Chapter Nine
Jarrett
It’s a mistake to take her in. I should’ve known I wouldn’t get over my anger towards her with just a simple fuck. And for everything I’ve done for her, she can’t even say a simple fucking ‘thank you’.
Selena Ambrose is a merciless bitch. And that’s one of her better qualities.
Two options spin through my head on the ride into Tacoma to see the caterer at The Bellhaven: I can kick her out, or I can let her stay.
One will give me the joy of seeing her ass as she walks away. But comes with the drawback of knowing that whatever trouble has her spooked could end up killing her. I don’t think I’d shed a tear for losing her, but it’d rip me up inside to know her son, Jake, would be without a mom.
The other option is to suck it up and deal with her.
Neither one of those is too appealing, but I don’t want to think of her kid growing up without a mom. He’s had a rough enough life as it is.
The parking lot at The Bellhaven is near capacity, even though it’s a weekday morning. Though there are a couple spots open, I circle the block a few times.
I hate coming into town like this. I hate crowds. Especially crowds of people I don’t know. And especially when I’m fucking sober. Or sober enough.
There’s too many variables and too many potential threats to just barge in. So I pull up on the sidewalk adjacent to the parking lot and look things over. A little recon saves lives.
It takes a while — looking over the vehicles in the lot, looking through the windows from my spot on the sidewalk — but fifteen minutes later I head inside.
The restaurant is huge, modern, with shining tile floors, a large open kitchen battlefield filled with sweating staff and the cacophonous clamor of kitchen utensils clanging against each other in frenzy. Men shout rapid-fire orders at one another. Every so often, a burst of flame erupts from an open-air barbecue pit, over which rotate various meats and, hanging further up, a variety of fish — salmon, mostly — hang, soaking up the smoke.
It’s a fucking nightmare. Just watching it makes me tense. My heart rate surges and my fists clench so hard my knuckles pop.
I pull my eyes away from the kitchen and look over the rest of the restaurant.
Against the far wall, there’s an old-fashioned bar, carved from a single piece of wood and, probably, stained to look aged. This place is packed to the gills. Civilians crowd in booths, mewling children scamper about, groups huddle near the exits and others meander through the restaurant going from table to bar and back again. All around my position at the front of the restaurant, families sit on benches, waiting for their turn to be called.
From somewhere in the kitchen, an explosive metallic clamor bursts through the air as a pot clatters to the floor. Shouts erupt. It’s chaos. Noisy, grating chaos.
“Can I help you?” says some barely-legal woman with her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and an obnoxious piercing in her nose. “We’re pretty busy right now, so if you’re looking for a table, it’ll probably be at least half an hour. Unless you have a reservation. Then it’ll still be ten minutes or so.”
“I wanted to see the chef about a catering job.”
“You’ve got good timing. Chef Nick is on break right now, so he should be back in his office. It’s through the kitchen. There’s a marked pathway. Just don’t touch anything, all right?” she says, before she motions at a family and leads them away to their table.
I nod and look back towards the kitchen.
There’s no way I’m going through there.
Another waitress — this one maybe in her mid-twenties — comes by my place at the front of the restaurant to fetch another family. I reach out and grab her by the sleeve.
“Excuse me,” I say, doing my best to sound friendly. Though I’m pretty sure I sound like one of those ‘show me to the manager’ assholes. Which, in this case, I suppose I am. “Can you get the chef for me? I want to hire him for a catering job.”
She deftly spins out of my grip and motions for her target family to follow her. “Sorry, sir,” she says. “If it’s a job thing, just go on back. It’s cool.”
“You don’t understand. I need you to get the chef for me. Can you please do that?”
I’m forced to beg. Saying ‘please’ to some ponytailed princess in a tight skirt.
No answer.
She leads the family away and I’m left up at the front door with six other families of gobshits gaping at me. I can feel their eyes on me; their judgment and their ridicule slither across my skin.
It’s a small thing to walk back there. Any single one of the people sitting up here can do it, even the fucking four-year-old kid who seems enamored with the boogers he thinks he’s sneakily snatching from his nose and flicking at his justifiably-upset sister.
