“Welcome to Wakan.” He pronounced it wah-kahn. “I gotta get going,” he said to his wife. “I’ll be here to get you at midnight.” He kissed her and tipped his head at me before leaving.
I puffed air from my cheeks and looked back at the menu. I was considering leaving without ordering. Nothing looked good. “So besides the chili, what else should I try?” I asked.
“Hey,” a male voice said, coming up behind me, talking to Liz. “I need to close out my tab.”
I glanced up. It was Truck Guy.
Liz smiled at him. “Turning in early, huh?”
“I have to feed the kid,” he said. Then he turned to me and smiled. “Hi.”
“Hello,” I said, moving to face him. “We meet again.”
“And under much better circumstances,” he said.
I smiled. “Thank you for earlier. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I think I did.” He nodded at a man at the end of the bar, looking red-eyed and disheveled with seven empty beer glasses in front of him. “That was your knight in shining tow truck.”
I sucked air through my teeth. “I would have been there all night.”
“Nah, one of us would have stopped. Five or six hours, tops.”
I laughed, and he smiled at me. “I’m Daniel.” He offered me a hand.
“Alexis,” I said, taking it. His palm was rough and warm.
“I think I should give you a heads-up,” he said, giving me back my hand and leaning on the bar. “You see those guys over there?” He nodded to three men huddled around the pool table. “They have a bet going that they can get you to leave with one of them.”
Liz made a groaning noise from behind the register. “They’re such assholes,” she muttered, swiping his card. “Brian too?” she asked.
“Nah, just Mike and Doug.” He pointed. “You see the guy with the glasses?” he said to me.
I twisted in my stool to look over at the men. “Yeah…”
“Questionable rash.”
I snorted and Liz let out a laugh.
“The tall white guy in the Carhartt jacket lives in his mom’s basement,” he said, going on. The sandy blond man was grinning in our direction and waving. “In about five minutes he’s going to procure a guitar from somewhere.” He looked at me. “He’s going to play ‘More Than Words’ by Extreme and he’s going to do it very, very badly.”
Liz was laughing as she slid his charge draft in front of him. “It’s true. God, why is it true.”
While he signed his receipt, I glanced at it. It was only ten dollars, but he left a ten-dollar tip. He flipped it upside down and pushed away from the bar. “Anyway, good luck.” He started for the exit.
“Wait,” I said after him.
He stopped and looked back at me.
“How much are they betting?”
He shrugged, pulling out his keys. “A hundred bucks.”
“And what about you? You’re not in on this bet?”
He shook his head. “That’s not my thing.”
“No? Well, what if I left with you? Would you win the money?”
He wrinkled his forehead at me. “I don’t follow.”
“I think I’m going to leave anyway. You could walk out with me. Win the bet.”
He smiled. “You’d do that?”
I shrugged. “Sure.”
He glanced over at the men across the room.
Carhartt Jacket was holding a guitar.
Daniel’s eyes came back to mine, and a smile played at the corners of his lips. “If we do it, we split the money.”
I turned to Liz. “Liz, on a scale from one to serial killer, how dangerous is this man? Am I safe to walk out into a dark parking lot with him?”
She smiled. “Daniel is the only guy I’d leave this bar with.”
“I don’t know how I feel about that,” he said. “You’re my cousin.”
She laughed. “He’s harmless.”
“And he’ll keep up his end of the bargain and pay me?” I asked.
She dried a tumbler with a rag. “Even if those idiots don’t keep up their end of the bargain and pay him, he’ll pay you. It’s the kind of person he is.”
I looked back at Daniel, and he shrugged. “I’m not an asshole. It’s my favorite thing about myself.”
I felt my smile reach my eyes. He was funny.
“Okay,” I said. “We have a deal.” I nodded at the barstool next to me. “But sit and talk to me for a bit. Otherwise they won’t believe you wooed me.”