Kade

The stale air of the bar mixes with the scent of cheap perfume and beer, and my stomach lurches as I shoot back my seventh shot of bourbon.

An unfamiliar melody plays from the stage behind me, a woman’s soft, raspy voice, her tragic lyrics like a knife twisting into my already bleeding heart.

“Another one?” the bartender asks, raising a brow at me.

I nod, even though I know it’ll take more than alcohol to burn away my demons tonight. And at some point, I’m going to have to find a place to sleep. This isn’t Port Clover where the nearest hotel is a good forty minutes away. Whatever shitty little town I’ve ended up in, it isn’t likely to have a five-star hotel nearby.

“You have a place to crash around here?” I ask.

The bartender nods and says over the music, “If you’re heading east, there’s a Motor Inn off of I-90 ten minutes down the road.”

It’ll have to do, because there’s no way I’m sobering up enough to drive home tonight. Not that anyone is expecting me back for a couple more days. They knew why I went to Chicago. And they knew what I’d probably find.

A shiver rolls down my spine as the image of my wife’s lifeless face floats in front of my vision like an unwanted ghost. Fuck, maybe I’ve already had too much to drink. I blink hard, fingers tugging at my hair as I stare blankly into my empty glass.

Nothing, not even four years of not seeing the woman, knowing she was somewhere strung out on some cocktail of drugs, could have prepared me for the moment the coroner pulled that white sheet back.

My chest squeezes painfully and I dig my palms into my eyes, wishing there was some way to erase the memory.

I down the new shot the bartender puts in front of me, glaring at my cell when it buzzes. Zee St. James’ number pops up on the screen for the sixth time tonight. Of all the people in the world, he’s the last person I want to speak to right now. I’ve forgiven him for what he did, and even gave him my fucking blessing to marry my little sister, but some nightmares need to be faced alone, without another man’s guilt to sink you lower.

The song ends and there's a small applause before a track of Wild Irish’s Gravity comes on the speakers. I grunt at the irony of the lyrics.

I tried to walk away, tried to do what’s right, but ever since the day you walked into my life, you’ve been my gravity. Your love is like gravity. You keep me grounded so we can fly.  

Rubbing the back of my neck, I can’t help but let my mind wander back to the early years. I know now that even then our relationship was a lie. Ana had never wanted me. She’d been after Zee the entire time, settling for second best, before realizing I’d never be enough. But right now, I feel like there’s been a fundamental break in the natural order of things. Like I’m floating in some altered reality that doesn’t make sense.

I was supposed to be Ana’s anchor, but I failed her. There was no gravity pulling us together. If anything, I was like the opposite side of a magnet, repelling her every time I tried to get close.

I’m not burned enough to think that’s the only way love works, but I know I’ll never put my heart through that torture ever again.

“You have that order for table five?” a woman asks as she approaches the bar, placing a tray on the counter beside me. It’s her voice that catches my attention, the same soft rasp that had been singing a few moments before.

She’s good.

A hell of a lot better than the talent I get Friday and Saturday nights at Savages and Saints.

Only a few inches away, she’s not touching me, but with the heat that comes off her body, she might as well be. And her scent — it swirls around me, a mix of apple blossoms and vanilla. A complete contradiction to this place and my current mood.

I tilt my head and study her from the corner of my eye. Chunky blonde bangs cover her forehead, the rest of her hair has been twisted up in a messy bun, with a couple purple streaks falling loosely across her cheeks.

The black tank top with the words Cat & Fiddle Pub bedazzled over her breasts, paired with ripped jeans that hug her hips and ass, show off all her feminine curves. When I glance up at her face, hazel eyes are watching me, and there’s a mix of curiosity and heat in her gaze. Her lips curve up slightly, exposing a dimple in her right cheek.

She’s got the whole girl-next-door look about her, but with a double dose of trouble. And while there’s no denying she’s hot, the last thing I should be thinking about is how fucking smooth her sun-kissed skin would feel pressed against my body.

