Page 8 of Gold Rush (Murphy’s Pub #3)

Chapter Six

Abs was in his element, gathering all the guys in the basement where they usually rehearsed for the weekend bartending shows and where they worked out all the rest of the time. On all their gym equipment, there were clothes laid out, in a range of colors from gaudy to downright loud.

Murphy laughed as Abs went to all of them, holding a shirt up against them, then pants, changing his mind, sending them to change in the storage room, then clucking his tongue as he fixed them when they returned.

Goldie was given a cropped T-shirt, and Abs told him it was to show off his abs, and tight leather shorts. “OMG, showing off that bubble butt! Perfect,” Abs said when Goldie came out of the storage room, uncomfortable as hell in the clothes.

“Abs, I look like…”

“A hooker,” Murphy said, snickering.

“Oh, Murphy, that reminds me,” Abs yelled as he got into one of the fifteen bags he had next to the weights and grabbed jewelry. “This is all costume, but very good costume.”

After draping gold-plated necklaces around his neck, Abs instructed him to grab the garment bag and take it into the storage room. “Don’t let the pant legs drag on that dirty floor. And don’t take off the tags. We’ll need them to take back the suit.”

“Take it back?”

“Unless you want a six-thousand-dollar suit, yeah.”

“Abs! You spent six grand on a fucking suit?” Murphy was furious, but Abs just batted his lashes and looked less than guilty.

“Sorry, Big Daddy.”

“B-Big Daddy? What the fuck?”

“Well, don’t some hookers call their pimps that?”

Murphy snatched the garment bag on his storm into the storage room, and Mims and Abs giggled like little kids.

Cosmo laughed with them. “You two are hilarious.”

“We’re trying to be authentic.”

Cosmo had a similar tank to show off his perfect abs too, then came the tight red jeans and elevated shoes.

“I feel ridiculous,” he moaned while looking in the mirror behind the weights.

Haze pushed him playfully. “You’re not wearing thigh-high boots, so you can shut the fuck up,” he said, trying to balance on the platform heels he wore.

Abs had successfully kept all the men in the colors that corresponded to their names, and it was for a good reason. When they would be watched by Ryan, Murphy’s son by a previous marriage, and Eazy, they’d be far enough away that they may not see who is who without the color pattern.

Haze smirked in the mirror when Goldie got next to him. “I look weird.”

“We all look weird. Abs has been trying to get us into this kind of thing doing our weekends bartending.”

“Can you see me running around in back of the bar with these on? I’d break my ankle, if not my neck.”

“Well, you’re as tall as me.”

“Great! What I always wanted,” he said sarcastically.

They piled into a van that Murphy rented and headed to one street near where Sammy Dane had his stable. Two streets over, as a matter of fact, just close enough to get some attention, but far enough away that they wouldn’t technically be in his territory.

Mims had also gone onto several sites where Dane placed ads for his people. He began to put ads up for the guys at the pub. He’d placed them two days before they went out.

Eazy and Ryan were watching from the roof of a two-story building down the block, and they were all on the various street corners in the newest red-light district in the city.

The men asked to pick them up started to come, but they weren’t the only ones to try.

What the six of them did, however, was to give them prices too high to pay, and almost all turned them down, except a few.

Those were told to leave because a regular customer was pulling up who would pay even more.

Not the best way to gather customers away from Dane, but they were only there to get attention.

As they were driven away by one person, another would be waiting for them when they returned half an hour later, then the original person who’d picked them up would come in a different car, with a different hat or clothes.

It was a long night, but they definitely drew attention. Before dawn, a long black Hummer drove slowly in front of them, and when the darkened window lowered, they caught the head and eyes of the man watching them.

He was everything that Dean had described.

When they got back to the pub, they were all beat, but Goldie went to his room, where Dean was staying. He found that Dean hadn’t slept a minute all night. Dean was in his arms and held him tightly while murmuring over and over, “I was so worried. I thought he’d kill you.”

“We’re all okay, Dean. Stop worrying. I’m gonna go get some sleep.”

“Sleep here. Please? I won’t bug you, I swear.”

Goldie looked into his eyes and said, “Only if you sleep beside me.”

“Okay.”

After he took off the more binding elements of his wardrobe, Goldie got under the black and gold comforter on his bed, and Dean crawled in beside him, cuddling up close to him.

It took a while to fall asleep, as he just languished in feeling the man next to him. It had been a long time since he’d felt a warm body near his. The smell of his hair, the sound of his steady, shallow breathing as he drifted off, finally secure with Goldie beside him.

