Chapter 6
Myles
Ileft my car at the club. I’ll get it tomorrow.
I need to walk this shit off. This pain. The fuzziness from the alcohol. The guilt.
I don’t know what I did or even what I could have done to make her react like that. I was restrained, so it’s not like I hurt her. Plus, even drunk, I have never hit a woman.
It’s late, almost 2 a.m., but from how busy it is, you’d never know.
The River Walk is lit up. Bars and restaurants along the river stay open late.
Music from multiple places floats on the night air, mixing into a chaotic mess.
People are dancing on the patio at one bar.
At another, people sit at the fireside tables.
The rust orange glow from the flames cast shadows along the path as I pass by.
The delicious smell of bread hits me.
“Mmmm,” I hum as I close my eyes, remembering the scent from that distant memory.
Miss Diana’s. The woman who would sneak me and Adam fresh loaves of bread on days we skipped school. She was about thirty years older than us, so she looked at us like her own kids. She would scold us for skipping school, then drag us into her shop to make sure we were fed.
My nose leads me to the end building. It’s still here. Dia's.
The door is still the same. An old, wooden Dutch-style door. The top half is open. The smells drifting out are making my mouth water.
“Diana?” I call out into the darkness.
“Hold on, dear. Be up in a minute,” her sweet voice calls out.
A few minutes later, Diana comes walking up from the back holding a tray of freshly baked bread. The years have been kind to her. Her blonde hair is now a silvery grey. Her eyes are still as bright blue as ever. Still short and sweet.
When she sees me, it’s like she sees a ghost. She gasps, dropping the tray and all the fresh loaves.
“Shit, I’m sorry. Let me help you.” I open the door and quickly rush to her. I kneel to start picking up the bread. She hasn’t moved from her spot. Her fingers cup my chin and lift my face to her.
“Myles?”
“Hi, Miss Diana.” I stand, holding all the loaves in my arms. I dump them onto the counter and take a step back.
“Boy! I outa beat your hide black and blue. Scaring the daylights out of me.” She’s clutching her chest like her heart's racing a mile a minute.
“Sorry…” I run a hand through my hair, then rub the back of my neck. I never even said goodbye to her. Or to anyone, for that matter.
“Sorry for what, boy? Leaving without a word in the middle of the night? Never writing to let any of the folks who care about you and Adam know you were still alive? I had to find out you were still breathing from a magazine.” She folds her arms over her chest, and I can’t help but laugh.
I wrap my arms around her and pull her in for a hug.
“Uh, Myles. You’re not a kid anymore. You look old.” She laughs, which makes me laugh harder.
“Well, Miss Diana, you don’t look a day over forty.”
She pushes away and jokingly swats at me.
“It’s Mrs. nowadays.”
“Oh really? What poor soul did you lure in with the delicious smells? I swear, you’re a witch.”
She shakes her head and laughs as she loads the loaves back onto the tray.
“Mr. Forester.”
“My old math teacher? Oh, God. Don’t tell him you saw me. I think he’s still waiting for some homework I never turned in.” I tease.
“He's retired now. He’s off fishing this weekend. So, tell me, boy, are you settled down yet?”
“Oh, come on Miss… I mean Mrs. Diana… you know you were the only woman to ever hold my heart.”
She jokingly smacks me upside the head.
“Ouch!” I joke as I take a seat at her counter.
“I told you when you and Adam were younger. Save your sass ass for your parents because I sure as hell wouldn’t tolerate it.”
I roll my eyes as I shake my head. Same woman, no matter how much time has passed.
“Why do you smell like a liquor store?” She finally notices the scent of alcohol on me.
“I came back to sell the house…”
I watch her lips move in a silent prayer for Adam, Angelina, and Lumina's souls up in heaven before she wipes a tear from her eye.
“Have you been there yet?” she asks.
“No…I went to Badlands.”
That earns me another swat to the back of the head.
“That place is no good nowadays. Well, it’s never been good, but at least when Jocko ran it, the riff raff behaved. Now his no-good son Declan runs the joint. Practically runs the whole town. Horrible child he was…Still is.”
“I didn’t know Jocko had a kid.”
“No one did until the kid’s mom died…It was the year you disappeared. He showed up on Jocko’s doorstep with nothing but a note and his backpack. That boy always had a mean streak to him.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Why are you selling it?” she asks after a few minutes of complete silence.
I take a slow, deep breath. It’s the question I asked myself on the entire ride back here. Why? Why now?
“Sometimes you have to let go of the lifeline to finally start living. Adam was my best friend. That house was the last piece I had of him…It’s been almost twenty years, Dia.
Twenty long, painful years of holding onto that lifeline.
Keeping it wrapped around you so tightly.
The rope burns into your flesh from the tension.
” I stand, brushing the stray crumbs from my jacket.
“It’s time I cut the line. I won’t ever forget my best friend, but I need to stop living with the ghosts of my past clinging to my soul. I need to start living.”
She looks up at me with more tears in her eyes.
“I always loved you boys like you were my own. It nearly killed me going to their funeral.”
I swallow to choke back the tears burning in my eyes.
I didn’t go to the funeral. I never said goodbye.
I ran. Avoided everything from my past until the day I got the letter saying Adam had left me the house.
I kept it. Occasionally, I hired someone to go in and clean it.
But I never went back. This is the first time in twenty years that I’ve even stepped foot in Texas. I moved to Vegas and never looked back.
“You should go visit them before you leave,” she whispers.
“I don’t know if I can do that, Dia,” I whisper. She cradles my cheek and looks at me with those kind eyes like she always has before.
“Well, you know where to find me if you want a quiet soul to go with ya.”
“Quiet soul?” I raise my eyebrow as I smirk at her.
“Boy, don’t make me beat you. Now get outta here. I need to make another dozen loaves now because of you.”
I pull her in for another hug. Now that I’m older, she feels so much smaller compared to me. Funny how she used to be the one to hold and comfort me. Especially on the days my mother was too drunk to even remember she had a kid.
“Thank you, Dia…For everything. I don’t think I would have made it if it weren’t for your help. I love ya.”
When I pull away, her tears have fallen. She frantically wipes at them with her apron before shooing me out the door.
“You better come back and say goodbye this time, you hear?”
“Yes, Ma'am.”
I continue down the way I came. Back towards Badlands, back toward the cemetery that I drove past on the way in. The one I know that the Warners are buried in.
The faint red glow from the neon lights along the outside of Badlands comes into view. It’s nearly four AM now. The last cars are leaving the parking lot. The dancers are going home. I wonder if I can catch Lulu and apologize. I’m sober now…Mostly.
I lean against the hood of my car and pull out my phone.
Four missed calls. Fifteen emails. Ten text messages.
All from either Alexandria or Fabian. Alexandria is one of my best employees…
She's also an on-and-off-again hookup and one of my best friends.
Fabian is the second in command of Octavia, my company.
I started Octavia for me and Adam. We always dreamed about having a private security company, and I made it a reality.
My team is hired for private events for most of the celebrities that visit Vegas, and there are a fuck-ton.
Hell, just last week one of my teams was on the grounds crew for Danny DeVito’s eightieth birthday.
The back door to Badlands opens, spilling light into the dimly lit parking lot. A dark-haired woman wearing leggings and a hoodie four sizes too big steps out. Her face is cloaked in shadows, but I know it's her. There’s something about her that I can feel…It’s weird.
I take a few steps toward her. My foot crunches on gravel, and she stops dead in her tracks. She slowly turns toward me. The door opens again, and the light catches on her silver eyes.
“Hello, Sunshine.”