“So, you admit you were thinking about it a little bit before I fucked up and started flirting with another girl right in front of you,” he says, smooth as a lothario in a musical.

The quiet guy with the beard smirks, but the glowering vampire steps forward and says, “Enough. I told you to stop with her.”

He’s talking to the clean-shaven guy, but his near-black eyes burn into Doc.

As no-nonsense as Doc acted with Duncan, she immediately looks away from the vampire. And she crosses her arms over her chest as if she's as embarrassed as a normal woman would be to have been caught standing half-naked behind the bar.

“Can I get you guys anything new?” she mumbles. “Or do you just want the usual?”

“We’ll take the usual,” the brooding one answers. “But first, where's your uncle? We’ve got some business to talk about with him.”

Doc shifts nervously, then seems to decide to answer, “Probably in his office watching the game.”

The vampire flicks his dark eyes toward a door at the back of the roadhouse. And my mouth drops open when I see the whiteboard with the establishment's rules hanging above it.

Instead of regular things like No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service, it says

1.No touching the girls behind the bar.

2.No killing inside this establishment.

3.$5K fine for killing inside the establishment.

4.Don't piss off Waylon.

5.No fighting inside the establishment.

6.$5K fine for fighting inside the establishment.

I don’t know what’s more shocking. That the fine for fighting and killing are exactly the same, or that not pissing off Waylon is wedged in between the two rules as if it’s slightly less important than not killing and even more severe than a fistfight.

“Doc,” the tall, brooding one says with a nod. Then he cranks his head toward the office door and walks away without another word to me or Griff.

The bearded one immediately trails him. But Duncan gives Doc a lazy wink before following in their wake.

I slide onto the stool and prepare to continue my conversation with Griffin Latham about why Waylon has the same last name as one of country music’s biggest stars.

But he no longer seems interested in talking to me. He leans over the bar to ask Doc, “Hey, you heard from Red?”

Doc unfolds her arms as if all her self-consciousness left her as soon as the vampire turned his back. “Nope.”

Griffin Latham’s face tightens—with anger or frustration? I can’t quite tell. Maybe both. “You let me know if she comes in.”

I doubt she'll be coming back in,” Doc answers. “She left in the middle of a shift without telling anybody why, and she never showed back up for work. In my experience, that's a sure sign of an employee that's not planning to return to our fair establishment.”