Chapter 14
Present day
He shouldered the bar door open, striving to ignore the vibration of his cellphone in his left pocket, yet again.
It had been easier while driving. While the sound had still been obnoxious and relentless, he’d kept his focus on the road ahead, and the constant buzzing wasn’t as noticeable when he was behind the wheel.
Now, however, it was harder to ignore. Harder, but not impossible, and he’d made it this far.
He’d be damned if he let that stupid call ruin his evening.
Especially since he already knew the punchline—and it wasn’t good news.
The hole-in-the-wall establishment the locals liked to refer to as a bar was mostly empty.
It wasn’t a nice place by any means and was the very definition of seedy.
It hadn’t changed much in the last four years since Aberlour had started coming here.
In fact, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t name a single thing that had changed.
The counters were sticky from decades of overflowing beers and spilled shots of Jack Daniels.
The decorations were a mishmash of borderline pornographic pictures of celebrities and stolen street signs.
The vinyl booths were cracked and still smelled of cigarettes from the good old days when ruining your lungs in public had still been legal, and the mirrored ceiling reflected its ugly past. The unattractiveness of the bar in general matched its clientele, who fit right in.
After all, any sensible individual would turn right back around and leave the second they entered the bar.
The smell of urine, beer, and decades-old smoke clung to every surface, which in combination made a very effective deterrent for most people who might wander in here by accident.
“Your usual?” Scella, the bartender, asked, sounding bored and annoyed at the same time as she wiped off glasses with a dishrag that looked older than she was.
“Make it a double,” he answered, his voice rough from disuse.
He was slightly rattled by the realization that he’d frequented this den of inebriation enough to have a usual.
He hadn’t counted himself as one of the regulars, but it seemed that was just something else to come to terms with. He was a seedy bar regular.
If he was honest, it wasn’t that hard to believe. But maybe it was best not to dwell on that at the moment.
As if on cue, his cellphone began to vibrate again. He gritted his teeth at the sound, wanting nothing more than to chuck the damned thing into a river and never see or hear it again.
He leaned back against the bar as he waited for his drink and tipped his head back.
He wasn’t surprised to meet his reflection in the ceiling mirror, but he wasn’t pleased by it either.
He looked rough. There was no getting around it.
Life had left him looking like something the cat dragged in.
His eyes had darkened with pain and regrets over the years.
His crow’s feet weren’t caused by smiles and laughter but rather by perpetually angry scowls and squinting down gun barrels.
He didn’t like the reminders of those days, nor the threat of grey hair growing at his temples.
It was a seedy mirror, but his reflection made a good match.
It was hard to ignore when staring up at it, and it showed just how well he blended into unsavory bars.
He’d always been—rugged, to put it nicely.
Never one to care what his hair looked like, or how he should trim his beard.
He’d been one of the few members of Team Specter who hadn’t minded growing a beard while deployed overseas.
The others had complained about how itchy beards were, but Aberlour had enjoyed the low maintenance.
Still, once upon a time Aberlour had thought he’d looked—good.
He had a few appealing features, such as his father’s wide eyes, with long eyelashes that most women envied.
He had a smile just like his mother’s that teased and promised mischief.
He’d been blessed with above average height and bulky shoulders, which looked exceptionally impressive in a uniform.
Nothing close to being a cover model, but he did have a certain something which drew people in—even if he did look rough around the edges most of the time.
But once upon a time had come and gone, and he struggled to see anything he liked now.
He’d lost quite a few pounds in recent months.
His muscles had fled the sinking ship, and his skin was gray from a steady diet of bourbon and Slim Jims. His eyes looked grey, tired, and sunken in.
He hadn’t shaved in weeks, and his beard was unkempt, strongly resembling an ill-fitting sweater on a scrawny kid.
Of all the versions of Gavin Aberlour over the years, he wondered which one of those was reflected back at him now. Although he didn’t have the answer, he did know that it wasn’t a version his mother would have been proud of.