Six hours later Sam and Dean had slept, showered and walked to the bar two blocks from the motel. They were sitting at a table in Marty's Bar and Pool Hall. They had eaten some decent burgers. Dean had his fourth beer in hand and a dopey, lopsided grin on his face. He had just scored the waitresses phone number. Tara.
"Dude, check it out." Dean said finishing his beer and pointing to a pool table in the corner. Four guys were playing, a good game by the looks of it, and two of them were getting their asses handed to them.
"What do you think? Want to play the winners?"
Sam looked over the two guys who were expertly sinking the striped balls shot after shot.
"I don't know. They're big guys and they're pretty good, Dean. I don't think they'd take too kindly to being hustled."
"Who says they have to know, Sammy-boy." Dean said, taking off his leather jacket.
Sam was apprehensive, but he didn't want to ruin Dean's night. He'd done that too much lately. Dean was already striding over to them. He leaned back against the table beside one of the winning players.
"We'll play the winners. That is if you're game."
"You're on." The big, dark haired man said, reaching for his beer. "Hey, Mitch.
Got us a new game." The other big, blonde man was collecting the winnings from the losers. Seventy- five dollars a piece.
"Cool." He said, pocketing half the money and giving the other half to his partner.
"Game on, Tony." He said, eyeing Dean as if he was a choice cut of steak.
"What's your name, friend?"
"Dean."
"Who's your team mate?"
"Sam." Sam said coming up to stand beside Dean, wondering just what Dean had gotten them into.
"Steaks?" The blonde, Mitch, inquired.
"That looked good to start." Dean said motioning to the pocket of Mitch's leather vest.
"Fine. Seventy- five a piece it is." He walked off to rack the balls. "What do you want, Dean?"
"Stripes."
"Okay, you break."
"On the break, Dean took it easy on the townies. He sank only two of the striped balls. Sam then moved in with their classic play. Sink one stripe and one solid. He set it up perfectly and blocked all the solid balls with stripes. Mitch was up next. He got lucky and moved three solid balls around the stripes and into pockets.
Dean was standing beside Sam. "Dean this guy is good. I had them all blocked."
"I saw it."
Mitch's buddy, Tony, was up next. He was more drunk than the others by this time, and scratched. It was Dean's turn again. Dean gave Sam that 'I'll set 'em up, you knock 'em down look', and sunk all but one remaining striped ball and the eight. Sam moved in next finishing the game.
By eleven o'clock, Sam and Dean had beaten the townies in three games. They had almost four hundred dollars in their pockets and two big, angry men to deal with.