Chapter 1
Darren
The week usually felt long, but once Friday rolled in, it helped make the grind all worth it. When I worked, I worked very hard; and, when I didn’t work, I didn’t work very hard.
I worked at Mel’s Air Conditioning & Heat, one of the top A/C companies in northwestern Georgia. I’d been working there for nearly three years, and business was never slow.
I lived in a small town called Rome. The springs and summers were hot, and fall and winter brought the cold. It didn’t snow as often as it did when I was growing up in Rome, but there was consistently a need for our services. I worked a full forty hours every week, and I was always given major holidays off.
Sometimes there was an emergency, but rarely did it require Mel to call me in. He usually saved the emergency calls for Garrett Newton, my best friend and co-worker.
Garrett started working at Mel’s only a couple of weeks before I did, and he insisted that I join up so that we could work together and hang out. We usually worked the same days and hours, and we generally chilled together on the weekends. We crashed at each other’s places constantly, and we often found trouble together.
On one particular Friday, we were especially eager to go out and do something. I wasn’t sure what Garrett had in mind, but we both agreed we wanted to do something besides hang and play video games.
“It’s almost six,” Garrett mentioned as we unloaded the work truck.
“About damn time,” I replied.
“Some weeks really fly by,” said Garrett. “This wasn’t one of them.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I agree.”
“Friday night,” he said. “We getting fucked up or what?”
“Define ‘fucked up.’”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I was thinking we’d go out for drinks and hopefully meet some girls willing to trade free drinks for sex.”
“Then we probably want to go to Chelsea’s,” I said. Chelsea’s was a local bar that we liked going to on weekends that had incredible drink specials and many beautiful women.
“All right, then. We’re going out for drinks tonight,” said Garrett. “I’ll buy the first round.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Garrett and I took turns driving us to work each morning, and today, it was my turn. We stopped work right at six, got in my ’10 Ford Focus and hit the road.
“You workin’ tomorrow?” Garrett asked.
“Nah, he’s having me work long on Monday,” I answered.
“You’ll probably make overtime next week,” he said.
“I should be coming in right at forty,” I said. “I wish I was making overtime. I need to have a savings account again.”
Over the last three years, I’d made some extravagant purchases that emptied out most of my bank accounts. I bought my Focus with cash so I wouldn’t have to pay ungodly amounts of interest over a chunk of my life. Also, I’d loaned a lot of money to Garrett over the past few years for various things. He wasn’t in a rush to repay, and I wasn’t in a rush to collect. And, I bought a house making a significant down payment. Even though I was taking home good paychecks and getting full-time hours, my bank accounts told the world that I was struggling and in trouble.
There was never much traffic in Rome, but there was some kind of holdup on one of the main train tracks in town. While we waited, I turned on the radio, and Garrett smoked a cigarette.
“I have to get some tonight, man,” said Garrett. “It’s been far too long.”
I laughed. “It’s been three weeks. You can’t function without sex for only a few weeks?”
“You’re one to talk,” he said. “You were bitching and complaining just last week about how you needed some pussy.”
“It’s been three months since I’ve gotten laid. I have the right to complain.”
“Whose fault is it that?” he asked.
“Hey. Believe it or not, I do have some standards, okay? Some of these girls around here have slept with damn near every man in Georgia. You have to be careful.”
As we continued our drive quietly, eventually the radio broke our silence.
“WCHR in Atlanta,” said the radio DJ. “I’ve been playing this song on repeat lately. It’s a good one. She’s a new name in the mainstream, but she’s quite familiar throughout our neck of the woods! This is Bailey Wright, and this is her latest song. It’s called ‘Where Are You Now.’”
My heart dropped at the sound of her name, and I was unable to listen to her song. Before she could sing the first lyric, I changed the station.
Garrett gave me a knowing smirk. “Not in the mood to hear Bailey’s new song?”
“Not even a little,” I said.
I expected him to continue with some snide quips, but he left it alone. He knew just how familiar I was with Bailey Wright and didn’t want to upset me.
Bailey was a rising star, but I knew her before she started becoming famous. Once she left Rome for Memphis, I made it a mission to forget all about her. Even after six years, it was still a regular challenge.
Once Garrett and I arrived at Chelsea’s, we quickly found our usual seats. Gina, the bartender, gave us our usual drinks with an additional free shot of whiskey.
Before I could drink my whiskey, a man walked into the bar and sat a few seats away from us. He didn’t notice me when he entered, otherwise, he would have sat right beside me. This man was Wayne Wright: Bailey’s father.
Garrett laughed upon recognizing Wayne. “Get the hell outta here. Darren, you see who that is?”
I stared down at my drink, frowning. “Of course, I do. What are the odds of me running into Bailey’s father right after one of Bailey’s songs starts playin’ on the radio?”
“Pretty good, actually,” said Garrett. “Rome ain’t that big.”
I downed my shot, trying to avoid looking in Wayne’s direction. It wasn’t like I didn’t want to speak to him, and I wasn’t harboring any negativity toward him. But I knew he would bring up his daughter, and simply hearing her name over the radio was enough to floor me.
