“Have you talked to her?” Dani asks the moment she walks into the office.
I don’t even bother looking up from my paperwork. “Fuck that.”
She sighs, the sound echoing in the silent room. When she flops into the chair across from my desk, I mimic her sigh and shove the papers that I’d been going over aside. It’s obvious she’s here for a reason, and I may as well get this over with.
“Come out with it,” I huff.
I’d come straight home after the hearing, Dani silent in the car beside me, and dropped her off at the coffee shop before making a beeline for the bar. I’d spent the rest of the night throwing myself into work, my mind never wandering far from the events of the day.
I’d been in a terrible mood, but I didn’t think it had been that obvious. Apparently, I was wrong, because the place had cleared out early, not even the regulars wanting to hang around. I was thankful for the solitude though, needing to be by myself and not wanting to ruin my business by taking my anger and hurt out on anyone that didn’t deserve it.
After locking up I sat down at the bar, going straight for the bottle, not even bothering to use a glass. Even though I’d wanted to drown my sorrows, I didn’t.
In the past, I’d always used alcohol as my crutch, my escape. But it only ever brought temporary relief, and usually the aftermath of my benders was far worse than the reason I had gone on it to begin with.
Alcohol had always been a way to numb the pain, the sadness, the ugly thoughts that would run through my head. But I was already numb without the liquor-induced fogginess.
I wanted to fucking feel again.
Dani snaps her fingers, waving her hand in my face. “Hello? You there?”
With a shake of my head, I apologize. “Sorry.”
She leans forward, resting her forearms on her knees, her eyes level with mine. “Talk to me, Bronn. Tell me what’s going on in there.”
Her face is laced with concern, a fucking look I am all too familiar with.
Guilt washes over me in waves, a feeling that I’m not sure I’ve ever really experienced before.
“I’m sorry, Dani,” I tell her, my eyes meeting hers and holding her gaze. She blinks several times, the concern turning to confusion.
“For what?”
“For always making you look at me like that.” I wave my hand in her direction. “You’ve spent most of your life worried about me, always a concerned look on your face. And it’s my damn fault.”
“You’re my little brother.” She lifts a shoulder, a halfhearted smile on her face. “I’m supposed to look out for you.”
“I ever tell you thanks? Ever once?” I ask sincerely.
When her face registers shock, my stomach sinks.
I’ve been a fucking asshole.
She continues to stare at me, her eyes wide, as though I’ve just told her I’m really the Pope, making me feel even shittier.
“Bronn…” she whispers. “I don’t need you to tell me thank you.”
“Well, you may not need it, but you fucking deserve it,” I whisper fiercely. “You’ve put up with all of my shit over the years. I don’t know how you’ve done it.”
“All I have ever needed from you was for you to live a good, happy life. Because that’s what you deserve. What you’ve always deserved.” She pauses, swallowing hard, her face becoming serious.
I know that she’s about to launch into a lecture, but for once I’m not pissed by it. I want to hear what she has to say.
“These last few months, honey, I have seen a change in you that I didn’t think I would ever see.” Her eyes cut away from mine, but just as fast she looks back and sits up straighter. “And it’s because of Grace.”
My stomach sinks when I realize where this is going, but I’m determined to keep my cool. What I’m not ready to do is talk about Grace Monroe.
I shake my head. “Please, don’t go there.”
She holds up a hand. “Hear me out, Bronnson.”
I press my lips together, leaning back in my chair to signal that I’m listening. I’ll give her the benefit of that, but it’s a waste of her time and her breath, and I think even she knows it.
“You remember a few weeks before Grace showed up, that night we went out together?”
I nod, remembering what she’s referring to.
“You got into that fight over a fucking seat at the bar. A fist fight, over a bar stool.”
It had been one of many fights over trivial things. It didn’t take much to set me off.
“But then Grace showed up. And you haven’t been in a fight since. And other than that one night, you’ve barely had more than a drink or two. Even last night, you didn’t get shitty. You know, I’d braced myself for the phone call, the one where I had to come bail your ass out of jail, again. And it never fucking came. And I want to say that I’m surprised. But I’m not. Because you aren’t the angry, self-loathing asshole you used to be. And it’s because of Grace Monroe.”
