CHAPTER 22
Lucky’s was fairly packed for a weeknight, the long wooden bar crowded with bodies and a chalkboard waiting list already in place for the pool tables. When there was only one real bar in a town, I supposed it was normal for it to see a lot of action.
I had a flash of another night, a little broken glass, a bemused older man calling me 'Backdraft.' Lucky. And Chase. He was upset about me and Avery, but it was his pride and his fear — not really about her. I searched for more pieces of the memory but found none. I’d have to ask Avery later.
I slid onto a bar stool next to Lucas and motioned to the bartender that I’d have what he was having — a beer and what looked suspiciously like a glass of scotch.
“This is nice and familiar,” I said, gesturing to his choice in drinks. “What are we commiserating, besides the obvious?”
“Nothing,” Lucas said quickly. “What did Avery think about the alarm system?”
“She hasn’t seen all of the features yet and she made me promise to touch up the paint and patch where you accidentally drilled a hole into the living room wall, but other than that, she’s cool with it.”
Lucas laughed once. “Sorry. I got overzealous with the power tools.”
My drinks arrived and I took a sip of my beer. I probably wouldn’t touch the scotch tonight — Lucas looked like he needed it more than me, and at least one of us had to keep our head straight in case we actually ran into J.D. Lucas had taken one for the team last time, so it was my turn now. I owed him that, and so much more.
“Thank you,” I began.
“For what? You’re buying tonight.”
“Whatever. That’s not what I meant.” I set the bottle down. “I wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for me, and especially for Avery and Annabelle, since my motorcycle accident.”
He gave me a half-shrug. “No worries, B. I was—”
“Shut up, Lucas. I wasn’t finished.”
“Sorry.”
“You’ve done nothing but come through for me and my family, time and time again over these last couple months. Even when I was being an insufferable prick, you were there.”
Lucas put his glass down and turned on his stool to face me. “I’m not gonna lie, B. You in that coma was the most fucked-up thing that’s ever happened… to any of us. It scared the shit out of me. You’ve always been the strong one, nothing shakes you. Ever. I didn’t realize how much we all counted on that.”
I knew he was right, but it wasn’t something I thought about too often. Until I had Avery and Annabelle in my life, the idea of someone counting on me in a personal way was too much. I needed to be free, free to walk into the burning woods and not look back. Separate and do the job. That was one of the General’s favorites.
“I couldn’t have made it through all of this without you. If I was the one that everyone counted on, you did a damn good job of taking over for me.”
“You can go back to being that guy now,” Lucas said with a smirk. “It’s tiring as fuck and the pay is lousy.”
“I think I’ve got it from here, Luke.”
“I think you do, too.”
We drank our beers in easy silence for few minutes until Lucas spoke again.
“I’ve really messed things up with Heather.”
I snorted. “Of course you have. You’re a jerk.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He slid his empty scotch glass away and signaled for another.
Okay, I’d bite. “What did you do?”
“I don’t know. Scared her? Wanted stuff? Moved too fast? Didn’t consider her feelings? All of the above, probably.”
“Do you love her?”
Lucas choked on his drink. “What? There’s this— I wanted— I mean, we just—”
“So, you love her.” I spun my empty beer bottle in circles on the bar, incredibly enjoying the look on his face. “Have you told her?”
“No.” He paused. “Should I?”
“No, by all means, keep it to yourself and prolong everyone’s misery,” I said wryly. “Yeah, I think you should tell her. It’s the truth, right? Girls are big on that.”
I thought of Avery, of how that was all she ever asked of me. Let her in, and tell the truth. Simple as that. It wasn’t always that uncomplicated, but it was the core.
“Okay. You’re right. I don’t think it’ll fix everything, but I want her to know.”
“Good.” I stood up. “Heart-to-heart officially over for a least a year.”
Lucas laughed. “Done.”
“I’m going to put our names on the list for a pool table,” I said, and then I felt someone tap me on the shoulder.
Lucas stood up too, glancing behind me with an unreadable expression on his face. I turned around slowly.
“Hey Fox, Lucas.” The taller of the two men standing in front of me offered his hand. “I know you probably don’t remember me, man. I’m Derek, and this is Kyle.” He gestured to the shorter, stockier guy next to him. “We’re friends of Chase’s. And of yours. Sort of.”
I shook Derek’s proffered hand with only a slight hesitation, then Kyle’s. I vaguely remembered Avery saying something about Chase’s friends, how things were awkward for a while but then smoothed over once Chase moved to Lubbock and got back on track.
Lucas greeted Derek and Kyle with an easy smile and quick handshakes, and I realized that they already knew each other, probably from time that Lucas had spent in Brancher prior to my accident.
