18
He Saw She Wasn’t Safe
Aiden
Bernie waved from behindthe bar when I walked into the Old Cellar.
The place smelled like beer and aged wood, and the bartender’s bald head shone under the dimmed lights. He slung a plaid tea towel over his shoulder and pointed to where Harry slumped over the bar.
“He’s had a few,” Bernie called out to me, shaking his head.
I grunted. A few, huh?
Harry’s skinny legs twisted around the wooden stool with a wet coaster stuck under his cheek for good measure. I glanced at the drink in front of him. Droplets of water slithered down the empty beer glass. The kid couldn’t handle booze. He rarely touched the stuff out of principle—probably because of the ugly shit he’d lived through with his father—and without an ounce of fat on him, he had zero tolerance.
I rested my bandaged hand on his back.
“Go ’way,” Harry grumbled. “Sleeping.”
He shrugged my hand off and buried his face deeper into the crook of his arm. I gave him a shake. His muffled groan was easy enough to decipher:Piss off, old man.
“Hey, Bernie!” I called.
He lumbered over, the uneven, clunking steps a reminder of his motorcycle accident a few years back. He was lucky he made it.
Bernie cocked his head. “You jumping on the wagon with him, big fella?”
“Nah, nothing for me.” I nodded at the empty glass. “How many did he have?”
Bernie chuckled. “I cut him off at two beers. Your boy can’t handle his liquor.” He pointed to the booth in the corner. A group of women giggled and clinked cocktail glasses. No one looked familiar—probably tourists. “One of those troublemakers might have snuck him a couple of vodka shots when I wasn’t looking.”
I scrubbed a hand down my face. Harry was well and truly toasted. I’d be hauling his butt back to my truck and taking him up to my place to sleep it off. His mother wouldn’t handle it. She’d sniff the booze on him and drop into a panic attack. Those memories hadn’t left her just because her husband had shot through town.
I wrapped an arm around Harry and tried to lift him off the stool. Even drunk, he wriggled more than a worm on a hook. The second I got a firm grip under his armpits, he twisted and slipped out of my grasp to snuggle back on the wood.
“Don’t wanna go.” Harry’s flailing arm stopped me from getting my hands back on him. A wayward palm smacked me on the chin—a lucky hit. “Dreaming ’bout the Sunshine Princess.”
Dreaming about the…what?
“Kid, come on.” I seriously didn’t need this. I’d give anything to pop a few painkillers and head to bed. My hand throbbed like hell, and Lola had twisted my heart in a knot I’d never unwind. “Time to go—”
A deep grunt of pain finished my sentence when my side slammed into the edge of the bar.
What the…?
Someone had damn near tackled me. I flashed an annoyed glare over my shoulder, only to be met with panicked eyes behind enormous gold-rimmed glasses.
“S-sorry.” Lola’s apology was rushed. She had no interest in talking to me. “Hey! Hi! Bernie!” Her breath came in gasps as if she’d sprinted from the clinic. “A white wine, please.”
Bernie’s lips curled in an amused smile. “I’ve got a nice Riesling—”
“Anything.” Lola waved her hand to hurry the order along. “Just give me whatever you’ve got.”
The creases on Bernie’s forehead bunched tighter when his eyebrows rose. Lola didn’t notice his surprise—or mine. She was distracted. Her hands fidgeted in the folds of her skirt, and her hair bobbed up and down from the impatient way she bounced nervously on the spot.
When Bernie slid the drink in front of her, she launched on it like lightning. She snatched the glass, tipped it up to her pretty lips, and the wine disappeared in huge gulps.
The empty glass clinked on the bar when Lola plonked it down. “May I please have another—”
