The big door to the Eldorado creaked as I opened it. My Sketchers hit the parking lot and I pulled down my oversized black hoodie to cover the ass of my skinny jeans. As I was walking in, I used the scrunchie on my wrist to tie my thick, long brown hair in a knot at the top of my head. After all, I was going to war. I usually wore it there all the time, but I’d let it down thinking I was headed to bed earlier. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
As I opened the door the familiar smell of stale beer and peanuts invaded my nose, but I just kept on trucking. Past the bar in the front and directly to the illegal machines they kept in the little room in the back.
“Incoming, Jack!” the bartender yelled toward the back room and I felt my eyes roll into the top of my head. God, this song and dance was getting old.
“I’ve been busted, buddies. The Warden has caught up to me.” I could hear his growly old voice over the raucous laughter of his pals before I entered the back room and took in the row of poker machines lining the walls. Another row of old men were parked on stools in front of them. I eyed them all one by one, shooting daggers until my eyes landed on my old man.
“Pops,” I ground out, standing up straighter. Because tonight I meant business.
His mouth hitched up on one side and his blue eyes danced back at me from a round face full of wrinkles and life. So much life.
Damn him, I wasn’t smiling back. This wasn’t funny. He wasn’t an adorably cute old man. I would not fall for it this time.
“Warden,” he growled at me as he stood up and pulled up the waistband of his old worn jeans or dungarees as he liked to call them.
There we stood. In what looked like some kind of showdown when we all knew who was going to win. “Pops,” I said back, tightening the knot at the top of my head. “Time to go home.”
Scratching the white scruff on his chin, he replied nonchalantly as he motioned to the bar. “Let’s have a drink, Hazel. It’s still early.”
I shook my head, confounded. I really was going to kill him. “No.”
He threw his hand to his chest dramatically and let out a shocked, “No?”
All of his friends snickered and I took a deep breath trying to rein in my sleep-deprived crazy. I didn’t need a mirror to know the extent of the dark circles under my brown eyes.
“Pops, if you don’t walk out of here and get in that damn car, I swear to God.”
His face scrunched up and his finger flew out. “Hey, you know I don’t like when you swear to God.”
I felt my eyes narrow. “Are you for real? Like, are you serious, Pops? You wanna argue morality with me in the middle of the damn night in an illegal gambling hall and I have to work tomorrow?”
He diverted his gaze, choosing to glance at the floor instead of my angry eyes. Tucking his hands into his pants pockets, he said, “Well, you go on home, Hazel. Jeb will bring me home when we are done.”
Jeb jumped right in before I could say anything. “That’s right, Hazey. You go on and get some rest and I’ll drop your pops by in a bit.”
I snapped my head to old Jeb who had been friends with my pops as long as I could remember. “Don’t you Hazey me, Jeb Donalds.” I crossed my arms over my chest and popped out my hip. “I take that you’re to blame for my pops being out here in the middle of the night. Does Rita know you’re out gallivanting? Or should I go by there and let her know?”
There was a bunch of “Ooooohs” from the peanut gallery seated on the stools next to Jeb and I made sure to give them all a good glare.
It wasn’t the first time Jeb waited until his wife Rita took out her hearing aids and went to sleep for him to sneak off and pick up my pops and head here.
Throwing his hands out in front of him, Jeb pleaded, “Come on, Hazey. Don’t do that. She’s still mad about me mowing over her lilies last week.”
I nodded slowly. “Well, then I guess you better head on home, too.” And then I looked around the room at all of the sweet old faces I’d grown up loving. “All of y’all should head home. Over here illegal gambling like you’re children, and not grown men.”
Groans from little, old, wrinkly faces filled the room, but they all started paying their tabs.
I let out a long sigh before addressing Pops. “Come on, let’s head home.” I slid my arm around his shoulders. He was almost half a foot shorter than me, so it was easy. I pulled him along with me toward the front door. My pops was a pain in the ass, but he was my pain in the ass and God I loved him. He was the only man I’d ever really loved.
“Damn, Hazel, you’re such spoil sport sometimes.” His grumpy face almost made me giggle.
I hugged him closer and pulled him into my side as we walked through the parking lot toward my car. “You know I only come and get you because I worry. And you know if I worry, I can’t sleep.”
“I know,” he grumped back.
I opened his car door and stood back, sweeping my arm out for him to enter. “Could be worse, you know? I could have called Amor.”
His head jerked back, his eyes horrified. “You wouldn’t.”
I shrugged. “You never know. Maybe next time.” I shut the door and walked around my side, holding in a laugh and smile. God, I loved to tease him.
I slipped inside my car and put my seat belt on before cranking the car. I was about to pull out when I noticed he wasn’t strapped in.
“Seat belt, Pops.”
He harrumphed at me and crossed his arms. “In my day, we didn’t wear no seat belts.” He wouldn’t even look at me.
“Well,” I said, taking my hand off the gearshift and settling back in my seat like we had all night, “it’s a good thing this isn’t your day. It’s mine. Put the damn seat belt on, you stubborn old man. Click it or ticket!”
After giving me a hard look, he finally acquiesced but not without a little more attitude. “Don’t you ever threaten to call Amor again,” he grumped, putting his seat belt on. “That’s wrong. Do you know what that woman will do to me if she finds out I’m out late at night?”
I grinned as I pulled out of the parking lot. Amor Caro. My grandad’s girlfriend of ten years. She was almost always on my side and she didn’t put up with anyone’s shit. She was a spicy Hispanic seventy-five-year-old lady who bought used women’s underwear and slips from Goodwill and washed them and made them look brand new before sewing beautiful lace trim and embellishments on them. She would then sell them on eBay to men she called “her guys.” Her guys loved her pretties and often sent her pics of them in those pretties they were so happy with their purchases. When she wasn’t sewing slips for her guys and giving Pops a hard time, she was deep into a romance novel. And not the trendy romance novels of today. No, all of the books she read had huge, hulking men in pirate costumes or kilts on the worn-out, beaten-up covers, holding a pristinely dressed woman in distress. I had a feeling she grabbed those at the Goodwill along with her slips and underwear.
I loved Amor almost as much as I loved Pops. She was batshit crazy, but she was one of the most charismatic and sweet people I knew. She’d never moved in with us and I had a feeling it was because she could only take so much of Pops’s shit. And if she knew my pops was out this late she would kill him.