Chapter Three ♥
*
The glass hit the bar with a clank and when Daphne opened her eyes again, she saw that it was empty. The first one, she had been more willing to accept, but now, it was starting to get frustrating that she couldn’t fill it back up with her force of will.
“Another.” Her vision started to blur for only an instant, and then snapped back into focus as the bartender stepped up. He had a gently effeminate way of walking that reminded her of California.
“You sure, honey? That’s four since you sat down. You sure you don’t want to make them last?” He asked the question like he was covering his ass. Daphne almost understood that. After all, it was going to look bad for him if some tragedy were to befall her as a result of her drunkenness.
And who knows. Maybe he actually worried. Why he would, Daphne didn’t know. He was younger than her by long enough that he might not have known her. She pressed her lips together, held out the empty glass to him, and did what she always did when things had reached their worst point: she told the truth.
“What I want is not to be able to see straight.”
The bartender didn’t mirror her sly smile. His expression was resigned, and he filled up her glass for number five, adding “Well, if that’s what you’re trying to do, then you’re making good progress. Do you have keys?”
“Sure, right here,” Daphne said, pulling them from her pocket and dangling them above the bar. “Car’s a rental.”
“I’ll keep that in mind when I go joyriding. Give them here.” Even with the joke, he didn’t crack a smile. Just kept the same expression, like she was letting him down. Well, this was a bar, and their job was to serve alcohol. He could judge all he liked, but Daphne could drink all she liked.
“They’re mine,” Daphne answered, curtly. Maybe she could have been more polite. Maybe she didn’t want to be. She frowned as his gaze remained unswerving.
“You’re not driving like that.” He reached out for the keys, and she pulled them away. He didn’t look pleased with her, but that was no different from every other man that she had in her life right now. Adding one more bartender didn’t change a thing.
“Sure I’m not. But I just like having them.” Maybe she was being childish. Knowing that didn’t make her want to stop.
“That’s now how this works, sweet heart.” He almost looked sad to have to say it. Something inside Daphne, a soft spot she thought had grown over, almost showed itself. “You’re going to give them up, or I’m going to have Bruno over there come take them.”
“I need the key to get into my hotel room,” she lied. The keys were plastic cards, and she guessed that the bartender knew it. But he didn’t call her out on it, so in that way, at least, it was a small victory. Then again, he didn’t buy it, so victory or not, it was only the smallest.
“Then take it off the ring. But I’m taking the car keys.”
Daphne took a deep drink of amber from the glass. It didn’t even burn as it went down any more. If anything, it was the opposite. It felt wrong when her throat wasn’t tingling with alcohol. “You’re being a real piece of shit, you know that?”
“It’s my job. Now, I’ll trade you,” He gestured towards the empty glass in front of her. “A double bourbon whiskey from me, the car keys from you.”
“Deal,” Daphne said. She slid the whole ring of keys across the bar, abandoning the lie that she needed them to get into her hotel. The only thing she needed them for was her cuffs, and she wasn’t going to use them tonight. “Hey, you know—where are you going?”
The bartender had started to slide down the bar, finally able to leave her to her problems. A pile of glasses had formed on the corner of the bar, and he was already reaching down to pick one up when he answered her.
“I have other customers to deal with, you know.”
“Yeah, sure. Leave. Everyone does.” He didn’t hear her say it, but she wasn’t sure that she was saying it to him. The fact that she sounded pathetic wasn’t lost on Daphne. But she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do with herself now. She had tried to bring things to a close, tried to force Gabriel to recognize his responsibilities, at least in some small way, and… she’d failed utterly. What was she supposed to do but drink and admit that she was pathetic?
“Daphne? Are you… have you been drinking?” Major’s location changed, in her mind, from ‘somewhere far away’ to ‘somewhere far, far too close’ in an instant. She could smell him, and he smelled good.
“I’ve barely even gotten started drinking,” Daphne lied. She wasn’t a born liar, and the drink made it that much worse. Major didn’t call her bluff. “What do you want? You want to know where you can find Gabriel Knowles, too? He’s somewhere in town. Fuck if I care. It’s not like it matters.”