Shit. I’ve definitely had one too many shots, because I learned a long time ago the dangers of thinking with my cock. And yet, for some reason, it’s a current painful reminder that I haven’t had any action in a very long time.

“You new around here?” she asks.

Jesus, that voice. Smooth, velvety. I can imagine it purring my name as I’m buried deep inside of her.

I rub the back of my neck and try to pull my gaze away, but after eight, or was it nine shots? I’m finding it very difficult not to be pulled into the warmth of the woman’s smile. It lights up the whole goddamn bar like a match in a dark room.

Sober the hell up, asshole.  

Even before Ana, meaningless sex was never my style. But then, I’m in no position for a relationship right now either, at least until my daughter is grown. I won’t put her through a string of random women coming in and out of our lives. She’s already had enough uncertainty in her life.

“Just passing through,” I say, shifting in my seat and turning my attention to the wall of liquor in front of me.

“Lucky you,” she mumbles while loading the drinks the bartender puts in front of her onto her tray, then walking away.

When the bartender eyes me, I point to my glass for another drink. Fuck the motel, I’ll sleep in my truck if I have to. My parents are watching Lola, and I’ll have enough time to go home and shower before picking her up.

What I need tonight is to forget. With booze, not sex, my brain warns, despite the hard on that’s pressing painfully against my jeans as I watch from the mirror above the bar as the blonde make her rounds. When she bends over to place drinks on a table, getting a perfect view of her ass, a small groan rumbles in my throat.

One of the guys at the table slings a stalky arm around her waist and pulls her to his side, saying something that has his two meathead friends roaring in laughter. She swats his hand away, but her forced smile never falters. At least not until she catches my gaze in the mirror, watching her.

I don’t look away, even though I know I should. Her chest rises like she’s sucking in a deep breath, and I swear to God we hold a silent conversation in those few seconds. Want. Lust. Need. They reach out amidst the distance between us, teasing and tantalizing like a wicked game that will only end one way — with her in my bed.

Heat blisters.

Scorches.

And a longing to possess her, even for just one night, consumes me. I know it’s only the alcohol mixed with countless years of abstinence, but it doesn’t make my arousal any less painful.  

I’m not sure how long she stands there, frozen, or rather on fire with the way her cheeks turn red, but it’s long enough for one of the dickhead’s friends to slap her ass, making her jump and breaking our moment.

I’m about to push my chair back, defend her honor and all that shit, but she turns on the guy so quick he leans back in his chair far enough that I think he might fall backwards. I don’t hear what she says, but it has the guy’s face turning a thousand shades of crimson, and even his buddies look taken aback.

When she turns around again, she doesn’t meet my gaze. She keeps her chin down and moves on to the next table, out of my line of sight.

If it was my bar, I’d kick all three of them out on their asses for how handsy they were with her. But it’s not my problem, and this isn’t my bar.

My cell rings, Zee’s name popping up again. With a sigh, I answer it, knowing he won’t stop calling until I pick up. Better to rip the proverbial bandage off now rather than later.

“Don’t need you checking up on me,” I mutter into the phone, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I’m fine.”

It’s a lie and I know he knows it.

I can almost hear the guilt in his heavy breathing on the other end of the phone. Guilt he has no right feeling. He may have fucked up and slept with my wife when he was too high to know the sky from the goddamn ground, but I’m the one that knew they were both spiraling out of control — and I’d done nothing.  I’d preferred to live in my own altered reality where the woman I loved and my best friend weren’t junkies who cared more about their next fix than they did about me.

The difference between Zee and Ana is he hit rock bottom and managed to climb his way out of the hole he’d dug himself into.

Zee clears his throat. “So...was it...?”

I know what he’s asking. What I haven’t confirmed. “Yeah. It was her.”

Not that I’d recognized the frail, skeleton-like frame of the woman lying on the cold, steel table. Her natural dark blonde hair had been bleached and fried, cut short around her gaunt, lifeless face. She’d seemed to age twenty years in the time she’d been gone. If it hadn’t been for the small tattoo she’d gotten on the inside of her left wrist after Lola was born, the one with our daughter’s birthday etched in dark purple ink, I would have denied it was her.  

