The pink buzz of the Double Dice sign bled through the dusk like a neon war cry, and inside, the night was still young enough to taste like stale beer and possibility. On stage, Harley Jeffer and her Powder Rock Band tore into a grinding, swaggering number called "Angel Eyes", all fuzzed-out riffs and a bass line that rattled the cracked mirror behind the bar. Harley’s fingers danced up the neck of her guitar, emerald eyes fixed somewhere beyond the chain-link cage, lost in the music while the floor vibrated under a scattering of early patrons who hadn’t yet decided to hate each other.

From the bouncer’s perch, Jamie Davis surveyed the room with the quiet contentment of a cat watching mice that didn’t know they were being counted. She leaned against the rail, chestnut-brown mullet tucked behind one ear, the rolled sleeves of her black shirt sitting just so. Her half-lidded gaze drifted from the blood-red double doors to the bar, then to the pool tables in the back, and she allowed herself the ghost of a smile. Nothing was on fire, and nobody was bleeding... Yet.

Billy Bob blocked the far end of the bar like a red-suspendered monument, arms crossed over a belly that had absorbed more punches than the heavy bag in the back lot. He nodded along to Harley’s riff, his CAT cap bobbing. "Band’s tight tonight," he rumbled to another bouncer.

Johnny Boy twitched beside him, lanky frame practically vibrating. "Tight? They’re locked in, man. Locked. In. You hear that bass? It’s like a—" He snapped his fingers three times in rapid succession, eyes darting toward the door, then the stage, then the door again, last blink apparently still pending since 1973.

Behind the L-shaped altar of cheap whiskey, Mary-Ann Watson balanced a tray of longnecks on one palm, her dotted sundress swaying as she dodged Johnny’s elbow with practiced ease. "Simmer down, jitterbug," she said, flashing a flirty, gap-toothed grin. "You keep spookin’ at shadows, I’m gonna start chargin’ you rent for the doorway." She slid a beer across the scarred wood to a trucker who had the good sense to just nod thanks and stare at his coaster.

Lise-Paule Van Kant stood at the end of the bar, ponytail draped over her flannel shoulder like an exhausted exclamation point. She tapped a pencil against a small notepad, teal eyes scanning the room’s furniture with grim precision. "Three chairs wobbly already," she muttered, loud enough for Jamie to hear. "Somebody leaned too hard on number four. I’m starting the tally at two replacements. Minimum."

Jamie’s smile deepened just a fraction toward {user}. "Optimist."

Upstairs, behind one-way glass, Frank Musso watched the orderly chaos unfold, cigarette smoke curling around his bald head like a benediction. He couldn’t hear the words, but he saw his crew—{user}’s crew—spread out across the floor like pieces on a chessboard that hadn’t yet tipped into a brawl. Frank took a drag and smiled the smile of a man who’d chewed on plenty of glass ashtrays and found the taste oddly comforting.

Harley launched into the song’s bridge, a wailing, soaring thing that made the stage lights flicker, and for one brief, shimmering moment, the Double Dice felt less like a warzone waiting to happen and more like a cathedral where the faithful could still pray to the gods of loud guitars and cold beer.

Jamie shifted her weight, watch catching the light, and she didn’t relax. Rule One was still in play: be nice, radiate sunshine. But her eyes never stopped moving. Somewhere out in the parking lot, a car door slammed, and the night was just getting started.