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I left that shitty hotel room in the middle of Colorado after getting fired to do something I’d never done in my twenty-seven years of life.
Get drunk.
Fast forward two hours, and here I was, sitting on a bar stool in Hayden’s watering hole, drinking a rum and coke. Jack Sparrow drinks rum and he always looks like he is having a good time. So, I decided on rum.
I was going to get drunk tonight. Then, I was going back to my hotel room, getting naked and playing with myself while imagining smoke gray eyes and strong arms.
That’s what I was going to do.
Part of me wondered if I’d just told Mr. Moonie about what I’d witnessed, if my job would’ve been safe. The Hallow Ranch would have been taken away from the Langston family, ending generations of hard work and glory. Moonie Pipelines would have swept in after my admission, using my trauma as a tactic. Why should a madman, a murderer, keep a ranch? That would have been their angle.
I would have kept my job and gotten paid.
Mom would’ve been set for the next two years and maybe I could’ve been able to breathe easy again.
No, you wouldn’t have, Val.
Because Denver would have been rotting in prison and your guilt would eat you alive.
Why?
That man killed someone in front of me.
He was a murderer.
He was rude.
He was arrogant.
So why didn’t I rat him out?
He told me I could run to the sheriff if I wanted. He didn’t care. He had power here, in this town, in this state, but what about everywhere else? I could go to the FBI. A man was murdered three days ago, and nobody was doing anything about it.
The town buzzed with its usual calmness. No one was thinking twice about a man not being seen in three days. Was he a local? Was he just passing through? Is that why no one was talking about it?
“You need a refill?”
I looked from the TV above to the handsome, young bartender standing in front of me. He was cute, in a boyish sort of way, no older than twenty-three.
“Yes, please,” I answered.
His eyes took me in slowly, looking me up and down. “Sure thing, doll,” he said with a wink. Great. Now I was getting hit on by young men.
I wasn’t old, but I was closer to thirty. He didn’t have a mortgage to pay. He probably worked his shifts here at the local bar and did what he wanted. Fucked who he wanted fuck. Slept in. Went on trips. Hung out with his friends.
As he walked back to me, I studied him. He looked like a man with a lot of friends.
I didn’t have any friends.
I was twenty-seven, drunk for the first time ever, realizing my life was lame. I had no great stories to tell. I had nothing to brag about. I had no one to kiss me and tell me I looked pretty. I had no one in my bed at night.
“Here you go, doll.”
The drink slid in front of me as he leaned in, bracing his forearms on the wooden bar top. He was tall, probably only an inch or two taller than me. He was lean, though, skinnier than me.
Despite being tall, he didn’t have the ability to make me feel small, not like Denver did.
Don’t go there, Val.
