Free Slate (Rebel Wayfarers MC) by MariaLisa deMora Page A

little green.” Andy immediately plopped his ass on top of the beer cooler, scooting away from the group and glancing under the counter towards the shotgun.
    “Awww, naw, kid. Don’t do that,” Watcher tisked and shook his head, pointing at the tattooed man and saying, “Pops, grab that scatter gun, wouldja? Devil, why doncha give your Jack to the kid.”
    Watching, Andy saw the tattooed man, Pops, reach over and pull the shotgun from the rack underneath the bar. Andy laughed weakly. Opie, Spider, Watcher, Devil, and Pops—he was about to be killed by a group of men with comic book names.
    Something bumped his hand, and he looked up to see Devil’s face inches from his own; he was pushing his still-full shot glass into Andy’s hand. Narrowing his eyes, Andy took the glass and brought it up between their faces, drank it down, and then set the glass carefully on top of the cooler next to his leg, staring into Devil’s eyes the whole time.
    Devil laughed loudly and reached out a tattooed hand, ruffling Andy’s hair. Moving to sit back on his stool, he said, “He’s a keeper, Watcher. Look at this fucker; he’s not even sweating.” Andy’s eyes flickered between Watcher and Spider, believing there would be another test, but not knowing where it would come from. He glanced at the clock on the wall across the room and took a breath.
    Pushing to his feet, he grabbed a bar rag, saying, “Last call, gentlemen.” His hand scrubbed his jaw hard and he ran one hand through his hair, even though he knew attempting to straighten it was a futile effort.
    All five men hooted with laughter, slapping the bar and each other’s backs in amusement. Spider stopped laughing and abruptly launched himself across the bar towards Andy. His moves had been telegraphed long before he acted on them, and Andy smiled grimly at how easy it was to sidestep him, knocking him onto his face into the narrow aisle behind the bar.
    He dropped a knee hard onto the man’s tailbone, knowing how bad it hurt to have your dick smashed into the floor like this. He used his hands and legs to secure the man on the floor, leveraging the limited space to his advantage, hearing the liquor bottles in the well rattle together with the force of Spider’s efforts to get up. Looking up, he saw four interested faces peering over the bar at them. “You dropped something, Watcher,” he said dryly.
    “Let the fucker up, kid,” Watcher drawled, looking hard into Spider’s face. “He’s done.” Andy looked down in time to see Spider’s face go gray. Gazing back up at Watcher, he stood quickly and stepped out of reach, keeping Spider trapped in one corner of the bar. “Let’s have one more round.” Watcher flipped another fifty onto the bar. Looking at Andy, he grinned through his dark beard again. “Let Spider serve and you come sit. Got a name, kid?”
    “Name’s Andy, and I got this,” he said as he backed up to the middle of the bar, flipping up the pass through for Spider. He let him walk through and closed it behind him, but remained tense and strung tight as a wire as he approached the group again.
    Going through the actions one last time, he poured the shots and handed them out along with the beer. Turning sideways this time, he rang up the transaction while keeping an unsubtle eye on the group of men. “Well, that’s a shit road name, Andy,” Opie laughed. “We should call you Ice Man.”
    “Yeah, Ice Man, because you are cool under pressure,” said Watcher. “Pour yourself a shot, Ice Man. Drink with the Southern Soldiers before you close up.”
    There was no more drama before the men left, and Andy locked the doors behind them with a huge sigh of relief. Watcher had left all the change on the bar, and Andy set it aside in case he came back for it tomorrow, he wasn’t sure he wanted to assume it was a tip.
    He secured the shotgun back in its place under the bar and finished up his list of duties quickly, ready to head out for an early