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He tossed me a look before he stumbled through the door. He tripped on all the shit on his floor as I closed the balcony doors. I locked them tight as I heard him fall into bed, face planting straight into the pillow. The beer bottle tumbled from his hand, rolling across the floor as he groaned.
I pulled the hair tie out of my hair and wrapped it around the doorknobs, trying to put whatever measures I could between his drunken ass and a fall from his balcony.
“June 16th,” Drake said.
“Yes, that’s today’s date. What about it?” I asked.
“That was Ava’s birthday. Today would have been her sixth year birthday,” he said softly just before passing out.
Suddenly his strange behavior today all made sense. I felt for him. I couldn’t imagine the pain of losing a child, and the last effect of something so tragic. This man was truly imprisoned by the memories of his past.
CHAPTER 11
Drake
I slept on and off all through Monday and woke up to the sun blaring in my eyes. My head hurt, and my body was sore. The stale smell of beer permeated my room. I groaned as I pulled myself upright, planting my feet onto the floor so I could get my bearings. I pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes to try and rid them of sleep while my head pounded.
Fuck. I’d slept an entire day away.
I got up from the bed and took a step forward, but my foot caught onto something. I went tumbling to the floor, my hand smashing into something.
“Fuck!”
I could feel the blood trickling into the carpet as my eyes focused on what the fuck I’d just fallen onto.
A beer bottle. Fucking grand.
Pulling myself into my bathroom, I cleaned off the wound. This would put me out of the farm work today, which was fine with me. I had that damn mini-tour starting tomorrow, and the last thing I wanted to do was spend my last fucking free day mucking out stalls. I’d pay Paul his fair share and leave it at that, resolving myself to a shower and some fucking coffee.
I cleaned myself up and came out of the bathroom to find steam from the shower had filled up my room. I went over to the balcony doors to throw them open, but there was something holding them back.
“What the hell?”
I looked down and saw a ponytail holder wrapped around the doorknobs. I furrowed my brow as images of yesterday slowly bombarded my mind. Delia on the balcony. Cussing at her to go away. Her ordering me into bed.
Fuck. She had ordered me to bed? I remembered telling her the significance of yesterday’s date. It was Ava’s birthday. I had completely forgotten about her birthday until yesterday evening, while Delia was busy working on the itinerary for the tour. That was the reason why I was piss drunk all night. I was trying so damn hard to forget.
I threw on some clothes and pulled on my boots and went downstairs. I found my baseball cap and threw it onto my head, then dug around for some gauze. I got the bleeding slowed down, and taped it up so it wouldn’t bleed everywhere, and stuck the ponytail thing in my pocket.
Then, I found a note from Paul on the fridge.
Drake,
Gone to town with an interested cattle rancher. Might have two more heifers coming to live with us. Took the hauler just in case.
Paul
Great. No one was here. I fucking slept through lunch, so Elsie and Tammy were gone. Paul probably thought I was a lazy ass fuck. I had Delia’s damn hair tie in my pocket. I couldn't work on the damn ranch because of my hand, and I was still hung over from last night’s pathetic drunken mess.
What the hell was I supposed to do with my day?
I pulled my flask from my pocket and unscrewed the top. I tossed it back, draining the rest of its contents before I filled it back up. The only thing I could think to do was return Delia’s hair tie. It was dangerous for me to see her, and I was sure she didn’t want to see me, but I just couldn’t stay away from her. Returning a rubber band was lame as fuck, but it was either that or drink myself stupid.
So I plugged her address into my phone and took a walk.
Soon, I’d figured out how the hell she got here so early in the mornings. She didn’t live that far away. Only a couple miles in the opposite direction of my sister’s.
Thirty minutes later, I found myself on Delia’s porch. I noticed her porch light was on as the sun beat down on my back. I raised my hand to knock on her door. Three hard knocks and a kick with my boot resounded on the other side of the door, and I heard someone coming down the steps.