But, Wayne eventually noticed me. We both looked at each other for a few seconds before he stood up from his seat, beaming.
“Darren Holt!” Wayne said.
“Mr. Wright,” I said as I stood up from my seat to shake his hand.
“How’ve you been, son?”
“Can’t complain,” I replied. “You remember Garrett Newton?”
“Sure, I do!” said Wayne as he shook Garrett’s hand.
“Nice to see you again, Mr. Wright,” Garrett said.
“Please, you’re not boys anymore. Call me Wayne.”
Wayne sat down beside me with his tall glass of beer.
“I haven’t seen you around here in months,” Wayne said. “What have you guys been up to lately?”
“Working,” I answered. “It’s been a busy year.”
“I believe that,” said Wayne. “The summers are gettin’ hotter, and the winters are gettin’ colder. I’ve been meaning to have my heat looked at for years. Once I really need it, it’s damned near useless.”
“I’ll check it out for you sometime if you’d like,” I said.
“That’d be great,” he said. “Which one of you’s the better A/C man?”
“Me,” said Garrett quickly.
“I’ll let him think that,” I retorted.
Wayne laughed, ushering over Gina. “I’d like another for me, and why don’t you get these boys whatever they want.”
“Wayne, that’s not necessary,” I told him.
“Nonsense,” he dismissed. “You’ve always been such a good kid. Don’t think anything about it.”
“Thanks, Mr. Wright,” said Garrett. “Er—I mean, Wayne.”
Wayne looked at Garrett. “I can’t remember, did you go to school with Darren and Bradley?”
“We went to the same school, but I graduated a couple years before they did,” he answered.
Gina brought Wayne over another beer and Garrett and me another shot of whiskey.
We all sat quietly and drank our booze, casually watching the game that was on. It was like we were all wondering who would bring Bailey up first.
“Bailey’s got a new single out,” Wayne said.
“Yeah, it was playing on WCHR when we were pulling in,” I said.
“She’s so talented,” said Bailey’s father. “I can’t even put into words how proud I am of her. She’s done more in her twenties than I’ve done my whole life.”
“Yeah,” I said. My stomach knotted up.
“She was always so scared that she wasn’t gonna make it,” said Wayne. “I knew she would. I knew she was going to make it big. I only wish her mother was still here to see it.”
“I’m sure she wishes that, too,” I said.
“She’s a real sweet girl,” he continued. “Have you two talked lately?”
“No,” I answered. “I haven’t talked to Bailey in a long time.”
“She asks about you sometimes,” said Wayne with raised eyebrows. “Just so you know.”
I hated the idea that my name even entered her thoughts, let alone escaped her lips. I couldn’t look at Wayne whenever he spoke about her.
“You should call her sometime,” suggested Wayne. “Or, you could even go see her. Tennessee isn’t so far away.”
“Maybe,” I said. I really meant no way. “I am happy that she has found success. She deserves it.”
“You could’ve found success too, you know,” said Wayne.
I chuckled. Gina came back once she saw that my glasses were empty.
“I’m good for now,” I told her.
“How long you two been working at Mel’s, anyway?” Wayne asked.
“About three years,” I replied. “You still working at the paper mill?”
“Sure am,” he answered. “It’ll have been thirty years for me next February.”
“Wow, congrats,” I said.
“Cheers!” Garrett added.
“You know,” I told Wayne. “If you wanted, I could come by sometime next week and check out your A/C and heat for you. No charge. It’s on the house.”
“That’d be so nice,” he said. “That’s so generous. Thank you, Darren.”
“Of course!”
“Or, and you can say no,” said Wayne. “maybe you could come on by tomorrow for dinner? It shouldn’t take long to look my system over. Let me pay you back with a good home-cooked meal. I’ll grill us up some steaks. What do you think?”
Part of me felt like I couldn’t say no. “Okay. Sounds good to me!”
Wayne didn’t stick around for much longer after that. We all had a few more drinks, shook hands, and he departed.
Garrett and I kept our eyes on the screens, watching the games in progress. I couldn’t stop thinking about Bailey and our past.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to think about her for much longer. My eyes soon found a woman sitting on the other side of the bar, nursing a margarita and glancing at me.
“Wayne’s a good guy,” Garrett said. “You think he’s onto something about reconnecting with Bailey?”
“Eh,” I said as I stared at the woman.
“You know she’d get back with you if you asked,” he said. “Even if you two didn’t want to try and work things out, you know you could always try and be friends again. There’s nothing wrong with friends.”
“I ain’t looking for friends,” I said as I downed my last shot. “I’m gonna go end my drought.”
I left Garrett and went to talk to the woman. Garrett and I often floated around bars and clubs whenever we saw girls we liked. So it wasn’t like I was abandoning him.
Truthfully, I wasn’t really talking to the girl at the bar because I was horny and absolutely needed sex. I couldn’t stand to have any more conversations centered on Bailey. I didn’t want to spend any more time reflecting on our past. Especially since I’d put in a lot of effort to forget about her.