16. Oliver

W ould I have done things differently if Trevils had given me his name before I lied to his face? Some of the adults didn't pay attention to Old Man Aimes's drunken stories and didn't particularly care where he disappeared to, but the kids all loved his stories. I'd never met Trevils before, but Aimes had told us stories about him.

Yeah, you know what? I still would have lied. Neco might have pulled away from us, but I still loved him and would protect him like he was protecting the rest of Guttertown.

Ronan would ask, but I was hoping Lance wouldn't. Lance was usually calculating and reasonable until he wasn't. Sometimes, he would just fly off and want to hit someone. Most of those situations involved Neco Argent. Neco hated Lance back just as strongly, but I didn't think Lance hated him enough for him to hang.

Thankfully, Lance didn't want to know. He was just satisfied with my reason why I protected a killer. He didn't need to know the name, and I was glad because I made it a point not to lie to my friends when they asked me a question.

"Do you think you can handle the tavern?" Lance asked. "I know the vodka is fine without aging, I'm just experimenting to see what happens when it does. I don't have the recipe right for the infused version, but I can get production started so we can start serving Bloody Marys. I just need to convince our fucking donkey to bring the cart to Ollie's uncle's because I need to buy lots of potatoes."

I tried not to laugh because Lance would hit me. Lance was probably feuding with that donkey harder than he was with Neco. The donkey probably hated Lance as much as Neco did, but she also hated everyone but me. Caitrin bought her at a steep discount because no one else wanted her. Guttertown had no problem eating horse meat in a pinch, but I guess we all drew the line at donkeys.

People were weird sometimes.

Last time Lance tried to convince the donkey to do something she didn't want to do, Lance got the shit kicked out of him and it took him two months to heal. I couldn't do much to run interference when Lance and Neco got heated, but women loved me. Apparently, female donkeys also loved me.

Who was I to question the gods?

"Um, we need you making vodka, not recovering because you got the shit kicked out of you by an angry donkey. I'll handle Petunia."

"Naming that demon beast Petunia was false advertising. If you name a donkey Petunia, she should be sweet and docile," Lance muttered.

"That donkey is sweet as pie if you're me," I bragged.

Yeah, I was probably asking to get hit. Lance was about as sensitive about the donkey as he was about Neco Argent.

"Go do your magic with the demon donkey because I don't really want to be out of commission because she kicked me, either. That shit hurts."

Petunia hated the bridle and cart and everything it stood for. You couldn't just walk up to her and put it on her. You had to sweet talk her, give her presents, and make it nice. It was a lot like anal sex. If you skipped the prep work, you were probably going to get your arse kicked.

I grabbed a carrot on my way out because they were Petunia's favorite. She tossed her head and looked excited to see me because I always bought treats. I offered her the carrot and scratched her neck.

"Hey, you big sexy beast. How do you feel about making the trip to my uncle's farm? You'll get to see his stallions and I know you're crushing on Damek. Who knows? Maybe one day, you'll get utterly railed by a giant, spotted stallion. I'm rooting for you."

Petunia was a pervert. If you gave her carrots and the possibility of stallion sex, she'd happily get hitched to the cart. Lance didn't believe me, but I'll bet if he tried that, Petunia wouldn't constantly try to kick the shit out of him.

Sometimes, I thought Lance didn't understand women at all.

Petunia stepped out of her pen and made herself ready for me to hitch the cart. Easy. Lance came out and rolled his eyes.

"I swear, I don't know how you do that."

"You have to be nice to women if you want them to do something. You need to learn women if you want to snag a good wife."

Lance just rolled his eyes and walked away. I went back into the tavern and Ronan was washing glasses.

"Spill," he said.

"You can't tell Lance."

"Since when do we keep secrets?"

"It's fucking Neco. At least, Beck and I are pretty sure of it. Every time a girl gets beaten at the brothel, a bag of gold gets slipped into her room, and eventually I hear about someone getting their throat slit. We compared notes. They don't give their names, but they usually say what their trade is. They match up. Neco lives in the brothel and he has the same training Beck does. He said Neco is the only one who could sneak around."

"Or, if he can break into a house and slit a man's throat without waking up his family, he could easily break into the brothel and give money to the girls. I thought nothing was stolen?"

"You know people with money keep some hidden. I don't even have money and I have some hidden," I said.

"Good point. It might not be Neco, though."

"How would he know those particular girls had hands laid on them?" I asked.

"A John?"

"Maybe. Shit, how do we ask Neco if this is him without setting him off?"

I didn't particularly want to have that conversation with Neco. We needed Beck for this.

"We're going to the brothel after the tavern closes."