Three Part Harmony (The Road to Rocktoberfest 2024)

20. Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Griffin

On Thursday night, me and a fairly new guard, MacAlister, escorted Mike and his band to a small bar and eatery on the outskirts of downtown Los Angeles proper. The name of the establishment, Scrappy’s, seemed to not only describe the interior decor but also their menu, which was less than appetizing, but nonetheless the guys loved this place. Partly because of the various table game options to play. Besides that, the booze and beer were cheap which was quite appealing to starving artists like Chaos. Watered-down alcohol and beer on the cheap was a lethal combination in my book, but that’s why MacAlister and I were here to supervise and be sure everyone made it home safely.

Thankfully, this dive bar wasn’t too crowded when we arrived and barely anyone noticed us walking in from the street. The guys settled into a booth in the back of the bar and ordered burgers, an obscene amount of chicken wings, and two pitchers of beer, which I knew would keep them busy for a while. MacAlister and I got a table directly opposite them and we also ordered a couple of burgers and a pitcher of soda—not beer, because we were on duty.

I’d only worked with MacAlister a couple of times since he was recently hired to shadow Potts. He seemed like a nice guy and he definitely had a sixth sense for personal security which was a huge bonus. Most people might consider what we do as simple work —so easy that a monkey could do it because it was basically glorified babysitting, but that wasn’t the case. We trained endless hours every week for a wide variety of potential security threats. The drills were designed to keep our reactions and reflex times top notch. The goal was to do the drills often enough that when a possible threat presented itself to the security team, we reacted seamlessly in a manner that was second nature and quick as lightning.

What most didn’t understand was that some of these skills couldn’t be taught. They were instinctual. Something you either had as part of your DNA or you didn’t. Only the best personal security officers had these innate Spidey-senses. I happened to be one of the fortunate ones to have the necessary sixth sense—as did most of the guards I’d worked with at Ventura Security, MacAlister included. But our company spent more time training us and honing the skills of their agents than any other personal security company I knew in the business. It’s why Ventura was the best there was and I was damn proud to be part of their team.

The constant practice drills paid off, though, because our reaction time was continuously stellar with every threat scenario they threw at us during our training sessions. And in the field, we’d been beyond top notch by being able to detect and neutralize every threat presented without our clients even being aware there was one or that they were the target.

That’s a damn good day at the office in my book.

My least favorite situational scenario to protect? A bar setting just like tonight at Scrappy’s. Alcohol blurred the lines for most and it muddied the common sense of nearly everyone. A calm night could be turned on a dime when too much booze was in play. Even something as innocuous as a game of pool could turn into a bloody brawl in seconds without any warning. Defusing a threat like that almost always involved cuts and stitches to at least one of the guards on duty. But as long as our principals were safe and unharmed, we were good. The only saving grace for us tonight was the fact that Chaos was still relatively unknown but once their tour was in full swing that status would change dramatically.

“Be alert tonight, MacAlister,” I warned.

“Please, call me Mac. Everyone else does,” he said.

“Fair enough,” I answered and sipped from my mug of soda.

Even though we were familiar with each other, I didn’t know all that much about Mac. He was good looking in a boy-next-door kind of way with a killer smile, hazel eyes, and an even better head of hair that I’d only seen him wear pulled back in one of those sexy man-buns, like Mike wears a lot. Ordinarily, he was the type of guy who would have caught my eye, but not since Mike was in my life. He was the only one who had my undivided attention these days but I could still appreciate another man’s appeal.

“Is there a known threat tonight?” Mac asked.

“None known but my experience in working in bars like this has always warranted extra vigilance,” I explained.

“I hear you. Booze and bros don’t always play nice,” Mac said. “We definitely need a set of eyes in the back of our heads at places like this dump.”

“Exactly, so we pay attention and make sure everyone gets home in one piece—including us.”

