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“Look, it pisses me off that you didn’t say anything to me about whoever she is, but I get it. Like you said, she isn’t into you.” Halo grabbed his jacket. “It isn’t—?”
“Who?”
He shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Who were you going to ask me about?”
“Shit. I can’t recall her name. Anyway, I heard she was married.”
“How could you know someone is married if you can’t remember her name?”
“I can picture her. What the hell was her name?”
I was so relieved he didn’t ask me if it was Sloane that he could give me shit all night about women whose names he couldn’t remember.
I was about to get into the car when something caught my eye. I looked up and saw Sloane watching us from her bedroom window. I waited until Halo got in before I raised my hand. By then, she was gone.
The place we called the grill’s real name was the Biltmore, and it had been around since prohibition days. Back then, it was a speakeasy. Now, it was a dive bar, but with great food. Not that I was hungry.
Halo and I made our way through the crowd until we got to the back, where guys we knew from high school usually hung out.
“Tony, how the hell are you?” I asked, shaking the hand of a guy I’d played football with when he approached to say hello.
“Hey, Tackle. I’m good.” He leaned in closer than necessary in the noisy jam-packed bar. “My dad said he heard you and Halo had a close call.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about, my friend,” I said, gripping his shoulder in a way that answered him, yet warned him not to continue talking about it.
“I’m glad you’re both okay.”
“Appreciate it. Whatcha drinkin’?”
“Same ol’ Sammy,” he said, holding up a bottle of Sam Adams.
“Hey, Halo?” I pointed at Tony’s bottle, and he gave me a thumbs-up.
An hour later, my phone and Halo’s both lit up with text messages. “Onyx is awake,” I yelled, pumping my fist in the air. I looked at Halo, whose eyes were brimming with tears like mine were.
“It says he’s bitching about how Monk never shut up the whole time he was out. What do you think that means?”
“No idea, but if he’s talking, we should be celebrating.”
“Agreed. Shots for the house on Tackle and me,” Halo shouted to the bartender. It would cost us a fortune, giv
en how packed the place was, but who gave a shit. Onyx, our brother-in-arms, was awake.
By the end of the night, I’d had too many beers, listened to too much bullshit, but felt better than I had in months. “We should call a cab,” I said to Halo, who was just as lit as I was. “I’ll come get my car tomorrow.”
“Nah, I called Sloane.”
“Say what? You called your sister? She’s sick, asshole.”
Halo shook his head and took another swig of his beer. “She said she felt better.”
“It’s snowing, and it’s two in the morning. God, you’re a jerk.”
“What’s your problem? Have you forgotten all the other times Sloane picked us up from this very same bar?”
Had she? I guess so. Damn, I was just as much of a jerk as he was. “She know I’m with you?”
