Clan and Commit - Tracy St. John
Chapter One
Dramok Bacoj sat at the bar. He stared into his drink, unmindful of what was going on around him. Not that much happened at a place like Duras’s Tavern. It was a lowkey neighborhood spot where the locals came in after their shifts to either unwind or get quietly drunk. Bacoj fit neither description, but since he wasn’t in the mood for a rowdy club, Duras’s was as good a place to mope as any.
He contemplated his glass of amber kloq, vaguely aware of the background clink of glasses, hum of conversation, and occasional laughter. The bar itself was an old wooden slab, showing the scars of glass rings from decades—maybe centuries—of service.
His com sat next to his sweating glass, probably too close, despite its moisture-protective casing. No one was on the line. The holographic vid screen was off, and it would remain so as long as he could stand it. He’d made the dumb move of switching the com off with the text message program enabled. The instant he turned it on again, he’d see the two messages queued up, the messages that had come in within minutes of each other. He’d read the first over and over, memorizing it. Though he’d not done the same with the second, it was burned in his mind as well.
My life is shit.
His pity party was abruptly interrupted by a tray of small finger foods, carefully shoved between his com and glass. Startled, Bacoj jerked his head up. His eyes met those of a young man with a gentle smile.
“You’ve been here long enough to have missed your evening meal. Put something besides kloq in your stomach,” the bartender said.
“I haven’t drunk that much.” Bacoj sized him up. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, close to Bacoj’s age. That soft, compassionate expression could only belong to a member of the nurturing Imdiko breed. Ancestors, what a sweet face. Handsome too.
“I noticed you’ve been nursing that glass for the last hour. An impressive feat, since your expression tells me you’d love to drink yourself into oblivion.”
“The trouble with kloq-induced oblivion is that you have to return from it at some point.” Despite his depression, Bacoj couldn’t help but smile at the other man. The Imdiko had a face to turn heads. Maybe his jaw was a tad too chiseled and his lips too thin to claim perfection, but he’d missed it by just an inch. Were his soft waves of black hair as soft as they appeared? The urge to find out was close to irresistible.
“Are things really that bad?” Cutie Imdiko tilted his head, regarding Bacoj as if no one else in the world mattered.
“Bad enough.” He had no appetite despite how tasty the plate of nibbles smelled. Yet when the bartender pointed at a meat-wrapped pastry, Bacoj dutifully popped it into his mouth.
It wasn’t the tasteless, greasy experience he’d have expected from bar food. Bacoj stared at the Imdiko as savory flavors exploded on his tongue. As soon as he swallowed, he declared, “Your cook deserves a raise.”
The bartender called to a second server at the other end. “Hear that, Deras?”
The Dramok with the barrel-shaped torso and arms the size of trees lumbered a couple steps closer and shook a warning finger at Bacoj. “Shut it, kid. I upped his wage last week.”
Bacoj gaped at the Imdiko. “You cooked this? Your talents are wasted here.” Hurriedly, he added for Deras’s benefit, “No offense.”
“None taken. Vax is head chef at Nepor Resort, so yeah, he’s slumming it behind this bar. Hold the fort a few minutes, kid?”
“Sure.” Vax’s grin was bright in the dark room.
Deras plodded through the door several feet behind the bar that opened to a small kitchen space. Bacoj heard another door out of his sightline hiss open and closed again. Deras was probably taking a bathroom break.
Bacoj ate another morsel. Herbed grul, tender and spicy. It was divine. He moaned his enjoyment, and Vax’s smile widened.
“I have to ask. What’s a nice chef like you doing in a bar like this? A place as exclusive as Nepor should pay well enough to keep you from taking a second job.”
“It does, but I needed the bartending experience. I hope to open my own place someday.”
“You want to own a bar? Or a resort?”
“Neither. I’m planning on a nice restaurant, but the clientele won’t be as snooty as Nepor’s.”
“You need to know how to run a bar for that?”
“My plan is to understand every detail of the restaurant business,