“Gabriel who? Is that the guy who you were trying to murder yesterday?” Major’s eyes bored into her soul again, and tore at whatever sense of guilt that she still had. She thought it was dead; apparently, she’d been mistaken. She looked away. It didn’t make it any easier to ignore. Every time he looked at her like that, it just reminded her of everything she’d done wrong. Reminded her that she could stop any time, and there would be someone to stand by her. It was a lie, though, and she knew it. Hated it.
“I tried to murder him again today, too. But he’s tougher than he looks.” She smiled over at him, hoping he’d be laughing at the joke. He wasn’t. She felt the wind go out of her sails, and looked back at the bar, tracing her finger around the rim of her glass. The last part was quiet; she wasn’t sure if she was talking to Major, or to herself. “No matter what you say to him, it just… slides right off.”
“What, just that, and you’re feeling this bad for yourself? I’m surprised.” Major stepped up to the bar beside her; his long legs slid onto the high stool seats like it was a kickstand. Those same eyes sparkled, as he tried fruitlessly to cheer her up. “You were always a cast-iron bitch when you wanted to be. I’d expect you to be wearing my balls around your neck on a chain, if I pissed you off that much.”
“Yeah, well, Major, you’re different from Gabriel.” She had years to realize exactly how different they were, and she’d spent those years questioning whether she’d made the right choice when she left one for the promise of the other. The grass was no greener, when she made it to the other side. If anything, the allegorical grass in California was just as dry and dead as the actual grass on the ground.
“How am I so different?” She felt him looking at her, hard. Waiting for an answer. He was jealous, she realized. The thought of it made her body tingle in a way that the alcohol wished it could, and she spoke without thinking.
“You’re a good guy, for one thing.” Seconds after the words came out of her mouth, Daphne realized what she had said. “Fuck. Forget I said that.”
She didn’t need to be getting mixed up in Major’s life again. He didn’t need her, and she sure as hell didn’t need to fall into his gravity again. She’d made it free once, and she had a life now. A life without him in it. She couldn’t—she wouldn’t—trade that life for him, no matter how nice his ass looked, or how good a guy he might seem to be.
“And if I don’t forget? What are you going to do to me?” The question was laced with something that fell between a threat and a promise. She wanted him to follow through on the threats almost as much as she wanted him to have kept them to himself.
“You sure you want to be taunting me? Maybe I’m like a cornered animal, ready to launch at the next person to make a threatening gesture towards me.” She took another deep drink, the last drop taking its sweet time making it to her tongue. She was patient, though. Sometimes you needed to be patient to get your man. She’d learned that lesson a long time ago.
“Maybe you are. But then again, I never could back down from your moods.” Now it was Major’s turn to sound pensive. It was a strange look on him. She’d always imagined him like a supernova. He was a force of nature that didn’t know what it was to the rest of the world. “I was like a moth to your flame.”
“Don’t pretend that you’re some defenseless little animal, Major. You’re like a fucking black hole for people. Get close, and you stay close.” She put the glass to her lips and lifted it again, then realized that it was empty. She put it back down on the bar and tried to will the bartender back over to her. She needed more to drink, because the more that this conversation kept on going, the more that she needed the drink, and she couldn’t bring herself to walk away from it. Even if Major would let her leave, she didn’t know if she wanted him to.
“You didn’t,” he said. The hurt in his voice was obvious, as old as the scars that were on her own heart, when she’d decided to tear it out all on her own.
“No, I didn’t.”
The bartender came back around, looked at Major and nodded. Whatever there was between them, they knew each other well, after years of going to the same places, knowing the same people, being two fish in the same small pond. He reluctantly poured another glass for Daphne, pulled a beer from the fridge for Major. The pair of them drank in silence for a few long minutes. Daphne wanted him to stay, wanted him to go, wanted him to kiss her, and wanted to forget she’d ever met him. She wasn’t sure which one was winning yet.
Major let out a breath, and finally broke the silence between them. “Leo got arrested.”
“No shit? What did he do?” Daphne racked her brain for a time that Leo had ever done anything wrong. He hung out with a crowd of hooligans, sure. Dane more than Major, and Major more than Leo. If anything, she’d have called him tame, when she knew him. If he’d turned into a crook, even a low-level one, it was such a shift in attitude that she couldn’t imagine it.
Major crushed that line of thought in an instant. “He didn’t do anything. I know for a fact he didn’t do anything. But try telling that to the cops. ‘Yeah, you should let my best friend go, because I can vouch for him. Proof? Just my word.’”
