I never learned what the smaller one wanted to suggest, because he stopped when four of the armored SUVs rolled up next to us. His eyes grew big when Bill, followed by Paul and six of my other colleagues, stepped out of the cars. All of them looked quite impressive wearing ballistic vests, their batons and Walter PPQs on their sides, and even holding MP5s.
All of them greeted me cheerfully, asking about my plans for the evening and whatnot, but as each of them noted the suspicious bulges in the strange guys’ shirts, the cheerfulness vanished from their faces and they started eyeing the two with distrust. When Bill spoke up, he was eyeing those guy’s guns very obviously.
“Hey Kid. What’re you doing here on a saturday?”
“Oh, two of Logan’s friends from college came around, looking for something he forgot to give them.”
“What did the idiot do this time?” Bill asked, smirking.
“What he’s best at. Being refreshingly useless. We figured it out, though.”
As I said those words, the two strangers started nodding. They were visibly uncomfortable with the implications this situation was presenting them, which filled me with satisfaction. At least one part of my plan had finally checked out. Bill and the guys went to great lengths to showcase how close we were, and just how much trouble they could cause if anyone tried to mess with us. The two seemed to reach a conclusion and quickly injected themselves into the conversation to dismiss themselves.
“Well, we got what we needed. Thanks, Timothy.” he said, as he pulled out his phone. Hearing my unshortened name made me perk up, and I realized I never told him my name. They really had checked me out. “Tell Logan to stay out of our bar in the future.” he continued, and my body was flooded with such relief I almost fainted on the spot.
As he walked away, he had already started talking into his phone. Unlike Claire, whoever he was talking to didn’t speak loud enough for me to hear both sides of the conversation.
“We got it ... Nah, don’t think so ... Not worth it ... Let ‘im, nothing to do with us.”
That was all I could hear before they sat in their car and drove off. I was still watching the intersection their car had vanished into, when Bill’s voice pulled me back.
“You Okay, Kid?”
“I think that went well?” I asked, eager for someone with more experience to confirm my hopes.
“Well, they certainly didn’t know we were the ones who visited their bar. They wouldn’t ‘ve acted the way they did otherwise. And that last bit sounded like you’re officially not worth their effort!” he confirmed.
“Yay! I’m worthless!” I shouted, raising both arms to the sky, causing them all to smirk. At that moment, I finally realized how tense I was the last few days. “But why are all of you here on a Saturday?”
“Oh, we were on an exercise when John called me an hour ago. Looks like your mother was flipping her shit after you called, so we cut it short to check up on you.” he explained with a happy smile.
“Thank you!” I said into the round, mulling over Claire calling for help, not sure if I should value that as a sign of genuine concern or the bare minimum of parental obligation. “I’m SO gonna pay for the drinks next time we go out.”
“Why wait? It’s Saturday and late enough!” Paul offered.
“Still gotta go shopping first. House is completely eaten empty.”
“Fine with us. We can’t go anywhere looking like this, man.” He pointed at their attire. “Trust me, we tried. You go shopping. I’ll pick you up after we get the gear locked away.”
I was elated after Bill had confirmed my hope of this probably being over, and just wanted to bask in that knowledge and relax. So, I agreed to Paul’s proposal, got into my Jeep, and went shopping.
When I arrived at the house and was just getting my shopping bags out of the car, though, I suddenly remembered the third thing Logan had told those guys. That I was the one who met their guys in that Walmart parking lot. If I had remembered that earlier, I might have recognized the last bit I heard from smaller-guy’s phone call, and been prepared for what happened next. Sadly, I was cluelessly fumbling with my shopping bags when someone came up from behind me and grabbed a fist full of my hair.
My head was slammed into the Jeep’s roll hoop twice before I could react in any way. The first time slammed my just mended eyebrow directly into the damn thing, opening it up again and causing it to bleed just as strongly as it did the first day. The second push smashed my nose against my Jeep’s roof. The strong impact of the first blow had disoriented me enough to be momentarily but completely out of it, and the pain in my nose caused my eyes to fill with tears immediately, so I still couldn’t see who had grabbed me when my head was roughly pulled back and I fell to the ground.
