Chapter Text
Hyped up on adrenaline as I am, on the way back to the saloon I can't stop yapping.
“Lacey has always been the kind of girl who needs a man, no matter how trash he is. It's gotten her into so much bad trouble, I can't even keep count. She'll message me in a couple months like nothin happened. That’s always how it goes.”
Colin shoots a glance at me through bar after bar of orange streetlight washing over his face, the rhythm anxiety producing. “Hah, she'd best not, lass. Her coward punk bitch boyfriend pointed a gun at me. She sticks with scum like that, she's no good, and will end no good way, and you're well rid of her.”
Oh, yeah. I actually forgot that Colin almost got shot, and his wall was damaged. Yeah, Sam is screwed. He doesn’t say it, but he doesn’t need to.
"You're probably right."
"Trust me, lass, I've seen this exact scenario play out a hundred times before."
I'm paying so little attention to the outside world, that it seems like we get back to where we began after only a couple minutes driving across a city already gone quiet, gone to bed. That’s how DC is, the politicians run it, it's for them to work in, and they don't stick around the town centre after a certain hour. Moriarty’s is a bit of an outlier for staying open so late. Climbing out his side, the boss comes round to mine and opens the door, a gentlemanly thug, an aristocrat of the gutter. Dickens woulda loved him.
“You really don't have to do this, I'll go to a motel.” I say, only to be polite and to seem a little less utterly destitute. I really need him to do this.
He looks away from the garage door he was watching close, to me, his pale blue eyes even paler in the washed out light. Creepy, like a ghost child from a high budget movie. “Don't be silly, girl.”
And that's that, a new era begun with one line.
🥃🍻
Waiting for the boss to unlock the front door of his place with just me beside him, is one of the most tense experiences ever. Any second I’m sure he's gonna turn and tell me to get lost, that he changed his mind, or some drunk is going to wander down the street and wolf whistle. I'd rather die, seriously, than have folks think I'm getting up to something with Colin. That is LA style, where you take one shortcut and never get treated seriously ever again.
Never mind that shortcuts are mandatory. The only roads open to you. Never mind that a lot of natives round here would know who and what I am if they heard my last name.
“Gob had better have left the light on.” mutters the boss man, twisting a series of keys in a series of locks. Lotsa locks. Lotsa lotsa locks. Fail safes and deadbolts. It’s a feature with him, not a bug.
Walking up those stairs the first time, his stairs, dark stairs into a deep darkness that only brightens when a movement sensitive light flips on, is like entering the underworld form the wrong way round. I almost expect to bump into a legit monster or two, not because Colin is giving me bad vibes, but because the place has been fascinating and scaring me since I saw Morticia mince up here with a guy. At the least I expect to come across an overnight guest, but after traipsing down a long, wide corridor with doors on both sides, and going up another flight of old wooden steps, all we meet is Gob, relaxing in a kitchen slash dining room area. The man leaps out of his chair, literally, inhaling a lungful of Coca-Cola as he does.
“Boss!” he croaks, before hacking and coughing for an uncomfortably long time.
From behind I can't see Colin's expression, but I can sorta imagine it. It ain't impressed.
“Drinking my coke, boy? That's coming off your pay.” he glances at me. “The whore of the bastard who tried to take my head off, chucked Mia onto the street, so you'd best hope to the sweet Lord Jesus that you ironed and packed away the laundry, because if you haven't…”
I can't explain how weird it is to see these two in a domestic situation. In some ways they remind me of people in an abusive marriage. They’ve been together for long enough.
“Yes, M-mister Moriarty, sir. I did.”
“Lucky you.”
And with that, Colin continues the tour. The upper floor is like the ground floor, a long rectangle kinda split in half by the corridor. Or in the ground floor’s case, by a wall separating back from front of house. Up here's a lounge with all the bells and whistles that somehow looks like no one ever uses it, a bathroom for me and Gob, a couple spare rooms, a gym, and Colin's master bedroom, at the far end of the corridor, between mine and Gob’s rooms. Colin places a hand flat on the thick (seriously thick and bolted) door. Instead of a brass plate or something to show whose door it is, he has some framed piece of paper stuck to it. Looking closer reveals that it's a business degree, a DBA, and looking even closer reveals his full name.
Colin James Moriarty
He follows where I’m looking, and snorts. “Me old da made me get that. Worked out nicely, I suppose. Don't be afraid to knock on this door if you need something, princess. Especially if some asshole attempts to break in here. The piece at my waist isn't the only one I've got, and you did good with the scum I beat into next week, but sometimes you need something more serious.”
After that, he drops my stuff in my room, and takes off, leaving me to get sorted. The room is like any you'd find in a good hotel, an enormous step up from the couch at Lacey’s. And even more importantly, no Sam, no screaming kiddies, no hostile cousin. By itself that makes this place heaven. And…I gotta say that Colin makes me feel safe. Yeah, he's cruel to Gob, but no one's perfect, and I'd take fiery jerk over wet cuck any day.
Speaking of Gob, there's a soft knock on the door about a half an hour after I wrangle my unmentionables into a drawer.
“Mister Moriarty said to bring you this.” He holds a platter bearing an ice cold can of coke, a glass with ice in it, and a bottle of rum.
Paradise.
🍻🍺
I even get fed. Gob is some sort of amateur cook, and Colin very proudly says that he can make everything that Kevin can, including his favourite - beans on toast - so I'm not going to starve. Good, cause I'm a modern gal, I can't cook, not even beans on toast. Actually, what I do is the opposite of cook, my speciality is making food worse.
Well, Colin is a chef, but it's Gob who waits on us my first night, a trend which will continue.
“I whipped up tuna melt.” he says, placing the most delicious thing I've ever seen or smelled before my eyes and nose. Colin's plates are Dutch, which amuses me for some reason. I can’t help imagining him getting high in Amsterdam.
“I adore tuna melt! Thank you, Gob. I really appreciate this.” I say, meaning it.
The barman honest to goodness blushes, looking almost cute in his apron. Across the table from me, Colin looks up from his meal, doing that under the eyebrows stare (Kubrick glare?) until I look over, which is when he tilts his head up so that he returns to friendly scamp from serial killer. The glare is less scary in person, but that's only cause most people who do it aren't actually killers, only much, much more dangerous than they initially appear.
(Of course, Moriarty is really, really freaking evil, and just a little crazy, but that's not something a girl wants to contemplate when she's just been given a refuge. A refuge that requires only one minute commute time.)
Anyway, it's like three in the morning, I’ve just had the best meal of my life, and I just want to crash, maniac boss or no maniac boss.