He wasn’t wrong. There were alibis and there were alibis. The word of someone who would almost certainly lie for you—and anyone around here would know that Major would lie for Leo in a heartbeat—meant something, but if there was any reason to suspect it might be faulty, it would be the first thing to get thrown out.
The only words that came to mind were meaningless platitudes. It sunk her mood even further into the pit that she had fallen into. “It’ll work out, trust me.”
“You sound so sure of yourself,” Major said, pulling a drink from the bottle in his hands. He wasn’t looking at her any more. The thought of Leo had put him into a dark mood to match her own, and now he looked into the middle distance, lost in his thoughts.
“I deal with criminals every day, and Leo’s not one of them. Nobody seriously believes he’s guilty. You’ve just got a cop looking for someone to collar.” Daphne set a hand on his shoulder and instantly regretted it. “They’ll figure it out sooner or later, and even still, he’s got plenty of strong character witnesses. Bartender!”
He looked at her again, whatever black mood that had overtaken him shaken him off for the moment. He put an arm around her shoulder as he spoke, brooking no argument. “You’ve had enough, Daphne. Let me take you back home.”
“You don’t even know where I’m staying,” Daphne protested.
“I know that you can tell me.”
He didn’t mean for her to hear what she heard in his voice. Some part of her knew that he was only planning on taking her home. But another part of her saw what she wanted to see, and she knew that what she wanted was for him to take her home, and take her to bed.
“I don’t know if I can go home yet,” she lied.
“There’s nothing for you here. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
Maybe he was right. Maybe she was just feeling lost and alone, and after a few hours of sleep, she would feel better. Maybe the whole problem that she was facing down was down to a lack of sleep and a building sense of helplessness.
“Alright, fine. I’ll come quietly.”
She let him guide her through the crowd, her head down. She felt herself starting to relax. It was a signal in her mind, one that she didn’t know how to interpret at first. But it became clearer to her as the moments passed, what had happened. And she hated it.
“Good,” Major said into her ear, lighting a little fire of self-satisfaction that she hated. Her feet planted on the floor. “Don’t stop.”
“Fuck. God. I’m letting it happen again. I’m not doing this again. Not a third fucking time.”
Daphne shrugged his arm off and stepped back. It didn’t matter which direction she went, as long as Major wasn’t there. As long as she could keep control of herself, make her own decisions. As long as Major didn’t make them for her. It was maddening. What was she supposed to do now? He reached for her, set an arm on her shoulder again. His voice was low and soothing and almost made her feel like everything wasn’t going crazy. If only that were the case.
“Just let me take you home. You’re drunk. You’ll feel better in the morning. I promise.”
“I’m not getting dragged into another guy’s pace.” She needed to get clear of him. Needed to get clear of all of them, really. Major would just be the first. “You know what, Major?”
“What?”
“Leaving you was the best thing I ever did.”
The words stung as they left her lips, even to herself. It was the cruelest thing she could think to say, and saying it hurt her, too, because it was a lie that destroyed the foundations of whatever base she’d built for herself in her life.
As much as it hurt her, it must have hurt Major that much more. She could see the words strike home in his expression, shocked to the point where he seemed to struggle to find words. Then hurt gave way to anger, and the words found him again.
“Fine. You want to be like that, then you can do whatever the fuck you want.”
“I will. You don’t own me.” She spoke more to herself than to Major’s retreating back. “Gabriel doesn’t own me. Bartender! Another.”
The bartender’s expression was inscrutable, or Daphne was too drunk to read him. He poured her another drink without an argument, and she drank it without waiting around to make it look like she was trying to pace herself. A man, tall enough to tower over her, and with a body like a plumber, slid up next to her. He glanced at her for only a moment, but Daphne noticed.
“You look like you’re drinking to escape something,” he said, blithely.
“What’s that supposed to mean? What do you think you’re looking at?”
The guy looked genuinely surprised that she was as angry as she was. He didn’t realize what he was getting himself into. A wicked part of Daphne’s subconscious made a note of how much easier that would make it to kick his ass. He didn’t see it coming one bit.
“Doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “Sorry.”
“Sure it doesn’t,” she said, her anger starting to boil over the rim of her self-control. Her hands balled up into tight fists. “I’ll wipe that smug look off your face.”
Then she took a swing up at his jaw.