, of course.”

  “That’s what my money’s on.”

  “I’ll take that bet,” Brody said, nodding decisively, coming up with an assortment of bills that added up to twenty. “But I’m betting that he won’t see her again.”

  “Ouch,” I said. “You’re the one who gave me all that advice, too.”

  “Solving your ailment,” he said, nodding.

  “For someone who thinks we should all be listening harder to women, it’s kind of hypocritical that you’re even betting, isn’t it?” Chuck asked.

  Brody shrugged. “I’m being realistic, here.”

  “Okay, I think she’ll come in, but Ace still won’t get her name,” Chuck said, plunking his own bill on the table.

  “I thought you were on my side!” I exclaimed, hurt. “Sloan, you’re the only one I like anymore.”

  “Ha,” he said, preening.

  “I want in on the bet,” Jack said.

  “Careful,” I warned him.

  “What? You already told Sloan he was your favorite.” Jack smiled dangerously. “That means I can bet how I want.”

  “It’s your money,” I said, waving at the cash scattered across the table.

  “I’m betting that one or a combination of the rest of your bets will take place,” he said, smug as he let his twenty ride the air currents like an errant leaf falling from a branch.

  “That’s not fair,” Sloan said, his mouth dropping open.

  “That’s like being on ‘The Price is Right’ and betting one dollar more than your nearest competitor,” Chuck groused.

  “Hey, a winner’s a winner,” Jack said.

  “Is that my tip money?” Haley had come to deliver a fresh pitcher of beer and squealed with delight at the sight of all the bills in the middle of the table. “You all are perfect, sweet, wonderful angels. Have I ever told you that? Oh my God, this makes my night no, my month!”

  We all watched, speechless, as Haley gathered up the bills, practically vibrating with joy, and stuffed them into her apron. She literally skipped back to the bar, singing along to the song playing on the jukebox.

  “That was… How much money was that?” Brody asked, dazed.

  “Eighty dollars,” I said, laughing at the foolish expressions on everyone’s faces, as if they were slowly waking up from a dream.

  “We have to get that money back,” Sloan said, snapping to attention. “That’s our betting money.”

  “You can’t just take the money back from her,” Chuck said. “She was so happy.”

  “Yeah, eighty dollars’ worth of happy,” Sloan whined.

  “Let her have it, Sloan,” I urged. “She actually skipped. Have you ever seen Haley skip before?”

  “You just don’t want anyone to bet on your love life,” Brody remarked.

  “I mean, can you blame me?” I glanced over at the bar. “You know, Haley has a really nice voice.”

  “Please don’t take the betting money away from Haley,” Chuck all but begged. “Look at her.”

  We all watched her for a little while as she did a more than passable cover of the song on the jukebox. In my humble opinion, she was doing even better than the original performers of the song, all with dance
moves to complement the show.

  “We could do like a Coyote Ugly thing, don’t you think?” I asked. “Haley would choreograph, obviously, but we could like get up on the bar and do a dance routine or two every night, nothing too fancy, and we could sing”

  “Look, I’m indulging you in this fantasy, but in it, only Haley gets to sing,” Brody said. “Sorry, Ace. We have all, in one setting or another, endured your terrible singing. You’re not singing.”

  “Let the man have his fantasy,” Jack said. “In a fantasy, you don’t have to be completely and painfully tone deaf. You can be whatever you want to be.”

  “Thanks… I guess…” I sighed. “Please don’t bet on me and the redhead. I’m kind of twisted up about her.”

  “You finally drunk enough to confess your true feelings, pal?” Sloan asked almost tenderly.

  “Nowhere near,” I said, which was apparently a signal for Haley to plunk another pitcher of beer on the table. Chuck refilled my glass.

  “You can tell us anything,” he assured me. “As long as you don’t mind us using it against you at some point in the future.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of,” I said, taking a long drink of my beer. I was pleasantly buzzed enough so that I’d leave the motorcycle parked overnight and just mosey on down the street to my apartment. It wasn’t terribly far away, and some nights, I preferred the walk to the ride, especially nights when I’d been drinking enough for everything to sort of go fuzzy at the edges. It was nice, having people I trusted, people I liked, around to enjoy life with.

  Because there had been a time when I hadn’t had all of this, and that had been a hard time to live in.

  “Let’s lay off Ace a little bit,” Jack said, looking at me, his eyebrows drawn together in mild concern. I must’ve had a terrible expression on my face, thinking of those challenging times.

  I waved his concerns away, dismissive. “If I could just have one night with her, I’d exorcise all of this. The only regrets I’m having is all the time I’m wasting just trying to make it happen.”

  “We all know you’re more than capable of making it happen with practically any woman who passes your way,” Jack said. As if on cue, two girls in matching cowboy hats they had to be on some kind of road trip, or something, because there was no way they lived here passed by and giggled at me.