Tell Me Your Fears

Chapter 4: Robyn

The finest distinction between lofty living and knowing you really screwed up in your previous life is the itchy black tee that's been distracting me the whole morning preventing me from savoring the last day of working in this shithole having to deal with perverted f***s who thinks touching your ass would make you the luckiest woman in the room.

Hate to break that delusional bubble of yours, but it's not. You wouldn't even make the dirtiest s*x worker orgasm after pulling that stunt. No, the act is just signing you up for a lifetime of your picture outside of the austere bar with bright red letters that spelled "banned," which if you were a resident of the slums, is not an ideal situation.

For the duration of my stay in Chicago I've already distinguished the hotspots of people like who couldn't afford a decent hot meal on a bad day—which, in my case, is almost everyday.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very fond of life. Yes, even when I'd forgotten to take my clothes to the cleaners yesterday while I was out looking for that red silk dress I wore to that wedding I so fondly crashed.

I smile at my usual six-thirty who always comes in after his desk job at five to grab a drink before clocking out after exactly an hour and a half. He hands me two dollars and I pocket it before cleaning his area.

I don't earn much on tips before the peak hours of night time, but, hey, at least I'm two dollars richer than initially was.

Never take anything for granted, my father once told me, drunk on his fourth bottle of whiskey of the day watching an old report of a famous business company under liquidation on the seven a.m. news. He'd usually say that when he's pissed at me as a lame excuse of what he calls discipline. But I'd rather this than him beating up his kids and pinning the blame on me for being a brat.

Though, most overtime shifts I get are fairly decent. That is, if I respond to my customer's flirty as if I wasn't internally repulsed by them.

I flick my wrist, righting the old timer watch I found discarded on some street.

Okay, fine. Not really. I snagged it from a client in his bedside drawer along with three thousand dollars he kept in his wallet while I told him to shower before we do anything. After I secured the rob I dashed out of there before he could show me his flaccid d**k.

Almost seven. My shift is almost over. Though, I'm really going to miss this place. Much more the people I worked with for two months. Not that they knew I was leaving. I just got my check for the end of the month and I'm cutting my losses for a new city. I couldn't stay here after what happened with Peralta. Granted, I wore a disguise. But I can never be too sure.

Clanking of beer bottles and the faint sound of music in the background was what I had been accustomed to for over three months now. Bar tending at The Mill in Chicago was the seventh job I had over the past year and the job I stayed longer in than the other jobs I had before with the span of two months and a half. I tried to convince myself to move after a good few robs but I just can't will myself to anymore. Never thought I'd grow tired of moving but I did. I don't know what it felt like to have a home anymore.

"Robyn, I need a favor." Tracy rushes to my side as I make a Piña Colada for the two women enjoying the attention of two buff biker gang's voracious flirting.

"What's up?" I ask.

"I need you to cover for me. There's a problem with my babysitter. She bailed at the last second and my kids are alone in the house. Goddamn it, I swear I'm going to murder someone."

I pause, not entirely liking the idea of staying past ten in this side of town. It was fairly safe . . . for the most part. But crime rate's been up by eleven percent this past month. I didn't want to wander around at night alone if it wasn't necessary. Especially when I've been juggling sleeping at a motel or my car alone if I can't swing on hard days. Being followed was the last thing I need.

Except, Tracy was one of the sweetest—if not only—person I've met, contrary to the front she's displaying. At twenty, she's already had two kids living in a run-down apartment building complex three months behind rent that she had to work two shifts at the bar plus another at a diner that has the same wage that of a three year old's allowance. She didn't cut shifts if it wasn't an urgent matter.

She must have seen the wariness in my eyes because she pleads. ""I'll make it up to you, I promise."

I wave her off. "Go, I'll take your customer."

She makes a reach for her purse. s**t, I almost forgot. I swipe the small envelope from my coat under the counter and jog after Tracy before she could reach the door.