“You mean Grace Chumley?” I snap. Saying her name causes me to flinch, the act of the words leaving my mouth almost painful.
“Whatever her name is, it doesn’t matter! She didn’t kill our father. And she can’t control who her parents are any more than you could control who yours were.” Her words hurt, because they’re true.
How can I hold Grace’s father against her?
“You know that, Bronnson, you just don’t want to admit it.”
I shake my head and push to my feet. Not wanting to continue this conversation any longer, I stride to the door, pausing when my hand hits the knob.
I whirl toward my sister, still sitting in the chair, her face a mix of both patience and hope. “Dani, I appreciate what you’re saying. And maybe you’re right. God knows I wouldn’t have chosen my mother if given the chance.”
She jumps to her feet. “Then call her. Go to her. Talk to her. Don’t you think she needs you right now? God, don’t you need her?”
“No.”
“No?” she questions, her face falling. The hope that was shining in her eyes begins to dim, and that pesky guilt tugs at my heart again. I hate being the reason for the sadness that’s taken over her pretty features, but it is what it is.
“Listen, she may not be able to choose who her parents are, but she’s insistent that he didn’t fucking kill Dad. Our dad, Dani.” I don’t understand why she isn’t just as upset by all of this as I am. “And she’s going to want a relationship with that man. How the hell am I supposed to sit by while she forges ahead trying to save him? Can you fucking imagine Christmas? Going to visit the man who destroyed us and wishing him a happy holiday?” I laugh, the sound hollow, devoid of humor. “There’s no chance of it ever working. There are bars between us now, and nothing is going to make that fact any better.”
“You’re right,” Dani concedes, “she is going to want a relationship with him. But—“
“No buts! Her father took ours away from us! I can’t, no matter how badly I may want to, continue anything with her while she reconnects with him.”
“She thought her dad was dead for seventeen years!”
“Yeah, while ours actually was dead!” I snap.
“And you’re telling me that if Dad walked through the doors right now, you wouldn’t jump at the chance to see him? To get to know him? To talk to him?”
I shake my head. “Of course I would. But he didn’t fucking kill anyone!”
Dani stands, crossing the room and coming to a stop in front of me. “Dad wasn’t the amazing man you’ve always built him up to be.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I don’t care what kind of man he was. It doesn’t matter because he’s gone. And has been. Because of Mickey.”
“There are things you don’t know,” she says, her voice low.
Her eyes plead with me to listen, to be open-minded.
I sigh, the weight of the situation bogging me down. “I don’t want to know, Dani. Please, just let it go.”
She gives a curt nod of her head, her lips pressed together, and my chest lightens, knowing that she’s not going to push anymore. At least for now.
As Dani slips out of the office, without another word, I stride back over to my chair, throwing myself in it.
I laugh at the fucking injustice that is my life.
Of course the woman that I am ridiculously in love with would be the daughter of the one man that I wished were dead. Of course this would be the hand I was dealt. After the shit show that’s been my entire existence, I finally have something good going.
The bar is mine, something I’d worked my ass off for. I didn’t think it would ever happen, but it did, and I never even had the chance to tell Grace about it. I want to pick up my phone, call her, share my good news. She would be thrilled for me. Her voice would rise the way it did whenever she got excited about anything. She would insist we celebrate with fancy champagne and a shrimp boil. I laugh at the contrast. But that was Grace. An enigma.
I finally had an amazing woman in my life, a person that I felt connected to, someone that I could confide in. She’d seen me during my low points, had known me well enough to know that I didn’t need to be coddled, and had told me to man up. I chuckle, remembering how feisty she can be when she knows she’s right about something.
I didn’t realize until Grace walked into my bar that I was looking for something, that I didn’t want to spend my life alone, the way I had always claimed. It had just taken the right woman to show me that I wasn’t the perpetual fuck up that everyone thought I was.
Of course this would be how the fuck it turned out.