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2
Trent
After pushing open the door to Jaxon’s Pub, I stalk across the dim room and go behind the bar. I ignore the looks coming from Jaxon and my dad and reach for the bottle of whiskey and a shot glass. After filling the small glass once and downing it, I pour another one and shoot that one back too.
Before I can pour a third, a hand appears from across the bar and the bottle is yanked from my grip. I spin and pin my dad with a glare.
“Do you mind?” I growl, trying unsuccessfully to grab the bottle back.
“I don’t mind one bit,” he states, brow raised. “What I do mind is you drinking on the job.”
“Seriously, Dad? Am I thirty-two or twenty-two?”
“Don’t matter how old you are, T.” He pushes the whiskey across the bar to Jaxon. I eye the bottle as he sets it back on the shelf. “Now, I suspect you’re in here trying to numb yourself because Ally left?”
“Yes,” I grit. “A few hours ago.”
He jerks his chin up in understanding. “It’s gonna be hard, but you can’t spend those two months behind a bottle. It’ll only make you feel worse.”
He’s right, I know he is, but my hand still itches to grab that bottle back and use it to help me forget that Ally isn’t here. It’s only for two months, and I’ll make a few trips down to see her between now and then.
Something just doesn’t feel right, though. She’s been off the last week, and it’s eating at me not knowing why.
Light floods the room when the door opens, and Andrew and Jase walk inside. Jase takes the stool beside Dad while Andrew comes around behind the bar. Andrew doesn’t bother with a shot glass. He just takes a new bottle of vodka, breaks the seal, and tips it to his lips. I see he’s not doing much better than I am.
“Put it on my tab,” he grunts, taking the bottle with him as he rounds the bar and plops down on the stool beside Jase.
Jase watches his partner, shaking his head, his lips twitching.
“What in the hell is wrong with you guys?” Jaxon asks, looking from me to Andrew. “She’s twenty-eight years old. You guys act like you won’t see Ally for a year.”
“It may as well be a year,” Andrew grumbles, staring down at the mouth of the bottle.
I’m in agreement with Andrew. Besides the first year Ally was gone for college—which was torturous enough that after that year I moved down to Columbus to be closer to her—I haven’t gone a day without seeing her since she moved to Jaded Hollow.
“You’re both being ridiculous.”
Andrew pins him with a glare. “You telling me you wouldn’t be feeling the same thing Trent and I are feeling if it were Bailey, Amari, or Asa in Ally’s shoes? You bribed Amari into attending college in Cleveland instead of the one she wanted to go to in Florida. And I know you’re doing the same with Asa.”
As expected, Jaxon shuts his trap. We all know Jaxon would be going nuts if his wife or either of his kids were gone for two months. Even when I was younger, before I really understood what love was, I knew Jaxon adored Bailey. And he flipped his shit when Amari brought up wanting to go to college in Florida.
“That’s what I thought.” Andrew chugs back another swallow of his vodka.
I walk down the bar and take the bottle from him, tipping it to my lips before handing it back.
“You get drunk, you can walk your ass home,” Jaxon warns. “I don’t need you fucking up the drinks because you can’t think straight.”
We both know that won’t happen, no matter how much I drink. I’m one of his best bartenders.
“Yeah, whatever.”
I head to the back room, grab a couple of cases of beer, and bring them to the front to stock. I go back for some more after I put those away. When I turn with the cases in my hands, I’m waylaid by Mia, my stepmom. She’s in her midfifties, but just from looking at her, you couldn’t tell. Her arms are covered from wrists to shoulders in tattoos. Her black hair is long and wavy down her back and her face shows no signs of her age. Dad calls her Pix because of her pixie-like features, and he’s not wrong.
I set the cases down when I get the sense she’s here to talk.
“How are you holding up?” she asks, stepping into the room.
I shrug. “Like shit.”