I tap her shoulder. "Hey, give those brats a hug for me." I offer one last hug, subtly slipping the envelope containing a few thousand dollars from my last rob into her purse with ease. Figured it would help her pay rent for a good few months.

She pulls her coat tight against her and left.

Returning to the lounge, I see two men in business casual approach my counter for a drink. Despite its lack of security and fancy written in the exterior wall, the Mill is situated between a high-end hotel and a run-down motel offering twenty bucks a night, so even if the bar wasn't Remington's, it made sense why pressed suits and truckers alike are bound to wind up here for convenience. And the booze was cheap.

I lean against the bar shelf, sighing. Today was a slow day considering customers usually stumble in by nine p.m, which at that point they either are already drunk off their ass from another bar, or they plan to go home with a rando.

Sneaking a peak, I look to my right where our manager is serving a couple for their wedding anniversary today, I think. I take out my phone and text Sam. I haven't been in contact with him since two nights ago nor had he reached out. It made sense not to right after the con. If somehow I was caught, I didn't want him to go down with me when the police pull up my phone records.

shit. the hell did you end up on the news running your ass off on the hallway? thought you planned it out good?

I resist rolling my eyes. Classic Sam. Never one to miss out on an opportunity to ridicule my methods.

Unbelievably, escaping last night was not the hard part. No, the hardest part of all this is dodging the most skilled investigators that would do everything to provide their employer's money's worth.

And I've been doing this long enough to know I'm a top priority on their to do list. Nothing competes to a man in his quest for restoring his ego.

got out unscathed, didn't i? you got the money? tell me you did.

He takes a moment to reply. My anxiety grew, thinking that maybe Peralta's transfer didn't go through.

every last fuckin' dime he had to spare.

I bite the inside of my cheek stopping myself from smiling. I know there are consequences for what I did, or rather, doing, considering I have no plans to stop. But I can't come up with anything that would get me even half the money I got in just a month. Bartending couldn't even come close.

you know what to do with it. get your cut and send it all.

Robyn. Just one word. One little word and I already know where he was going with this conversation.

just send it all, Sam.

what about you?

With the few thousand dollars I slipped into Tracy's coat, that left me with about two weeks worth of dollars on the road for gas money. And the recent check our manager handed out, I think I can manage until the next rob.

I shut my phone not bothering to reply to Sam's silent plea, like I always do. Screw him if he thinks I can't take care of myself. It's not me who's in deep need of that money.

"Robyn. Put your phone away, you know the policy," our manager scolds.

I pursed my lips apologetically before tending to another drunkard that just sat in front f my table.

Except, he wasn't the usual bearded my-ex-just-cheated-on-me drunk. He had the entire side of his cheek completely pressed against the grimy wood. I don't know if he either stole the shot glass he was rimming with his index finger or someone gave it to him when I wasn't looking. He lifts his head ever so slightly just enough to down the glass like a pro.

I squint, trying to have a clear view of his face despite the terrible lighting of the bar. A boy. At least, he looked like it. Not much older than twenty-three I presume. His seemingly soft skin illuminated under the incandescent lamp situated just above him, no sign of any prominent wrinkles other than the one in his forehead. He looked young, but the contours of his cheek and jaw made him look rugged, a contradicting feature that somehow he sported so well.

I don't know the guy, yet, he seemed to have that air of familiarity.

I cross my arms. My femininity does not make me immune to babysitting drunk assholes even in mid-day. "Life does that to you, looking for escape," one of my customers said to me on his thousandth appearance of the week, drunk on his thirteenth shot of Three Wise Men. Funny thing was, he just closed his sixtieth case of the year in his law firm. Successful men does not guarantee a happy life, I figured.

The man-child raps on the wood signaling for another shot. It could either go one of two ways: I do my job and make my boss a fuckton of money, based on the assumption this guy didn't look like he was going to ease up anytime soon, or take a smidge of what's left of my morality and serve him water until he sobered up.

Yeah, I don't think I want to witness another person being destructive to their own well-being today. "I think you've had enough, sir."

