Chapter 8: The Pour House

Tuesday night, Kieran didn't answer his phone.

I called him a dozen times from my room at the top of Ronan's house.

Ronan was out with two of his uncle's old captains, and the man on the stairs told me it was a closed door until midnight.

I did not argue.

I opened the window, climbed onto the ledge in my sneakers, crossed two roofs, and came down the fire escape that had waited for me.

A cab took me to Broadway in nine minutes.

The Pour House was a long dark bar with a brass rail and a hundred bottles on glass shelves.

I had poured drinks behind that rail for three years.

On a Tuesday there were forty people in it.

Kieran sat in the back booth with a split lip, and the two men from the shop sat on either side of him.

One of them was chewing gum.

I walked down the length of the bar in my sneakers and a hoodie, and I kept my eyes on my brother.

"Neve," said Kieran. "Neve, no."

"Get up."

"He's fine," said the gum man. "We're just talking."

"Get up, Kieran."

"Sit down, Tierney," said the other one, and he stood.

I took the brass bell off the hook beside the register and rang it.

Everyone turned.

That bell meant last call or someone's birthday.

A bar full of drunks learns to look when it rings.

"Listen up," I said, loud enough to hit the back wall.

"My name is Neve Tierney, and I poured your beer for three years."

A few faces I knew.

An old man at the rail raised his glass at me.

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