Page 7 of Silver Player

“Now, you’re just being cruel,” he mocks, but there’s another hint of seriousness in his words.

“Sorry, man. I’m just…I’m still in shock.”

Clyde nods, dismissing my apology. “What are you going to do?”

I tip my head back to the computer screen. “I guess I’m going to purchase a paternity test and take things one step at a time.” Only I don’t even know what those steps should be. The root-clutching sensation returns.

“Well, that’s how babies learn to walk. One step at a time,” Clyde states, sitting taller in his chair and proud of his advice.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” I mean, she isn’t exactly a baby. She’s a teenager, and I’m not certain what would be worse—an infant or a female on the edge of womanhood. My eyes close with the second thought.

I fucking snarked at her, telling her she was too young for me. I’m a sick fuck.

Infant, I decide. Definitely an infant would be easier than accepting I need to interact with a teenager, a girl no less, who I should be teaching to avoid men—boys—like me.

“You okay, boss?” Clyde asks as my stomach pitches, and I smooth a hand down my lower belly.

Oh God. She needs to be protected from men like me. She needs to be locked up, not let out of the house, not allowed to date until she’s thirty, and even then…

“Boss?”

Bile rises up my throat as reality hits me.

I have a daughter. And one day, she might encounter a man like me.

“I…”

“Billy?” Clyde stands at the same time as I do as though he expects me to spray him with the vomit nearly to my throat. Instead, I rush to the private bathroom off my office and empty the contents of my stomach into the toilet.

I can’t be a father. I’d be the worst dad.

+ + +

While I’m no alcoholic, I know all the stages of the twelve-step recovery program. None of those steps fit how I feel, so I’m jumping to a shorter list: the five stages of grief. I’m still in denial but working my way into anger, and it’s in full flare when I cross over Third Avenue to one unneighborly bookstore before her closing time. BookEnds is one of the last places I’d enter if given a choice.

First off, I don’t read. Period. I don’t like books or what they stand for or anything about them. Too many words. Not enough pictures. Plus, I have more exciting things to do with my time than stare at letters on a page.

Second, from the moment BookEnds opened, its owner has been a pain in my ass. Within the first few months of her opening, she called the cops with a noise complaint for an outdoor concert on my property. It’s not my fault she lives above her shop and couldn’t handle a little late-night rebel-rousing music. From the moment I confronted her, we’ve been at each other’s throats, so I make it a mission of mine to stay away from her.

Part of the issue is that Roxie’s one of the few women in town who seems numb to my flirty personality. She doesn’t take my shit, and that pisses me off.

My sister, Mati, is our event’s idea person, as I dub her, and one idea she has for improving business is making peace with the bookstore owner and offering a books and brew night to feature popular books with coordinating beers. It’s a ridiculous idea, but Mati was rather insistent on it until the permit for our annual Oktoberfest was requested, and we’ve hit a setback—again—because of this damn bookstore. But I’m not here tonight about the permit issue.

“So how do we do this?” I demand, swinging open the door and stepping into the dim lit store. There are just so many books in here. I shiver.

“We’re closed,” Roxanne mutters, but with the lights still on and the door unlocked, she’s lying.

I stalk the few feet to the counter where she lingers over a book under her bent arms. This woman. She can feel my glare, I’m certain of it, but she doesn’t look up in my direction.

“Roxie,” I drone.

“William,” she states in that grating tone without glancing up.

Dammit.

“We need to talk.”

“Oh, now you want to speak with me?” She pauses to flip a page of the book under her gaze, still not lifting her eyes. “Well, I’m busy,” she repeats my words from earlier.