“Hey, let me see your stick,” Ozzy called out to one of the guys leaning on a cue stick as he waited for his turn to shoot.
Without hesitation, he handed it to Ozzy who lifted it, closed one eye and looked down the cue stick the same way he’d look down the barrel of a gun as he slowly turned the stick.
She knew nothing about the game of pool. “What are you checking for?”
“To make sure it’s straight. Nothing more useless than a warped stick.” He handed it back to the guy. “Give that to my girl here when you’re done.” He turned back to Shay. “Well, a pig.”
Huh? She was still stuck on the “my girl” part. “A pig what?”
“Is useless.” He grinned. “The badge wearin’ kind not the one that makes bacon. Can’t live without bacon.”
“A good BLT is comfort food,” she agreed.
His grin widened. “Kinda got worried you’d say you don’t eat meat.”
She didn’t hide her grin when she shot one back at him. “I eat meat.” Then she rolled her lips under as heat flicked at her cheeks.
He barked out a laugh. “Good to hear it ‘cause I got a—”
Whatever he was going to say, which Shay figured was crude, was cut off by one of the pool players shoving a cue stick at her. She automatically took it.
“All yours, brother,” the man said and slapped Ozzy on the back.
The grin Ozzy had been wearing was now nowhere to be found. His gray eyes turned to cold steel. “Told you already, ain’t your brother.”
The man raised both palms up in surrender, laughed nervously and backed up. “You’re right. Sorry, man.”
The four men who were previously playing at the table Ozzy had claimed, quickly gathered their things and filed out of the billiards area. A couple of them kept glancing back over their shoulders as they did so.
With four of them and only one Ozzy, why did they act scared of him?
Maybe it had to do with the fact in the bar were five bikers, at least from what she’d seen so far. Plus, Scar, now standing at the front entrance, facing the crowd with his arms crossed over his chest, looked like the type of man who could kill you without thinking twice, then brush his hands clean as he left you right where he dropped you.
He looked like the kind of guy who, when he said, “Don’t make me kill you,” you took that to heart and did everything humanly possible so he wouldn’t kill you.
“All right,” Ozzy muttered, “gonna rack my balls.”
Her attention went from the disappearing men back to him. “Your balls?”
“The balls.” He shot her a wicked grin.
She took another sip of her strong whiskey and soda and watched the man move around the table collecting the balls and putting them into a wooden triangle rack. As he did so, she studied the patches on the back of his vest.
She remembered seeing those types of vests around town before her father disappeared. Manning Grove used to be full of men who rode motorcycles and wore those very same vests.
Then one day, she never saw anyone wearing them around town again.
Until now.
She always wondered what happened to all those men. It was like a magician snapped his fingers and they all mysteriously disappeared.
Ozzy carefully lifted the wood rack and left a neat triangle of pool balls at one end of the green felt covered table.
He went over to a rack hanging on the wall, carefully chose a stick and came back over to where she was sitting. In one hand he had a small cube of blue chalk. He grabbed her stick, chalked the tip and then did his.
“I’m gonna break. As we play, gonna teach you the rules of Eight Ball to start.”
To start? Was he planning on turning her into some sort of pool shark? She came here with him on impulse tonight but she had no plans on hanging out at bars or pool halls in the near future.
“Rules are simple. Gonna explain them as we go.” He picked up his drink and she watched his throat undulate as he sucked it down like it was water.
His stomach had to be lined with cast iron.
He took his stick and went to the end of the table where he’d placed the solid white ball, leaned over and very expertly “broke” the cluster of pool balls, forcefully scattering them.
Even though one went into a side pocket, he came back to her instead of taking another shot.
“Now you.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing.”
His lips, the ones she would love to reach out and touch to see if they were as soft as they looked, curled at the ends. “Yeah, that’s why I’m gonna teach you.” The creases at the corners of his gray eyes also deepened.