But I can’t.
I can walk the streets of a city intent on killing me. I can subject myself to years of training, honing myself into a lethal weapon. I can face gunfire without flinching.
But I can’t walk down that fucking hallway. I can’t through that fucking crowded kitchen.
My skin is crawling with disgust and revulsion. Rancorous and vile thoughts dig their claws into my heart and mind.
This is beyond me.
This simple task — something that should be so easy — makes me want to scream in anger.
I don’t feel the door shut behind me. I don’t hear my bike rumble to life beneath me. I’m on auto-pilot, my consciousness not surfacing until I’m in the driveway to my home.
Until the door to my garage closes behind me.
Until I have a bottle in my hand.
Whiskey turns to burning bile as it slithers down my gullet.
I shut my eyes.
Breathe.
Another drink.
Fucking breathe.
Again.
Shame and fear swell in my chest. My thoughts drift to the disappointment I’d see in my brothers' eyes if they knew even half the measure of weakness in my heart.
Another drink.
Fucking coward.
Pathetic.
Failure.
I swallow every vile word. Gulp down every noxious sentiment.
It’s a wicked thing to feel so powerless. To have these thoughts gnaw and consume you until you’re certain to your core that this shattered thing is exactly who you are and the best you can do is scream silently into the void inside you. To feel so mercilessly broken in the soul and that the only thing to bring any relief is to break yourself further.
I’m going to drink myself into a hole.
Another swallow of whiskey.
“Jarrett?”
I whirl and curse myself for fixing the hinge on my garage door.
God damn WD-40 is too fucking good at too many things.
The bottle leaves my hands unbidden. I hurl it through the air and it crashes into the wall next to her and shatters into a thousand pieces. Whiskey and droplets of her blood from a dozen little glass cuts drip onto the uneven concrete floor.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
It doesn’t sound like my voice leaving my throat. This voice is nasty, hateful; it’s a vicious, roiling, contemptuous thing that would have no problem strangling her.
She doesn’t waver. She faces me unafraid. Not a sign of fear or pain evident on her face, though blood oozes from a cut in her shin.
She keeps her hands by her sides, open.
“You were gone an hour and I thought you were going to be gone longer. Then you came tearing back here. It sounded like something was wrong,” she says, her voice as calm as a placid lake on a breezeless day.
I look down at the pool of liquor on the concrete floor.
I wish I’d had the sense to empty the bottle before I’d thrown it.
“I’m fine.”
She cocks her head to the side. “You don’t look fine.”
“Did I stutter? I said I’m fine.”
“You can talk to me.”
“Just get out. Take the bike, go into town, do whatever the fuck it is you need to do to get back on your feet,” I say, my eyes scouting the room for something else to throw, something else to scare her and get her to leave.
“Don’t think for a fucking second that I judge you. Don’t think for a fucking second that I don’t understand. You saw me at my worst back in Reno — a single mother working every single day for the men who killed her brother, her friends. You think I didn’t hate myself? You think I didn’t feel so much shame whenever I had to face my son with bruises on my face, or the marks of some outlaws pawing hands on my body?” she says. Her eyes are deep hazel pools filled with understanding and compassion. Her voice washes over me, cooling my rage. “You saw how fucked up I was, yet you took my hand and you lifted me out of that shit. You don’t know how grateful I am for that. It is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.”
“What do you think you can do?”
“I know I can’t fix you,” she says. “But I can listen. I can be here. Even if you just want to sit quietly, we can do that. Will you sit with me?”
Her outstretched hand is a welcome promise. I seize it. It takes all of my strength to entwine my fingers with hers. Her skin is so soft, so warm. Her lips curl upwards in a kind smile that I’ve never seen from her before — it’s loving, it’s genuine. It makes my heart ache in my chest.
“Come with me,” she whispers.
Her voice is gentle, like the soft answer to an unspoken prayer.
This is what I need.
She is what I need.
For the first time, I see the beauty of her beneath the seductive curves and sensuous smile.
I squeeze her hand.
“Thank you.”