Tex (Hell's Ankhor #5) - Aiden Bates Page 0,41

Rebel leaned up against the bar at the end, distracting Coop from his job, which ended with Siren coming behind the bar to pour her own beers, which offended Coop and got him bickering with her, which made Blade and Logan howl with laughter. Priest shook his head at their antics fondly from his seat at the bar.

I was at the bar near the front door, across the room from Jazz—I didn’t want to distract him from his shift. I knew from experience how hard it could be to work an enforcing shift when your drunk buddies kept wanting to joke around.

Raven sidled up and slid onto the seat next to me. Gunnar was behind him, as usual. When Gunnar wasn’t working, he was always trailing behind Raven, watching him like he hung the moon. It’d be cute if it wasn’t still a little weird to see my boss look so lovestruck.

“Hey, Tex.” Raven leaned his back against the bar, his elbows propped against it. Gunnar stood at his side, halfway paying attention to us, halfway watching Coop and Siren scuffle behind the bar with a fond half-smile playing on his lips. Raven took a swig of his beer. “How are things? How’s Jazz? How are things with you and Jazz?”

“He’s fine. We’re fine,” I said.

There was a curious look in Raven’s blue eyes. He was visibly dissatisfied with my answer.

“He’s here,” I said, unsure of what he wanted from me. “Go ask him yourself.”

I raised my chin in the direction of the back door. From his post at the bar door, Jazz’s amber eyes watched me, focused, intent, with a little edge of… something. Some dark expression I couldn’t quite read. He tilted his chin down and a lock of his hair fell across his forehead.

Gunnar snorted into his drink and cast a little smirk in Jazz’s direction. “Yeah, I can see from here that Jazz is fine.”

I bristled a little bit at that—was Gunnar making a little pass at Jazz?

But more importantly—if so, why did I care?

Well, he shouldn’t do that right in front of Raven. That’s obviously why it bothered me. “Hey,” I said, a little snappish, “you gonna talk like that in front of your old man?”

“Oh, I started it,” Raven chirped. He glanced over his shoulder and shot a friendly grin in Jazz’s direction before turning back to me. “I wouldn’t shut up about him when he first got back from San Quentin. He’s just so big now, it shocked me. He looks great. And Heath’s been talking about him, too.”

Raven took a long drink from his beer, and I watched the condensation bead and slide down the glass. My own hands were white-knuckled around my beer. Blood pounded in my ears.

“Heath’s loving those self-defense classes,” Raven continued. “He’s learning a lot, sure, but he’s also getting to spend a lot of time pinned down by all those muscles.”

Anger flared hot and sudden in my chest. I didn’t like hearing Jazz talked about this way—like he was just a piece of meat to be ogled. There was more to him than just the muscles he’d gotten in the joint. He’d gotten steadier, and smarter, and wiser. Why didn’t Raven talk about those things?

And why did it piss me off so much to think about Heath under Jazz? To think about Heath enjoying it enough to brag about it to Raven?

Before I even knew what I was saying, I asked, “Are they fucking?”

“Who?” Raven asked with a curious little quirk of his brow. “Heath and Jazz?”

“Yeah.” Suddenly I had to know—had to. Even though I knew it wasn’t any of my business. “Are they?”

Raven looked up at Gunnar, and Gunnar rolled his eyes a little bit. They had a complicated, wordless conversation—not unlike the ones I had with Jazz—but I couldn’t quite follow it. Raven thought it was funny, apparently.

“No,” he said. “As far as I know, it’s just self-defense.”

“Kid’s a little young for Jazz, anyway,” Gunnar said.

Raven swatted at him. “That’d only be an eight-year gap, hypocrite. Ours is fourteen.”

“That’s us,” Gunnar said. “It’s different.”

Raven hummed and nodded like that was explanation enough.

I was still irritated, for some reason. This was just the usual ribbing we did, shooting the shit and talking trash just to prove how well we knew each other. There was no reason for it to get under my skin like this.

I was just sensitive, I guessed. It’d only been a little over a month since Jazz had returned, and I didn’t