“We just wanted to come over and say that we’ve heard what’s been going on with J.D., and we’re here if you need us. Avery’s a nice girl, and Annabelle is a little sweetheart — he shouldn’t be anywhere near them.”
I nodded slowly, wondering exactly how much they knew. News traveled fast in a small town — they might even know things that I didn’t, especially in relation to J.D.’s past or temperament.
“Chase asked us, you know, to keep an eye on things with the girls, just in case,” Kyle spoke up.
“We really appreciate everything you did for Chase, getting him set up with people who could help him. He’s doing much better. Now you might need it — help, I mean. We figure you’re, um, a little incapacitated right now. So we’re just doing our part until you get it back. You’ll get it back, Fox. We know you will.”
I was strangely touched by their gesture and the awkward sincerity behind it. “Thank you.”
Derek nodded. “Least we can do. We’ll keep an eye out for anything weird, ask some questions. Let you know what we hear.”
Kyle’s eyes focused over my shoulder, widening then narrowing quickly. “Speak of the devil. What’s that washed-up little fuck doing here?”
I turned, knowing exactly who I’d see. “He’s here for me.”
* * *
The picture I’d glimpsed of J.D. in Lucas’ file hadn’t captured the hard miles he’d put on himself in the past few years, but I recognized him just the same. I stared across the bar, searching for a shred of Annabelle under the shaggy hair and tanned, weathered skin but finding none. Genetically she might’ve been his, but physically she was all Avery.
“At least this saves us from having to track him down,” Lucas muttered by my ear.
Part of me thought the same, but another part was annoyed by the nerve he had. I’d half expected him to hole up somewhere, maybe even outside of Brancher especially after he broke into my house, but then I remembered who I was dealing with.
J.D.’s moral compass was not calibrated correctly these days, or maybe he’d just stopped consulting it. Either way, he fell into my lap tonight and I was determined to make the most of it.
I watched him make his way toward us to the bar, two other men flanking him as he pushed through the crowd. He hadn’t seen me yet, or if he did, he didn’t recognize me. I wasn’t sure he even knew what I looked like. I’d have the element of surprise instead of the other way around.
“Glad he brought reinforcements,” Derek said, cracking his knuckles. “We’ll be over on the other side if you need us.” He disappeared with Kyle into the crowd, and I turned to Lucas.
“Game time.”
J.D. waited at the bar just a few feet from where we were standing. I tapped him on the shoulder and he whirled around. “What?”
“Hello, J.D.”
“Fox?” He squinted at me.
“Nice to finally meet you in person. Wish I could’ve been there when you let yourself into our house the other night.” I stared him straight in the eye, and he was the first to look away.
“What? I didn’t do anything, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said in a bored voice.
“Let me see your hand.” I grabbed his wrist. “Where’d you get these cuts? Looks like you might’ve put your fist through something hard and sharp, like a window.”
J.D. had the grace to look slightly panicked by my overly calm tone. I felt like it took everything I had not to lose my temper with him every time we interacted, and so my method of coping post-coma was “overly calm.” Lucas said it was scary, and apparently J.D. agreed.
“No, no. I got into a fight,” he insisted.
Yeah, with my window. “Oh?”
“That’s what I said, okay?”
“Sure, J.D. Next question — why’d you blow off the meeting with the lawyer?”
“I don’t trust lawyers! I don’t trust anyone. I just want my money. You want me to go away, you want that kid, you’ll give me my money.” His voice took on a petulant sound, like a whining child.
“I’ll adopt Annabelle with or without your consent.” The “overly calm” thing was not working very well for me right now. “Why did you break into my house?”
“I told you, I didn’t.” The two men standing behind J.D. started to look restless as they drank their beers. I’m sure they wanted nothing more than to leave J.D. to whatever shit he’d gotten himself into this time, but they stuck around.
“Even if I believed you, which I don’t, I’d still be less than inclined to keep our arrangement, because I think that even if you didn’t do the actual forced entry, you know who did.” I gestured at the two guys he was with. “Maybe one of them?”
They both shook their heads vehemently, then walked across the bar, denying any association with J.D. whatsoever. Without his friends, J.D.’s bravado dropped a notch.
“Look, I barely remember that girl, and as far as I’m concerned that kid might not even be mine, you know what I mean?”
I bristled at his insinuation about Avery, that she would lie about Annabelle’s paternity, but I didn’t share it. If I let go of the strangled hold on my temper, there was no reining it back in.
