“Hey, Luc. You eatin’, too?” He slid the glass over.
“Yeah. Just a burger, like usual.” That meant double patty, two cheeses, and bacon. Well done. Luca liked his steak still breathing but his burgers fully dead.
Hugh nodded and opened the swinging kitchen door to shout the order, then came back. “How’s your arm? You were favoring it pretty good last night.”
Luca shrugged his right shoulder. “Not bad now. Had a massage, got it rubbed out.”
Hugh smirked. “I bet. Heather?”
“No, actually. New girl. Did a wicked good job. Hey—I’ll take a shot of Jack, too.”
“A new one for your lineup of blondes?” Hugh poured him a shot.
Luca laughed and tossed the Jack back. “Fuck you, man. And no. Just got a massage.”
“Not hot, huh?”
“She was hot enough,” Luca shrugged. “Just not my type. Plus, just met her. What do you think I am?”
“A ho. That’s what you are, buddy.”
Luca flipped Hugh off. “Envy is a deadly sin, man.” Hugh had been divorced for several years, since his wife had moved out and served him papers, unhappy with the life of a fight wife. Ironically, he’d retired from the ring less than two years later and had opened this pub. These days, as far as Luca knew, Hugh didn’t get much play. He could have it if he wanted it—Luca saw chicks flirting with him every night—but he didn’t have much interest.
“Yeah, I know. I saw Se7en.” Hugh poured himself a beer and leaned on the bar. The two men talked aimlessly in the way of old friends without much news, just shooting the breeze about sports, chicks, and shit going on around town, while Luca ate his dinner and Hugh served customers at the bar, and the pub started to fill up.
Lynne came in around nine-thirty or so and sat down on the stool next to him. They’d known each other since grade school and had been playing around for years, whenever she was between serious things. Lynne liked having a boyfriend, but she got bored quickly. So she was between serious things fairly often—and currently.
She was cute, with short, choppy blonde hair and big blue eyes, a slim waist, and a nice rack. As Luca looked her over, he chuckled to himself. He did have a little lineup of blondes.
“Hey, girl. You have a good day?”
She winked one of those baby blues at him. “Sure. Same old, same old. Summer people suck, but they keep me employed.” Lynne managed one of the souvenir shops on the boardwalk. “How ‘bout you?”
“Day like any other. You up for dawn patrol on Saturday?” Having known each other as long as they had, Luca and Lynne were friends, too. And she was as active as he was. An early morning surf, while the summer people did their sleeping in, was a fine damn time.
“Sure. I close Saturday, so my morning’s open. S’posed to be good?”
He shrugged. “There’ll be something to catch. I just want to get wet, y’know? Been a couple of weeks. I’m getting antsy.”
“Suddenly you can’t go out on your own?” She was smirking, giving him shit.
“You know I will. Just inviting you along.” He finished his current beer, and Hugh came over with a fresh one, bringing one to Lynne, as well. “Having second thoughts now.”
Lynne bumped his arm with her shoulder. “Butthead. I’ll meet you out there.”
As he talked with Lynne, and with an increasingly busy Hugh, Luca started to plan his night. The forecast looked good for ending the night at Lynne’s, and that was a good thing. He needed a cleansing fuck, just straight-up good fun.
The pub had gotten crowded, more than usual for a weeknight, but the week was aging toward the weekend. A couple of people had come up to the bar to bitch at Hugh about the jukebox, which played nothing more recent than about 1990. Hugh liked his 70s and 80s metal. Whenever anybody complained, he just gave them a one-finger salute and made them wait for the drinks they’d also come up for.
Around maybe eleven, eleven-thirty, above the growing din, there was a ferocious, feminine shout—“GET OFF ME, MOTHERFUCKER!”—and then a crash of glass.
And then there was a brawl.
Damn. He’d just gotten his shoulder feeling better.
‘Scuse me, sugar,” Luca spun around on his stool as he spoke to Lynne. From the corner of his eye, he saw Hugh coming around the bar with his bat. Brawls didn’t happen often at Quinn’s—people were, as a rule, pretty mellow at the beach—and when they did, they got quashed quickly. Most people tended to get the fuck out of the way and make a circle around the fracas.