Goldie didn’t know if it would last. It was rare, that kind of closeness, but since seeing Cosmo and Mims finding someone to love, maybe it didn’t seem so impossible.

He went to sleep thinking of that. Having someone to love.

When he woke, Dean was still beside him, but sprawled on the other side of the bed, rather than still in his arms. His snores were loud, and he was fucking adorable.

Goldie got up and gathered his clothes from his drawers, heading to shower, only to find Hippy already in the bathroom. “Hey, Gold.”

“Hip. How was your night? I didn’t get a chance to ask.”

“I’d have rather armed everyone, but beyond that, it was kinda fun. Make believe, like a kid, I guess.”

Goldie agreed, “Yeah, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. But then again, we knew who was picking us up.”

Hippy sat on the sink counter and sighed, “True. Man, can you imagine living that life for real? Having to…get into cars when you didn’t know the person. Taking those chances. It’s…sad.”

“We’re lucky. We could have been.”

Hippy nodded and said, “I haven’t felt real grateful or lucky lately. I guess…I guess I should, ya know?”

Goldie sat on the counter with him and asked gently, “When are you going to talk to one of us about this?”

“About what?”

He was trying to be cagey, but it didn’t work. “You’re so in love with Cosmo you can barely look at him without everyone seeing that…yearning. Man, you gotta talk to someone.”

“Why? He’s got a guy, a guy he loves like crazy, and me? I’m just his friend.”

“Did you ever think that maybe he could love you too?”

Hippy laughed and asked, “A throuple? Goldie, get real.”

“I’m being real with you, man. Sometimes, we want something we think is out of reach until it isn’t.

Cosmo is a sweetheart. Had his chip on his shoulder, sure, but now, he’s one of us.

We’ve all seen the bad side of things, and we work here to see the good.

We live here, live with each other, to get the good. ”

“To be a throuple, I’d have to be… to like Taran, too. I’m nowhere near that.”

“There’s time. We got time. We’ve got a lot of time.”

“Unless we don’t. The BBC could be back once the heat is off. Then, how much time do we truly have?”

“You don’t think they’re gonna beat us,” Goldie said. “You, with the cache of weapons like you have?”

“I guarantee they have more.”

“Well, then, it’s a matter of living like every day is our last. Maybe it is.

Once they get back, regrouped, probably stronger, then we might not have a lot of time left.

It’s why Eazy and Murph go to see their kids every day, it’s why Mims jumped in love with Sonny practically from the second he saw the guy. ”

Hippy hopped off the sink and said, “I don’t muscle in on a relationship that’s already established. Maybe they’ll break up, and if so, I’ll think about it then.”

“Whatever you gotta do, Hip.”

They met in the meeting room to get the report from Mims, who watched the video recordings from the street they were on and those around them.

“I can barely see straight right now, but I watched them all while you guys slept. They were circling all night. He only came onto the street we all were on there at the last, when we saw him.”

“So, he’s definitely worried,” Murphy said. “Good. Tonight, we get back there. Eazy is taking the shift here tonight, so it’s Taran and Ryan doing the watching.”

The next two nights, they did their act, and that was enough to get the pimp, Dane, very nervous. He circled them most of the night, watching as they jumped into cars, glaring when they got back out of them.

On Friday, however, one of them was approached, and when it happened, Goldie saw, and he nearly broke his cover.

Dane got out of his Hummer and walked up to Abs, smiling, smoking a long cigar.

Later, after Dane left again, Goldie walked casually to Abs and asked him, “What the fuck was that?”

“He’s trying to get me away from Murph.”

“Mother fucker. This is the last you’re out here.”

“No, it’s not. This is what we wanted. To rattle him.”

Goldie’s jaw clenched hard. “Abs, if anything happens to you…”

“I’m a big boy. I can handle myself.”

Goldie thought to himself that he wasn’t. He wasn’t big, not at all, and he maybe could handle himself against someone close to his size, unarmed, but Dane had security, he had at least ten men they’d seen. He was no match for that.

The weekend was rough. They hadn’t had much sleep and no practice, but the crowd of patrons didn’t seem to notice. Their tips were great, and they all fell into bed that night weary, but grateful they’d done what they were used to.

Monday came quickly, but at lunchtime, Goldie took Dean on their first official date. He drove to the mountains west of the city and found a nice park with picnic benches and shady elm and evergreen trees.