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“Tonight,” he answers with a frown.
“Tonight, let me be the responsible one. You can pick it right back up tomorrow with a hell of a hangover. Sound good?”
He nods. “I appreciate you, Cash.”
I give him a quick dip of my head. “Any decent man would do the same.”
He sucks in a deep, fortifying breath, as I pull the door open.
Word of his father’s passing has already begun circulating, I realize when Walker’s gaze lingers on Chandler for a long moment before he pours the man a shot and declares his drinks are on the house tonight.
For hours the jukebox plays nothing but fast-paced rock and roll, and Chandler drinks like a fish. His smile is genuineafter a handful of shots when a woman I’ve never seen asks him to dance.
“Think he’s going to be okay?” Walker asks, as he inches closer to me while wiping down the bar.
“He has to be,” I answer honestly. “What other choice does he have?”
He mentioned having a great childhood. He said he had no regrets where his father was concerned. He simply wished he had more time with him. Their relationship grew by leaps and bounds when his father was first diagnosed with cancer a few years back. They both thought when he went into remission that his father was given a second lease on life. He said they didn’t take the gift they were given for granted, and I think that’s the best anyone can do.
“He’s all alone,” Walker says, and I feel the pain in his voice. I know it has to do in part with him losing his brother.
Ronnie told me once that he didn’t know how Walker survived after Jason was shot and killed. He said he couldn’t live a day without Donnie, and his twin was quick to agree.
“He’s not alone,” I argue. “He has us.”
“His family is gone.”
“You don’t have to be bound by blood to be family,” I remind him.
He looks at me in a way that tells me he’s only now realizing who he’s talking to.
Instead of apologizing like a lot of people would, he knocks his knuckles on the bar twice and walks away.
Maybe I was wrong about not knowing what it was like to lose someone you can’t imagine losing.
Isn’t that exactly what I’m going through right now with Adalynn?
I refuse to worry about my own problems right now, as I watch a drunken Chandler grinning from ear to ear as the woman who’s dancing with him laughs at something he told her.
Time ticks on, and Chandler doesn’t stop accepting drinks from people.
The woman he was dancing with gave up on him two hours into his maniacal laughter.
Walker looks at me like I’ve done something wrong when he drops a beer bottle as he tries to stumble to the bathroom.
I take it as our sign to leave, directing him toward the front door instead.
Thankfully, the parking lot is nearly empty when he presses his head against my truck to piss before climbing inside with a grunt that tells me it took him more effort than it should.
“I’m going to feel like shit tomorrow,” he complains, with his face smashed to the closed window.
“Just so long as the vomit makes it into the trash or toilet, you’ll be fine.”
“I don’t puke when I drink,” he says, but he turns out to be a liar when he nearly falls off my tiny front porch so he can upchuck into the neglected bushes.
I check on him twice through the night to make sure that he’s still lying face down on the couch because I’m fearful of him choking on vomit.
I can only pray that he had time to sober up because my couch is empty by the time I wake up the following morning.