Fuck. I rub the back of my neck and squeeze my eyes closed. What the hell am I going to tell Lola? She’s almost six now, old enough to start asking questions about her mom. Old enough to understand that the woman abandoned us both in search of her next high.

“I should hate her.” My words are slurred, even I can hear it. “Can’t though. Just feel fucking sorry for her.”

Hell, it’s not even loss that I feel. It’s something deeper, something that threatens to strangle me. Like hope has been sucked from my soul. I’m just empty.

Jesus, I need to stop drinking before they rewrite the definition of angst with my name in the opening paragraph.

There’s a short hesitation on the line before Zee says, “You’ve been drinking.” There’s no judgement, only concern in his voice. But unlike him, I’m not an addict. I may own a bar, but I hardly ever drink, and when I do, I don’t get drunk. At least, not since Lola. Not until tonight.

“Pretty sure I deserve a small reprieve from adulting today. One night. You can give me that.”

He exhales a low, uneven breath. “Just wish you would have let me go with you.”

“I said I’m fine.”

Silence.

The pretty little blonde has come back to the bar, but those deep, soulful, hazel eyes remain fixed on the task in front of her, filling her tray with drinks. Sexy doesn’t even begin to describe the woman. She’s got this pull about her, a special something that no doubt has every straight male in the building unable to avert his gaze away.

Or maybe it’s just been too many damn years since I’ve been laid. I’ve never touched another woman since Ana left. Couldn’t. Not while I was still technically married. Maybe that makes me a schmuck, or a pathetic loser, but in all honesty, I’d been too wrapped up in taking care of Lola and my bar to think about screwing another woman. Okay, that’s not exactly true. Sure, I’d thought about it, on several occasions, but I never went through with it. I don’t need more complications in my life.

So, I’m not sure why my cock has decided to be a bastard tonight of all nights.   

“Where are you staying?” Zee asks, breaking through my thoughts.

“I’ll find a place.”

More damn silence and sighing. Then he says, “Just don’t drive if you’re drinking—”

“I’m not an idiot,” I say a little too loudly, causing the blonde to give me a side glance and frown. I scowl back, and she rolls her eyes, then walks away, her tray full again.

Typically, I’m not an asshole. But tonight I’m pretty sure I deserve a pass.

Although she doesn’t know that.

Not that I owe her an explanation. But for some reason, I feel like I do. Along with a hundred and one other things I’d like to do to her.

Alcohol-induced insanity, the small portion of my brain that still holds a coherent thought says.

“Kade?” My sister’s voice comes on the line, and I say a silent curse under my breath to Zee for giving her the phone. “How are you holding up?”

“Fucking perfect,” I mutter.

“Okay,” she says softly, which in Quinn language means I’m going to have a full-on intervention when I get home. “You know we love you.”

Yeah. Probably the only thing that’s gotten me through the past few days. My family. And Lola. She deserves at least one parent who can hold their shit together. Which, at the moment, I’m doing a terrible job of.

“I’ll be home tomorrow,” I say.

“Where are you?”

“Some little hick town in Pennsylvania.” At least I think that’s where I am. I hadn’t exactly been in the best mindset since leaving Chicago.

She sighs. “Just...be safe.”

I let out a low, uneven breath, and after several more minutes trying to convince her that I’m not on the verge of a mental breakdown, I hang up and tell the bartender to bring me the bill. Despite every attempt not to look for her, my gaze wanders across the bar for the blonde. My body aches to surrender to the pull of her sweet little body.

“She’s gone,” the guy says when he places my check in front of me. He leans on the counter, tatted arms resting in front of him. There’s a slight twitch to his jaw. “You’re lucky Charlie didn’t catch you looking at her the way you were. He would have had your balls sautéed on a spit.”

I don’t know who the hell Charlie is, but I know what he is  — trouble. I might be three sheets to the wind, but even hammered, with my balls aching for some sort of release, I’m not a masochist. Time to go back to my truck, and hope to God that I’ve drunk enough to dull the nightmares I know will come.