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“Nice to meet you,” the bartender says. “I’m Luke.”
“The usual,” Dad says. “Two.”
“You got it.” Luke slides two drinks in front of us.
Dad raises his glass. “To my firstborn.”
I grab mine and clink it to his. Then I take a drink—
My eyes tear as what can only be battery acid burns my throat. “What the hell is this?” I gasp.
“You were expecting Peach Street?”
“Maybe not here, but I sure wasn’t expecting this rotgut.”
“You get used to it,” Dad says. “In fact, you learn to like it on occasion.”
I grew up with the finer things—for the last eleven years anyway, and before that, I never tasted alcohol. I’m used to good wine and spirits, which this brown stuff definitely is not.
“What occasion might that be?” I ask. “Surely not my twenty-first birthday.”
“You wouldn’t think so, would you?” Dad takes another sip of the crap and then exhales harshly. “It takes a bit, but there’s a strange beauty in the causticity of it.”
I chuckle and shake my head. “My first legal drink, and you bring me here?”
“Yes, your first legal drink, the minute you’re entitled to it.”
I shake my head again. Dad’s always marched to the beat of his own drummer, just like I do. But I don’t get what he’s doing here. I raise my eyebrows in question.
“I learned a lot about myself in this place,” he says. “Met a man named Mike, who in some ways I think might have been my guardian angel.”
I scoff at him. “I don’t believe in guardian angels.”
“I can understand why you don’t, given what you went through when you were young.”
“It’s not that, though you raise a good point. I just don’t believe in any of that stuff.”
“Fair point. I didn’t either, for my own reasons. I was older than you. Thirty-five. I remember because I’d just met your mother.”
Funny. At the time, I didn’t know Dad had been through something similar. How could he possibly believe in guardian angels either?
Aren’t parents supposed to protect their children? If my own father sold me off like chattel, how the hell could I believe in guardian angels?
My own father.
The words strike a chord in my head. In my heart.
My own father.
Floyd Jolly may have sold Donny and me, but my own father, Talon Steel, rescued us.
I sit here at the old dive bar, nursing the same rotgut that scorched my throat over a decade ago, waiting for my guardian angel. Someone to tell me I can live with everything. That Ashley and I can make it. That the past doesn’t matter.
I imagine some old-timer named Mike or Deke or Harold or Earl sidling up to the bar, letting me buy him a drink and imparting some wisdom that will change my life.
Instead, a young woman ambles up to me. “Hey, handsome.”
“Hey.”
“Buy a girl a drink?”
She’s dressed in a denim miniskirt and a faux-fur jacket. She’s attractive enough, brunette with brown eyes, and gold hoops dangle from her earlobes. It’s her lipstick that gives her away. It’s bright red, and it doesn’t work on her.
“Not interested,” I say.
“A hundred bucks, and I’ll do anything you want.”
I signal the barkeep. “Get the lady what she wants.”
“Now you’re talking.” Her voice is husky. She must be a smoker. “I’ll have a vodka tonic, Newly.”
Newly slides her drink over.
“You got a place to go?” she asks.
“Still not interested.” I flash my left hand at her.
She guffaws. “You think I care if you’re married?”
“You may not”—I clear my throat—“but I do. Enjoy the drink.” I throw some bills on the counter and walk out.
No guardian angel. No wisdom.
Only rotgut whiskey and now a headache.
“Hey, girl.” I fluff Penny’s head, and she sniffs my legs for several minutes. Smelling the cat, no doubt. I’m oddly happy about finding a home for Floyd’s cat, despite the throbbing in my temples.
I did a good thing, finding the kitty a home.
I wish it made me feel better about what I’m going to do now.
It doesn’t.
I let Penny out, drink a glass of water, and let her back in for the night. Then I walk to the bedroom.
Ashley is asleep on my side of the bed, her head cuddled in the fluffy pillow. Her hair is fanned out like a yellow curtain, and her cheeks are the lightest pink. Penny curls up on her bed in the corner, turns around twice, and settles in with a happy groan.
I want to wake Ashley.
Wake her and finally make love to her the way she deserves. I’ve had good intentions before—to do it slowly, sweetly—and I’ve never been able to slow down enough to lavish the attention on her that she deserves.
I want to. I want to so badly.
Especially because…
Tomorrow…
Tomorrow, she’ll hate me after I say what needs to be said.
But she’s sleeping so soundly, like an angel.
I can’t disturb such peaceful innocence. Not when I’m about to shatter it tomorrow.
