||Series Removed|| OTB

16 - Beer Run

16

Throwing the rusty garage door up and over his head, I pretended not to be impressed by his brute strength as Harry held the entrance open for me to slide under. The overhead lights of his workplace were completely out, which was already a sign that we were too late.

"I thought Tanner was covering your shift?" I huffed to Harry, as though I had done the heavy lifting myself.

"Yeah, he wanted lay low today or something. I'm telling ya, he's the one to talk to if we need wanna score those festival invites. Dumb as a bag of rocks, but that kid knows everyone and everything that goes on in this joint."

I gulped, praying that my friend couldn't see the sullen look on my face through the dim lighting. Tanner deciding to 'lay low' seemed suspicious, and it was most likely due to the brutal killing he witnessed in the town's sewers. I could only hope that he hadn't ratted me out and blown TB's cover...

"Hey dude, I'm back!! You still here?" Harry took one blind step forwards and bashed his foot against a stray lump of scrap metal, sending out a loud ding along with a string of curse words. The sudden intrusion caused a disturbance in the nearby office, something like a heavy chair falling over.

We exchanged one look and made a dash for the doorway, and I wish I hadn't been the one to arrive first. Gripping at his pants around his ankles, Tanner's glowing-red face was upside-down and desperate to recover as sheets of paperwork floated down on top of him.

"J-Jeez, don't you guys ever knock?!" Brushing against me as he peered in, Harry's cheeks burst into flames and turned his back to the scene without missing a beat.

"Aw- Aww, c'mon man! Are you serious?! I work at that desk too, y'know!" As Tanner guiltily folded up the indecent magazine he had no doubt been 'reading' moments before, his eyes darted at Harry and narrowed with a shameful grimace.

"You said you'd be out all day... What the hell?! You even brought the greenhorn with you, sheesh..." The blood flow appeared to have returned to his brain, as he adjusted his attention towards my odd presence. "Hey... what are you doing here, anyway? I haven't seen you since... since..."

He seemed to trail off, not really showing any signs of alarm. Perhaps he really did think that he was dreaming last night, after all. Zipping up his trousers, he seemed to carry on talking as though we hadn't just walked in on a rather intimate time.

"Well, if Barry brought you here, then you must want something from me... right? Let's cut to the chase, Dante. I wanna get my privacy back as soon as you walk outta that door."

I almost didn't recognise the fake names we'd fed to him earlier, but luckily I recovered quickly and began explaining the situation with Beth's secret birthday. He half-nodded along, and I could already see his mind trying to work out how to get rid of us so that he could go back to relieving himself.

"...and that's it. We gotta get into that Harvest Hoedown, but it's invite-only. You know who's on the guest list, right?"

Sticking his finger in his ear, Tanner didn't appear interested at all about helping us out... but something seemed to snap into place as a slight smirk took over his face. "Yeah, 'cause I'm on the list too. I know a guy who can get every one of you in, no problem."

I glanced at Harry excitedly, who was still shaking his head a little, and drifted back to Tanner. "Really? You'll talk to him?"

"Woah, woah! Let's not get ahead of ourselves here... First, you two have gotta do something for me. What do ya say?"

Just as I began to question what he could possibly want from us, I reminded myself of little Beth, all alone on her birthday. How happy she would be when we brought her to the Hoedown, with lots of upbeat music and plenty of people enjoying themselves.