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Jessie nodded. “Then I’m going to need food.”
“Gods, girl, you can’t eat the food here,” Benny said, sounding scandalized. She looked at him suspiciously. She didn’t trust a word that came out of his mouth.
“Oh the fries are decent,” the waitress said, passing by. “We make them fresh. Want me to get you some?”
“Sure,” Ryder said, smiling at her. “A big bunch, and some secret sauce to dip them in.”
The fries were pretty good, she agreed. Benny left them to go dance with a woman from the big table. “How are they going to take that?” Jessie asked. Really, the dynamics were just like a frat party! She was revising her thesis topic: a comparison of similarities of masculinity behaviors between frat boys and bikers. It could be done, she thought. Gussy up the labels a bit....
Ryder looked amused. “Probably someone is going to take a swing at him,” he said, unworried. “Benny’s bored.”
She stared at him open-mouthed, and then asked the waitress for more fries. “The nachos aren’t bad either,” the woman said, encouraging her. “You seem hungry. Doesn’t that man of yours feed you?”
Jessie looked pitiful. “No,” she said plaintively. “Rode all day, didn’t feed me dinner. What’s a girl to do?”
Ryder was laughing again. She grinned at him. “Nachos?” she asked. He nodded, and the waitress went after some.
And Jessie’s prediction was right —the man who Benny’s dance partner had come with took exception to Benny dancing with her. She took exception to him interfering. “You won’t dance with me!” she yelled. Benny just laughed at the man. Enraged, the man swung at him, and Benny dodged it.
“That’s all you got?” Benny taunted. Ryder watched unconcerned, and Jessie settled back in her chair.
The man swung again. This time Benny slugged him in the gut, and the man tumbled back into the table behind him. The bartender came around the bar with a shotgun. “Take it outside,” he ordered. “Both of you, out.”
Benny bowed slightly to the bartender, and the man took advantage of it to punch at him again. He missed, somehow. Jessie’s eyes narrowed — how had Benny done that? Could he teach her? For the first time, she considered that. Could she learn to fight?
She thought she might like that.
Benny plowed into the man and forced him out the front door.
Ryder just helped himself to the nachos the waitress put in front of him. “Aren’t you going to go help him?” Jessie asked.
“Help Benny?” Ryder snorted. “He doesn’t need help. Not even if the man’s buddies go after him too. And they’re not going to —you go out to a fight, and you’re not welcomed back. Joe and his shotgun makes that rule stick.”
“But,” she started, then ate a nacho. They were pretty good. She ate another one.
Ryder bent closer to her ear. “Benny wants to go check out the town,” he said. “But leaving would be noticeable. Getting thrown out? No one’s thinking twice about his absence. Don’t worry about Benny. He’ll be fine. He’ll beat us back to the motel, and best guess? He won’t be alone.”
Jessie’s eyebrow arched. She was skeptical about all that, but Ryder didn’t seem worried, so that was that. “Teach me to play darts,” she ordered.
“You’ve never played darts?” Ryder was astounded. “Come on then.”