“So why all the fanfare then? You could ask for a DNA test, or just take the way out I’ve been trying to give you. Why would you mess this up with refusals to contact our lawyer, not showing up to meetings… What’s the point? What do you want?”
J.D. glanced around the bar uneasily, but he didn’t speak.
“What do you want, J.D.?” I repeated the same words, but my voice had an extra edge to it this time.
“You know what I want.” He took a long pull from his beer.
“I thought I did. Now I need you to tell me.”
“Make it worth my while, and I'll disappear forever.” There it was. “Say, double what we talked about before. Fifty grand.”
“Not a chance.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “You blew it already.”
“What does that mean?” he asked suspiciously.
“It means that if you’d stick to our original plan, even now after everything, I’d still be willing to help you get your life back on track. If you show up at the lawyer’s office tomorrow morning and sign the papers, you’ll get your check and we can go our separate ways.”
“And if I don’t?” I couldn’t tell if the gleam in J.D.’s eye was alcohol induced or just plain arrogance.
“If you don’t, the deal’s off. We’ll go to court, it’ll be ugly, and you’ll definitely lose. And it would be in your best interest to clear out of Brancher ASAP.”
J.D.’s eyes turned wild, and his face flamed into color. “You promised me! I need that money! You lying sack of shit — I knew it!”
“If I thought for one second that you cared about that little girl one-tenth as much as you care about this money, I’d more inclined to bargain with you, J.D. But you don’t. So do yourself a favor — take what I’m offering, the original twenty-five thousand, and go before I force you to with a restraining order.”
“Fuck you, Fox. You’ll cough up more. I’m just gonna wait it out.” He finished his beer and slammed it down on the bar.
“This is how I see it,” I said, my voice low. I was much taller than J.D. but I was fairly certain his eyes widened at the thinly veiled anger in my voice and not the height difference. “You can either do as I ask and then disappear back into whatever barrel you crawled out of, or I can make it happen.”
J.D. looked momentarily stunned, and then he looked at me and laughed nervously. “What are you gonna do? Who the fuck do you think you are? Mission Impossible?”
I heard Lucas snort behind me and I shook my head. “Unbelievable. What is it about this bar? Everyone is a comedian.”
“What?” J.D. asked. “I don't even know you, man. And you don’t know me.”
“False. I do know you, James Dean Warren — cruel joke your parents played on you there by the way, a lot to live up to — born July 13th, 1989 in San Antonio. Five-eight, one hundred and sixty-five pounds. Your father is a truck driver and your mother is a night-shift motel clerk. You have one sister who lives in Dallas and works in a clothing store. You haven’t been home to visit in over three years. At six, you broke your arm. At eighteen, your collarbone. In 2011, you were ranked third in the Texas circuit; in 2014, you ranked twenty-seventh.”
“What the hell?” J.D.’s confusion only incited my rage.
“You currently have two warrants out for your arrest — one in Oklahoma for failing to make your DUI court appearance, and the other in Llano for skipping bail on a drunk and disorderly. You haven't paid taxes in four years, and you have two outstanding speeding tickets and an unpaid truck registration.”
Dr. Woods would be proud of the short-term memory retention I displayed in recalling a large chunk of J.D.’s file. I watched his face turn from red to white as my words sunk in.
“H— how do you know all that?” he stuttered.
I ignored his question and leaned in further. “Either cooperate or don’t, and then we’ll let the courts decide. But stay away from Avery and Annabelle or everything I just listed goes into a file and comes out as a big fat reason for an APB in every county from New Mexico to Mississippi. You'll spend enough time behind bars that the idea of a two-thousand-pound bull stepping directly on your face sounds like a fucking vacation.”
I turned and walked out of the bar, my chest heaving with the restraint I’d exerted in not punching J.D. directly in the throat. Derek caught my eye on the way out and nodded briefly. If anything else happened, I knew I’d hear about it.
Outside with Lucas, I dragged in huge lungfuls of fresh air, trying to slow my racing mind that all but demanded I go back into the bar and slam J.D.’s head against the wall. It wouldn’t help anything, I reminded myself. It would only make things worse, and you’re not that guy anyway.
But I could be. I never wanted to be that guy more. I didn’t back down from a fight, not ever, but I rarely started them. Letting your temper go until you couldn’t restrain your body was a foreign concept to me. I liked to be in control. I needed it. If I had to use my fists to prove a point, I would. But I preferred calculated movements, like that night at the bar in Seattle. More control, more impact. Just like a fire.
“You good?” Lucas asked after a moment.
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“You can’t save everybody, B,” Lucas shook his head.
I acknowledged that. I’d learned it the hard way. But I still tried, because that’s what I knew how to do.