I glanced across the narrow aisle at Mike’s table. I swear it was like he could feel my gaze on him and turned to look at me. We exchanged a smile that made my heart thump a little louder behind my ribs before I shuttered my emotions to slip back into business mode. Unfortunately, the warmth that passed between Michael and me wasn’t missed by Mac.

“Sooo…you and the drummer?” Mac asked me pointedly.

“What?” I played dumb.

“You knocking boots with him?”

“Is that your business?” I asked with more than a bit of attitude.

Mac tossed his hands up in the air in surrender. “Hey, I was just making an observation,” he explained. “Besides that, I’m actually kind of curious about what the policy is for fraternization between guards and…”

“Everyone who matters in the front office of Ventura knows about me and Michael, if that’s what you’re digging for,” I bit out.

“Shit, no. I wasn’t digging for anything in particular,” Mac said. “I really was just curious for my own reasons and nothing more. What you do, or who you do, in your down time is yours to own.”

“Good answer but now I have a question for you,” I said and narrowed my eyes at him. “Why would you have a reason to know the regulations on guards and principals being together?”

Mac chuckled and refilled his mug with more soda. “The guy sitting across the table from Mike.”

“What about him?”

“That’s Dixon, right?”

“Yeah, he’s their rhythm guitarist.”

Our eyes flicked to their table again. “I think he’s hot,” Mac said and shrugged with indifference I knew he didn’t feel.

“Congratulations, Mac. You managed to pick the one solidly straight guy out of the four of them.”

“Seriously?” Mac asked.

“Afraid so, but putting that aside, what the fuck are you thinking?” I questioned. “This isn’t a dating app kind of arrangement. Our job is to protect them. That is the entire reason why we’re here.”

Mac raised one eyebrow at me and crossed his arms over his wide chest. His body posturing told me exactly what he was thinking.

“Stop it. What unfolded between me and Mike was…I don’t know, fate?” I explained. “It seriously couldn’t be helped or…stopped because it was meant to happen. Case closed. ”

Mac was full-on laughing by the time I finished describing my personal situation without giving Mac any real information to chew on—any more than he already was. Even still, his levity at my expense was annoying as fuck. Probably because the irony in my situation could not be missed. It truly was an elephant in the room.

“Dixon? Seriously?” I asked Mac again.

“Yep.”

“Word of warning, don’t even look sideways at Mike or…”

“You’re cute when you go all alpha,” Mac said.

“Fuck off,” I managed to say just as our waiter delivered our burgers.

Once the guys finished eating they began to move around the gaming area in this run-down bar. Dixon and Potts grabbed an empty pool table and racked up the balls on the felt top. Mike and Fletcher positioned themselves in front of a vacant dart board and began warming up to play a game.

“Come on,” I instructed Mac. “Let’s move closer.”

We moved to a corner in the game space where we could keep an eye on the pool tables and the wall where Mike was playing darts with Fletcher. I watched two more pitchers of beer be delivered to the guys and sighed to myself. The first set of pitchers went down pretty quickly but besides them getting a little louder, they were behaving themselves.

The guys were halfway through their second games when I noticed several more groups of people walking into the bar. It quickly tripled the amount of patrons inside the space in a matter of minutes. My spine went straight as my professional senses kicked in. I went through the security checklist in my head, checking for the exits, windows, anything we might need to use for a speedy getaway, and then I walked over to Mac. I nudged him with my elbow to his ribs to get him to pull his attention away from Dixon’s ass bent over the pool table. I didn’t want to waste time reprimanding Mac for ogling our client but if he didn’t get it under control I would absolutely address that situation in the field as we currently were. Instead, I kept it professional and on task.

“Put your earpiece in and be ready,” I directed him.

“Are your nerve endings crackling in warning?” he joked but I found no humor in what he said.

“This isn’t funny,” I barked. “It’s work, so stay on point.”

I went back to where Michael had just won a round of darts against Fletcher and they were jumping up to bounce their chests off of the other while hollering about being winners. I’ll admit their behavior was kind of juvenile but so fucking what. They were out for an evening of fun and they weren’t bothering anyone—directly.

