Blood Ties by Victoria Rice

me.
    “Hurry up, I’m getting the creeps. God you pee a long time.”
    She laughed, “Beer pee.”
    Out of the corner of my eye there was a movement at the edge of the building and I made a quick adjustment of her umbrella to hide her. I caught a flash of a familiar face. It was Eddie with the tats, hunched over in a hooded wind-breaker, walking slowly. He seemed to be confused as to where he’d put his car. He circled around, jingling his keys, glancing a couple times our way. If that and the treeline didn’t give me the creeps, nothing would.
    She stood, pulling up her pants. It was my turn. I concentrated on hurrying, happy that Jen was performing admirably with her umbrella blocking skills and Eddie, and whatever was out in the trees, couldn’t catch a peek.
    Logan turned the corner and stood there under an umbrella. It was like Grand Central Station.
    “Jeesus Logan. Get the hell back inside,” Jen said.
    “I was just wondering what you two were doing.”
    “Well, now you know!”
    He disappeared.
    Jen bounced up and down in the mud impatiently. “Look who takes forever.” She turned to look towards the forest and visibly shivered. “I feel it too. Ya done yet?”
    “Yep.” I stood up, zipped up, and took my umbrella from her.
    A large black van, with its lights off, pulled up. It parked in front of the bar, partially blocking the view of where we were. Its windows were tinted so dark that not even the street light could penetrate. The body was like a black mirror. Blacker than black.
    “A Darth van,” Jen said.
    The back doors opened and Mick and Eddie got out. They stood there, huddled in the rain. We walked towards them and heard someone yelling.
    “Dude … you can’t park here! ”
    We heard a couple other voices.
    Mick and Eddie glanced at us then to the front of the van. They shut the doors and headed towards the voices. Jen and I followed them, squeezing between the van and the front of the building. The bartender was yelling at the blacked-out window on the passenger side. A couple customers stood in the doorway, watching. He yelled louder and smacked the window a couple of times with the flat of his hand. He started to make his way around to the front when the van suddenly took off, spraying him with mud. It was missing a license plate.
    The bartender flipped it off. “Yeah, fuck you too buddy.”
    We followed him in side as he messed with the mud on his jeans, muttering, “… fucking Amerkins ...”
    “Not saying a word, nope not a word,” Jen said.
    “Eh,” I replied, ducking into the door, shaking off my umbrella. She broke out into laughter.
    We sauntered up to our table, mightily pleased with ourselves for our clever roughing it in the rain. Logan was a little flushed. I slid into the seat next to him. “Let me know when you need a lookout.”
    “Sick … very sick,” he said.
    I shrugged my shoulders and laughed when he blushed a little brighter. It was nice to see someone else doing it for a change.
    I stood up and whooped with my fist in the air, chanting, “Logan … Logan …” Everybody yelled and our bong in’ buddies dragged him out from behind the table and hung him by his ankles. While he was sucking on the tube, I glanced over at our ex-cons Mick and Eddie. They were back at the same table. They sat across from each other, staring into their beers. My guy, Eddie, watched me out of the corner of his eye. He was creeping on me. And the Darth van? What the hell was up with that?
    Jen pulled out her phone and showed Parker the snapshot. “Our new boyfriends. Ex-cons.” She pointed out whose was whose. Parker pulled it away from her and looked over at the ir table. “Ya, trying to make me jealous?”
    Dylan , Parker’s roommate, who had tagged along for the evening, pulled the phone out of his hands. “You’ll have some good lookin’ kids there.”
    I grinned. “Yeah, little Clyde, little Bonnie.”
    The two got up, pulled out a few notes from their pockets and