His New Stepsister. His Biggest Threat. novel · Chapter 21 of 32
Chapter 21: Collateral
I typed with my thumb before I could think about it.
Noon. My bar. Front door.
By 11:55 every table in the Lamplighter had somebody at it.
The retired mailman and his brother-in-law. The nurses, who'd gone home to shower and come straight back. Three ladies from Marva's bowling league, who brought their own sandwiches.
Marva put on real clothes and stood behind the taps with me, her glasses on their beaded chain.
At noon exactly the front door opened.
Windbreaker. Blue Dodgers cap.
He stopped just inside and looked at the room.
He sat down on the stool across from me, the same one where he'd left his twenty and his full beer.
"Beer?" I said.
"I won't drink it."
"I know. I'll pour it anyway."
I poured it and set it in front of him.
Then I put my phone on the bar between us, face up, with the red record button showing.
He looked at it.
"Fine," he said. "Better your tape than somebody else's."
He took his cap off and set it on the bar.
"I take bets," he said. "I've taken bets for thirty years. I don't take bets on fixed games, because a fixed game isn't a bet. It's a robbery. And in this one, I'm the one being robbed."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of His New Stepsister. His Biggest Threat. are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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