After talking with Jordan a bit, I realize he’s funny. I have been laughing so much the past few minutes, I must be halfway to a full six-pack. He also just broke up with an ex, so it was nice to lay that out there and have him feel the same way. He was just in the middle of telling me about a hike he and John went on that ended with them getting airlifted off the mountain after a mountain lion chased them a good couple miles through the Arizona forests until they got lost. I’m laughing so hard I spill my drink everywhere. Jordan jumps up to help me start wiping it up, and he grabs my hand to ask if I’m okay when I feel it.
The change in the air around me. I turn to look around and am transfixed by a dark force clad in black, headed this way with a furious expression on his face. He eats up the distance between us quickly, his strides impossibly long, as if some force is pulling him over here.
When he approaches us, he pulls my hand out of Jordan’s grasp and puts himself slightly in front of me before he speaks darkly.
“How about you take your fucking hands off my girl before I remove them from your body.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
kane
Work Song – Hozier
What a fucking Monday. The day has gotten progressively worse from where it started. I’m here for yet another extra shift to help Seth, exhaustion hitting down to the very bone at this point, but it was either this or sit at home all night and contemplate my CPS call and what the fallout could be. My mind has whirled since my interaction with Trevor this morning. The very last thing I want to do is serve drinks on a Monday night to people who can barely utter the word please.
Thoughts of quitting have been hitting me more and more now that I have access to my trust. I wanted to leave it untouched as long as possible, but constantly being here night after night is starting to wear on me. I feel as if these past few months I have been stuck buffering in life, unsure where my path should take me next.
I had been thinking about going back to school—maybe to get my master’s and become a therapist. I’d always thought I’d like to be someone who works with foster kids orkids from abused homes, but I don’t know. This is usually something I would run by Avery, making my already jumbled thoughts worse with the growing urge to text her. All I thought of all weekend was what I should say next. I told her she could take some time to figure out what she wanted because I knew what I wanted, but then I worried that maybe I wasn’t clear enough when I said I wanted her.
I need her, in whatever capacity I can have her. I’m ready to let her in fully.
Steve and I talked about it during my last lunch session with him, about letting myself be my most honest self around her and trusting that she will keep that part of me safe. It’s been nice to talk to Steve and have him help me discover new parts of myself I haven’t appreciated before—how strong I am for getting on the right medication and letting someone help me sort through the mess my childhood left me with.
He helped me talk through the explosion with my parents and how finally letting them know how I felt frees me from the weight that has been on my shoulders. It was a good step in my healing, finally feeling safe enough within myself to tell them how I feel without knowing how they would react.
After spending the weekend ruminating on ideas of what to say to her, I feel ready to lay it all out there—even if she just wants to fight with me. I will let her rage at me all night if it means I get to be in her space again. These past few months have been some of the hardest in my life, harder in a way my childhood never was. I know that because I would relive that repeatedly if it meant I ended up meeting her every single time. Those years feel inconsequential compared to the way the past few months have felt without her.
The noise in the bar snaps me back to focus as I notice Lindsay at the other end—the little five-foot spitfire putting a man more than twice her size in his place. I give her a few moments before stepping in, but once I see she has the situation handled, I turn my focus to the couple in front of me.
I take their order and start on their drinks. The gleaming back wall of bottles looms over me—all two hundred and eighty-three bottles that decorate the back wall are stored with the more frequently used ones at the bottom and the more expensive bottles lining the top shelves. The count varies by season. The crowds seem to be bigger in the winter and spring months, leaving people to find things to do indoors to avoid the cold that moves in.
The hours behind the bar fly by, along with even a short stint in the kitchen when they need extra hands. Our usual line cooks have been taken down one by one with this virus going around, leaving the bar short-staffed. I spend the last hour in the back before I finally get to take a breather and cross the threshold that separates the back of the bar from the front. The crowd has grown since I went back there, so I survey the bar to see where I might be most useful until I hear it: that laugh. Something I could recognize long after every breath leaves my body.
I look around for the source of my every fantasy until I see her next to Morgan. Her long brown hair drapes over her shoulders—the maroon top she is wearing shows off her ample cleavage, and I feel the fire start to spread through my veins. The bright smile on her face blinds me for a moment, the radiance of it catching my breath.
My vision turns red as I glance over to see the cause of that look. A brown-haired douche sits way too close to my girl and makes her fuckinglaugh.
As if anything that pretty boy can say would be funny.
I huff out a breath through my nose and try to quiet the raging I feel inside my chest. My vision is hazy with one clear focus as I watch her lean over and touch the side of his arm while she laughs, the action causing her drink to spill all over the table. I don’t realize I’ve started moving until I see the distance between us getting shorter. I make it to the table just as he reaches over and grabs my girl’s hand.
I black out as I rip his hand from hers and shove it away. I take a small step in front of her as if I can shield her from him.
“How about you take your fucking hands off my girl before I remove them from your body,” I threaten darkly, leaving no room for argument.
He takes a step back and raises his hands. “Hey, man, there’s no need for that. I was just checking that she was okay.”
“Well, next time don’t touch someone without their permission,” I spit as I cross my arms.
“Kane, stop it.” I feel small hands pull at my elbow, my gaze unmoving from this jackoff. My blood is still pumping, rage still simmering low throughout my body.
“We were just talking, man,” the fucker reasons as he looks at Avery behind me, as if he has a right to her.
“Well don’t,” I command.
“Kane,” I hear again as the hands grab onto my elbow and plead with me to look at her. Yet I remain unmoving.
“Hey, she can talk to whoever she wants,” the fucker has the nerve to say to me.