His head snap back, piercing his gaze into mine. "I don't give a f**k what you think. Shot, now."

I stood my ground. "You really want the garbage bags out front to be your mattress for the night?"

"If I said yes would you give me my f*****g shot?" He slams his calloused hands on the counter earning a few glances from tables nearby. My manager side glanced my way, his eyes asking if I needed back up. I gave him a dismissive smile.

I take away the shot glass before the customer could touch it. "I'll hail you a taxi." Don't know the hell why I even cared, but I didn't want to be a mistress in his increasing alcohol addiction, that is if he's not already there yet.

He manage to grip my wrist before I could go far. I try to twist out of it but he had me on lock. "Sir, let go of me," I said calmly.

He doesn't. What he did instead was stare into my eyes, not saying a word, as if he was reading my soul.

All the while he's doing that, the sense of familiarity was stronger now that I was looking him straight in his eyes.

Before I had time to pick at my head where I'd seen this guy, he surprisingly lets go of my wrist.

I try to ease the invisible tension by rubbing soothing strokes, an act that doesn't go unnoticed by him. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have grabbed you like that."

"You and everybody else." He frowns, and I let a small smile. "I meant the boundaries. Sometimes people can just be . . . "

"An asshole?"

"Feeling entitled. But an asshole's fine." I poured the pitcher of water over the glass, the full pitcher almost slipping out from my hand with the wight. Damn it, I haven't eaten since breakfast. I have to grab something from the convenience store on the way back.

I slide the glass of water to him, but he doesn't take it.

"You know the worst thing about life?" he slurs.

I lean against my right hand that was plastered on the counter. "Enlighten me."

"The concept of dollars is a f*****g joke," he spat, tone full with malice. "Yet everyone seems to worship it like it's f*****g God."

I place my other hand on my hip, feeling bemused at my evening entertainment. "God exists in an ethereal world. A fantasy. Money exists in a cruel one. In reality. When you compare it that way you could say money is God in our world."

He glares at the glass. "Then why isn't money making people happy? Why do we still want more if we already have it?"

I'll let him talk my ear off not because I wanted to listen but I wanted to see how far his bullshit talking goes. At the very least this will distract him from his impending blackout. Plus, he still hasn't settled his tab.

"Maybe those who aren't happy doesn't have enough of it the same way people seek happiness in religion. Their life become way too light for them when they reach that spiritual awakening or whatever that s**t is called."

He tilts his head, eyes rimming red as an indication he was on the borderline of passing out if he had another shot. "You don't believe in God?"

"I don't want to rule out that possibility. There's a lot of s**t we don't know, and not all of it could be known in a lifetime. "

"So, you're saying in this lifetime you're too good to know religion?"

"More like I didn't have much of an option to, you know? Why? You a missionary? Interested in recruiting me to your brotherhood or cult or whatever you call it?"

"No. Just a philosopher who hates the notion that money controls your life. Your title in this world, your name, s**t, even your necessities. f*****g leech."

I scan the other side of my counter in case I had any other incoming. I didn't. So I turn back to him. "Beats having to live everyday off of food stamps. What's so wrong with it?"

He quirks an eyebrow. "Clearly you haven't had a taste of it."

I snort. "Clearly."

His face softened, the frown he was sporting the whole night wiped off with a rag cloth. As f he realized his mistake.

I shake my head before the apologies could shower. "Why are you here anyway? Alone? Your girl break up with you?" I pause. "Boy?" He shakes his head, his eyes still on me. "Must be your job then? Looks like you don't got much of a social life if you're here on a Tuesday without company except that YSL suit."

"Balancing a company is no joke."

"So is being a con-artist," I sound off as a joke hiding the candor. I doubt he'll remember all this tomorrow anyway.

He sizes me from where he sat, the corner of his mouth lifting. "You can con me anytime, Sweet Pea," he says. Then his smile disappears as quickly as it showed. "As if you have the balls."

Is that a challenge?