But it seemed their celebrating was ruffling the feathers of a few of the patrons nearby. Then I saw three large, biker-looking dudes step out of the shadows and into their space. It was almost like they’d appeared from out of thin air. The fine hairs on my arms stood up straight and my attention went on high alert.

“Eyes!” I shouted into our earpiece comms system to alert Mac.

“Roger that,” he answered .

Without looking, I sensed Mac was a few feet behind my right shoulder. My gaze flicked briefly to the pool table to be sure Dixon and Potts were still blissfully unaware of their surroundings. After all, paying attention was our job, not theirs. It was also our job to always have a full understanding of our spacial and situational awareness, and right now, every fiber of my being was telling me our evening was about to take a sharp turn south.

“You boys about done with the dart board?” the biggest and angriest looking guy asked Mike.

“Well, I don’t exactly know. We might play another round or two but there are other dart boards you can use,” Mike suggested. My guy—always trying to be a diplomatic mediator, but now was definitely not the time.

“We don’t want to use another dart board, we want this one, so I think you’re done now,” he all but growled down into Mike’s face. Behind the big dude, a second guy eased an unused pool cue off an empty table and lifted it in preparation to swing it in the direction of Michael and Fletcher. I was already in motion before I even saw the stick slice through the air in an upward arc.

“Move!” I yelled to Mac through our comms earpieces and he was with me all the way.

I grabbed onto the pool stick and spun it backward so harshly that the guy unwillingly released his grip after screaming out in pain when his shoulder popped the wrong way. Mac went after the dude with his face far too deep into Mike’s personal space and had him slammed up against the wall with his face rubbing against an unused dart board. He had biker-dude’s hands subdued behind his back before the guy knew what hit him.

Mike and Fletcher circled around the back of the pool table and met up with Dixon and Potts just as the first chair was tossed through the air. In an instant, everything went to fucking hell. Tables were overturned, glasses were shattered, and more chairs went airborne. Yeah, it was definitely time to get the fuck out of this dump.

“Back door!” I ordered Mac and we collected the guys and hurried them to a dark hallway that went by the kitchen and led to an emergency exit at the end that opened to the outside. Once I had them safely shoved out the back door with Mac, I ran back to the bar and left a wad of cash with the man who claimed he was the owner when we first arrived. It amounted to a few hundred dollars—far beyond the expenses they incurred between the food they ate and beer they consumed. I wasn’t particularly concerned with any damages done to his bar, since you’d be hard pressed to know the condition of the tables and chairs before they were tossed around like frisbees in the wind.

I returned to the hallway and made a run for the exit at the end, then collected our guys and scrambled to the Suburban I had parked at the first corner. I jumped into the driver’s seat with Mac riding shotgun and started the engine.

“Time,” I hollered at Mac.

“Seven minutes, thirty-two seconds,” he answered.

“That’s approximately two and a half minutes too long. We need to do better,” I stated .

The guys were chattering among themselves in the back two rows of seats, oblivious for the most part as to what just went down.

“That was my first bar brawl, man,” Potts said to his band brothers.

“Fucking right-on,” Dixon said.

“It was like watching a take-down on an episode of Cops on television,” Fletcher said and then he and Mike began to sing the theme song from the show. “Bad boys, bad boys. Whatcha gonna do when they come for you.”

“Everyone good?” I asked the guys riding in the back and they answered in various ways to let me know we didn’t need to make a trip to the ER.

I glanced across the front seat at Mac and we shared a mutual look of relief. We’d neutralized another threat without our clients knowing the full scope of what had happened. I’d call that a job well done, but I’d be lying if my nerves weren’t rubbed raw at how close that pool stick came to connecting with Michael’s head. Him getting hurt while under my watch could not, and would not happen. Ever. I gripped the steering wheel a little tighter to hide the fact my hands were visibly shaking.