beer.”
Zep rolled his eyes. “You know what I’m saying. I don’t do anything to hurt this face of mine. It’s my moneymaker. It’s how I bring in the tips.”
“You have to play the handsome card because you’re the world’s worst waiter,” Cal pointed out. “If your brother didn’t own the restaurant, you would have been fired long ago.”
Zep simply shrugged. “That’s fair. But like I was saying, I’m not into the drug scene, but the word is Cain is part of that world. His sister was. Suzy Cunningham was a nice girl until she got involved with drugs. Died of an overdose. I would have thought that would teach Cain, but he’s a stubborn fool. And hopefully he didn’t hear that because he can also be a violent fool from what I’ve heard.”
Harry hadn’t gotten those vibes off the man, but hiding his true nature would make him an excellent criminal. “I have to ask why we’re here, then, if it’s so dangerous.”
“We’re walking on the wild side, cos,” Cal said with a grin. “Guidry’s is full of families. Hell, they have a playpen in the middle of the dining room. We’re men. We need our space.”
Couldn’t their space include a regular cleaning? He wasn’t a fussy man, but he liked things to have a certain level of hygiene. He didn’t need to walk on the wild side. He’d already seen the darkness the world could offer. He tried to always look for the light, but Cal seemed determined to push boundaries. A rock song started to pulse through the place and Cal stood up.
“I’m going to go and see if any of those lovely ladies over there needs a dance partner,” Cal said with a smirk, looking over at a table of six women who had been doing rounds of shots. “Come on, Harry. Let’s live a little.”
He patted his right leg. “I’m not such a great dancer. You go on.”
There it was. That silver lining he liked to find. Yes, he’d lost a leg, but on the bright side, he had the perfect excuse not to dance.
If Seraphina wanted to dance, he would try it. Especially if it was a slow song he could sway to.
“Suit yourself.” Cal strode up to the table and immediately had two dance partners.
“You can join him. I’m fine here,” Harry said to Zep.
Zep sat back. “Nah. I’m not much of a dancer. And I’m not looking for a date tonight. Though you should know I could find one if I wanted to. I guess this isn’t really my crowd. The truth is I like Guidry’s bar. Maybe I’m getting old, but fighting and waking up next to someone whose name I can’t remember has lost a lot of its appeal. But Cal is my friend and I can’t let him come out here alone.”
It was good to know someone was looking out for Cal. “How long has he been doing this?”
“Since Wes died and he realized he was trapped,” Zep replied.
“Trapped?” He had to lean in to hear Zep over the music.
“Yeah, Wes was supposed to take over the business,” Zep explained. “I know Cal has a business degree, but he never wanted to manage his dad’s company. He liked marketing. He wanted to move to New York and try his hand with one of the big corporations. He wanted to get out of that house and out from under his mother’s thumb. Wes was the one who was groomed to be the CEO one day. Cal acts like an ass some of the time, but he’s trying to hold it all together. First Wes loses his damn mind and blows up all his parents’ plans, and then he dies. Then not a year later, Cal loses his father. It’s been rough on a lot of people, but Cal hides behind beer and women.”
“It seems to me like Wes’s death was rough on everyone.” He wanted to understand what was going on. No one seemed willing to say more than Sera had been mean to Wes and Wes had run away. It didn’t make sense.
“Yeah.” Zep’s expression had lost its normal lighthearted look. “Town like this, losing a kid is hard. He wasn’t someone anonymous. He was more than a name in a paper, even to the people he wasn’t close to around here. And given that he was a Beaumont, everyone had expectations.”
Even the rich had their troubles. No amount of money guaranteed a perfect life. “That he would take over