GIDEON TURNED into Dan’s shadow for the rest of the week. No matter how much Dan assured him he didn’t need a chaperone, Gideon was always by his side, keys in hand, ready to drive him to and from the bar. It did highlight to Dan that working was pretty much all he did, but it’s not like he didn’t know that already.
His visit to the therapist was… useful. That was all Dan was going to admit. The therapist was a quiet thirtysomething man with a ready smile, who worked from his home in a comfortable brownstone. Privately Dan thought the therapy business must be paying well to own a house like that, but he liked the man and his surroundings. And he would go back. Dan discovered he had a lot of things to get off his chest.
After the appointment Gideon drove him back to the bar with an air of smug satisfaction. Dan let him have his moment. One day he’d get the better of his boss, but today was not that day.
Gideon acted as chauffeur during the day, and Dan told him he didn’t have to drive him home. But he wasn’t surprised to find Gideon sitting at the bar with his car keys in hand at the end of his shift. It didn’t keep Dan from complaining to his friends.
“I’m a grown-ass man,” Dan grumbled to Marty and Lena when they met two days before the wedding for a last-minute conference of war.
Lena rolled her eyes. “If it were me or Marty or Gideon or—”
“I get the point,” Dan said.
“Do you? If it were anybody else you’d be doing the same thing. Leave him alone if it makes him feel happy. Your safety matters to him.”
“Isn’t that some kind of public-safety information?” Marty said. “Your safety matters, dot-dot-dot.”
Lena notched his elbow. “Idiot.”
“Your idiot,” Marty agreed.
Now it was Dan’s turn to roll his eyes. “You two are really sickening.”
“I know,” Marty agreed.
Lena opened her mouth, but Dan held up his hand. “If you’re about to say ‘Wait until it’s your turn,’ I really suggest you don’t.”
She smiled sweetly at him. “I won’t say it, then.”
Marty laughed. “I’d give up now, dude. You’ll never win.”
Dan gave a grunt of disgust, and they laughed at him again.
Operation Wedding was in hand. Despite pressure from both families, they refused to have a rehearsal dinner, citing the cost as an issue, although Lena admitted privately that the real reason was morning sickness, or rather all-day sickness. Between that, fatigue, and finding food she couldn’t eat, it was dragging her down. The thought of two long-winded public events was more than she could handle.
They nearly canceled the wedding, but Lena had decided she could manage if she paced herself. Although Marty’s parents had offered to pay for the dinner, Marty and Lena stuck to their guns. Dan was impressed by how well Marty stood up to his parents. Without being demeaning to his friend, Dan felt Marty had really grown a spine, and he put it down to Lena’s influence.
“What are you doing Friday night?” Dan said. He was going to the wedding rehearsal and working Friday night so he could get the weekend off for the wedding.
“Todd is coming over for movies and a couple of beers. It’s a quiet night in,” Marty said.
“Does he know that?” Dan asked cautiously. “It’s your brother we’re talking about.”
“He’s under instructions from Lena. Besides, I’m working late after the rehearsal on Friday, so he won’t have time to do any damage.”
Dan wasn’t convinced. He knew Todd of old. “If you want, I can try and get the time off.” He’d have to beg Juan to cover. Then he’d probably end up doing five early shifts.
Marty shook his head. “It’s fine. I may just cancel him and go to bed anyway. I can’t believe how long this project is taking.”
He launched into a diatribe about his latest clients, and Dan listened with half an ear. He would find Todd’s number and warn him to behave. Todd was a fun guy to be around, but he was the eternal prankster and never considered the consequences of his actions until it was too late. Dan liked him well enough, but the man was in his early thirties and still single. No woman ever hung around long enough to calm him down.
GOOD INTENTIONS and all that, but Dan still hadn’t called Todd by Friday afternoon. When he suddenly remembered, he tried him on his break, but Todd didn’t pick up. He left a text asking Todd to call him ASAP, but he wasn’t surprised not to hear from him. The guy was a flake.
Cowboys and Angels was packed on Friday night, and Dan didn’t have time to try again. He was busy behind the bar all evening. It was payday, and all the patrons were determined to get as liquored up as possible.
In fairness to Ariel, the fight that broke out was not her fault. She’d left an hour before, saying she was off to meet friends. It was just a normal Friday night, and Dan ducked as a stool came flying over the bar. Instead of calling Gideon on the bar phone, Dan waded into the melee. If he was going to be manager, he needed to handle these things himself, instead of always calling the boss. Dan yelled at everyone to sit down and shut up and then worked his way to the nexus of the fight. Most took him at his word, picked up their chairs, and continued on with the evening, but two men hadn’t seemed to notice that everyone around them had gone quiet. They continued to beat the living daylights out of each other until Dan and Bradley hauled them apart.
“Enough,” Dan shouted.
One of the men launched himself at the other one, but Bradley grabbed him again.
Dan glared at two men. He knew them, knew they were both regulars. The younger guy had been at the speed-dating evening. Dan stabbed a finger at him. “I don’t care what your problem is, Mikey, but fighting days in this bar are over. Do you understand?”
Mikey glared at him, his fists clenching, and Dan tensed, ready to defend himself from a punch.
“But—” Mikey burst out.
“No buts. Do this again and you’re banned.”
The other man tried to intervene. “Gideon don’t care if we fight.”
Dan whirled on him, and the man took a step back. “Gideon made me manager, which means you two don’t get to be assholes in my bar. Now you can either sit down and shut up, or you can take your business and your fight somewhere else. Which is it to be?”
Both men grumbled, but the aggression seemed to have been knocked out of them, at least for the moment. Dan went back to the bar with a fierce look on his face, and nobody got in his way.
“You’re very good at this,” Gideon said. Dan had noticed him in the stairway, but Gideon didn’t try to interfere, and Dan was thankful.
Dan gave a curt nod. “Tonight, they behave. I’m not going to the wedding with another goddam bruise on my face.”
“It might be the start of a new era at Cowboys and Angels.” Gideon sounded almost shocked.
“The next thing you know, we’ll be serving tea and biscuits to the ladies.”
It was a joke, but he grinned as Gideon shuddered. “We’d better not.”
“I’m in charge now, boss.” Dan couldn’t resist teasing him. “You’re lucky we’re not serving pink cocktails and froufrou canapés.”
Gideon looked at him skeptically. “Do you even know what a canapé is?”
“I have spent the last month looking at wedding plans and wedding menus. I not only know what a canapé is, I know all the variations, and I would be happy to ram them up the next man who decides to pick a fight here.”
Gideon held his hands up in surrender. “No argument from me, darlin’.”
“Makes a change. I’d better get back to work, but I’m going to Marty’s first thing in the morning. And yes, I’ll get an Uber. I’ll meet you at the church. The service is at four.”
“I remember. You’re getting an Uber tonight?” Gideon had apologetically said he couldn’t take Dan home at the end of his shift because he had a late video chat with a friend halfway across the world.
“It’s all booked,” Dan assured him.
“Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you before then?”
Dan shook his head. “Unless you’re going to bring me breakfast in bed at five thirty in the morning, I’m good. See you tomorrow.”