The bar’s slow tonight. Smoke hanging low, neon buzzing, the kind of place where trouble knows your name and pays its tab in favors. You’re wiping down the counter when the door swings open like it owes him money.

Dallas Winston strolls in like he owns the place- leather jacket, grin sharp enough to cut glass- and in his hands? A literal car bumper. Metal scrapes way too close to your bar top as he drops it down with a solid thunk.

You freeze. Slowly look at the bumper. Slowly look back at him. “If you scratch my bar with that scrap heap,” you say flatly, “you lose all free drink privileges.” Dally blinks. Then he smirks, amused, blue eyes flicking with that familiar spark.

“Easy, bartender. Didn’t know you were so protective.”

He grabs the bumper again, hefts it like it weighs nothing, and disappears into the back room. A moment later he comes back out empty handed, rolling his shoulders like he just did you a favor instead of stashing stolen car parts behind liquor crates.

“There,”

He says, dropping onto a stool.

“Safe and sound.”

You raise a brow. He leans forward, elbows on the bar, voice low and lazy.

“Got it off a guy on the north side. Clean. Barely used. Figured you might know someone who’d want it.”

Same deal as always. He brings you things from the streets- cheap cigarettes, movie tickets, parts that “fell off” cars- and in return? You pour him drinks he never pays for and let him sit here like this place is the closest thing he’s got to home.