"No, thanks. I'm working." He looked far more frightening when he showed seriousness.

"Then do your f*****g job and pour me another shot."

"Your funeral," I say. I take a vodka bottle from under the counter and pour him another shot making sure it was filled to the brim. I leave the bottle on the counter certain he'll ask for another.

"Wear a pretty dress for me, will you?" A man takes the vacant seat beside this Adonis whose goal tonight was possibly drink himself to death.

"Want tulips or roses?" I serve a glass of beer to the guy next to him giving a simple thanks my way.

"Anything that compliments my casket." He throws his head back emptying the content all in one gulp. Hmm, charming.

"I don't mean to go all Grandma Cathy on you but you're too young to waste your life away in this unsanitary bar."

"Throwing shade on your workplace doesn't really look good on your resume. When did you become my mother?"

"When she neglected to raise a sober boy."

"Mother's dead so you can't put that over my head."

It felt like I was doused with cold water. Didn't matter if I knew the guy or if he wasn't close with his parental figure, you just don't talk about them that way. "Ah, s**t, dude. I'm sorry. Didn't know."

He manually pours himself another shot. "Don't worry about it. I was kid, so I didn't really know her that well." Another shot.

"You want solid advice?"

He swallowed. "Give me your best shot."

"Book an appointment with Dr. Phil."

"And let him capitalize over my s**t? I'd rather jump off of the sixtieth floor of the Shangri-La hotel over at sixth street."

"That's very . . . specific." I shrug. "Having a complete family is overrated anyways."

He scoffs, focusing on me and not the bottle of liquor in front of him. "Spare me your childhood sob story."

"What? You don't want to hear how my father almost knifed me in the neck one time?"

He quirks an eyebrow. "Do I want to know?"

"Do you want to empty your stomach?" I ask. "Never mind, I think you're going to do that on your own just fine."

I give him a genuine smile, not the smile I give other customers pretending to find their life story interesting. It certainly doesn't have to do with him being of age close to mine or his good looks. Well, maybe some of it. He did manage to make it through the night without having to catcall me nor was he a source of repulsion by flirting.

He tries to pour another glass—his seventh since I handed him the bottle, by the way—but stops. Lifting the vodka bottle, he examines it closely, narrowing his eyes at the label. That's when he managed to spot the worn out edges of the paper from he weekly washing.

He slammed to the bottle on the table hard that I'm surprised it didn't break. "You fuckin tricked me." It was almost scary how calm his voice sounded, yet his face was anything but.

"Sobered you up, didn't it? You managed to catch on you were serving yourself for almost half an hour now."

The man surprised me with a laugh. Not one of those drunken I'm-having-the-f*****g-time-of-my-life hysterical laughs. But a genuine, gut stemming laugh that didn't even know was possible with is state.

The urge to give my tongue a mental pat for causing such a gut-wrenching sound—the pleasurable kind—was strong.

And here I thought he was a mean drunk.

His smile didn't fade away when he asked, "Who exactly are you?"

My face falls. Those words. Those exact four words I'd heard before by the same voice of the man I spent almost half of my work shift with.

You're in deep s**t, little red.

As if reality wanted to bite me in the ass, it just had to put the person who has the potential to ruin my life right in front of me. The only catch was he didn't recognize me without my disguise on. But that didn't mean wasn't going to.

The soft chime of the bell on top of the bar's entrance door resounded and my attention immediately drifts to the men who had just entered. I counted three, the person who looked like he was in charge was a dead giveaway that meant there were here for business and not pleasure.

His baldhead was an indication that I had to get the f**k out of here right here and right now. Never mind how Anka, Peralta's right hand man and bodyguard, trailed me to my workplace.

I scramble to take my burner phone out of my apron and flipped open the back to reveal the naked battery. Sure enough, I found a small blinking red dot attached to the back.

Fucking hell! They put a tracker on my phone?

I quickly take it out and smashed my heel on top of it before putting on a black cap.

As if they had sensed what I did, they all turn to my direction.