92. Chapter 92
He drove.
He set his shoulders, walked away, started the bike, and drove.
Every instinct, gut or otherwise, fired off warnings.
Go back. Go back, you idiot. Go back, you fucking idiot. Turn around.
Fucking coward.
Jase kept driving. A few miles from Lindsey, the rain started.
Soaking wet and squinting through the rain, this was the only time Jase wished he owned a car.
His dad kept an old beater in the back of the shop for Jase to make it through the cold months.
Last winter it was a 1994 Honda Civic that spun like a go-kart in the snow.
Now he supposed it’d be the Country Squire, if Helen ever brought it back.
Didn’t matter. What Jase needed more than a roof was miles between himself and Lindsey.
Since he could hardly see the road, he followed a route so familiar he could inch his way there through the downpour.
There was no other reason to go to Lindsey’s apartment tonight, or ever again.
The place was almost completely empty. The last of her furniture to go was the mattress and box spring Jase had helped a college kid tie to the top of his hatchback.
Afterward, Lindsey had laid Jase down in the dusty rectangle where her bed used to be, and thanked him with her mouth for his help with the move.
Said she couldn’t have done it without him.
Packing. Lifting heavy boxes and furniture. Accepting grateful blowjobs. All boyfriend things.
He shrugged the memory off. She could’ve hired a mover—and paid in cash, not head. She didn’t need him.
Across from her apartment, neon lights from the bar where she used to work promised shelter.
Lindsey refused to bring him to Smitty’s after hauling boxes, claiming it was too much of a shithole.
Shithole or not, the dive was warm and dry, and no one knew his name.
Unlike the Haunt, where Jase could never show his face again after “Sister Christian,” the duet that officially took him off the market for twenty whole hours.
Another boyfriend thing, he guessed, though he’d never seen another man go to those lengths to impress a woman.
The brunette behind the bar passed him a roll of paper towels and asked him not to drip on the floor, as if the choppy wood didn’t need a good washing.
He downed a couple beers and a shot of something cheap and set the shot glass out for another.
He was familiar with this routine—he’d been at it for days after chasing Lindsey down at the airport.
Today he left her on his own terms.
But apparently hadn’t gone far enough. She was staring at him from a picture behind the bar, smiling beside a blonde with a dark mole above her lip.
She looked happy. Not at all how she looked today.
Going to Smitty’s was a mistake. He pulled a few wet dollar bills from his water-logged wallet and stood.
Jase caught a whiff of his dad’s brand of aftershave as a set of split knuckles pushed him back down.
“The hell?”
Lindsey’s brother adjusted his suit pants on the stool next to him and said, “Hey, man.”
“Luke?” Jase asked. “I thought you’d be on your way home.”
“I did too.” Luke rolled his sleeves above the brown blood on his cuffs. “You’re an easy man to find.”
“Is that right?”
“Well, you weren’t at the Haunt. We took a chance.”
“We?”
The imposing shadow of Leroy Adams descended on the bar on Jase’s other side.
“What’s the saying?” Luke asked. “Sorry, not sorry?”
The former Marine raised a finger to the bartender and set a fifty on the bar. “Two whiskeys.”
“Three,” Luke chimed.
“Two.” Leroy pointed at his son. “Water for him.”
Luke held three fingers up to the smiling bartender, mouthing three. Both Adams men were tall and broad. Jase wasn’t sure which one the bartender was going to disappoint with their drinks.
He stared at the drops in the bottom of his glass and asked, “Is this where you come in, guns blazing, and kick my ass?”
“Speaking of guns—” Luke started.
Jase shook his head. Last night he’d told Luke about coming under fire at Saul’s. The last thing Jase wanted was for Leroy, a man who might’ve actually shot people, to know he’d almost gotten his daughter killed on the road.
“Normally, I’d thank God my daughter is finally free of your family and get all my kids out of town,” Leroy said. He tipped his glass in thanks to the bartender and sipped.
She refilled Jase’s whiskey and set a plastic cup of ice water in front of Luke, blocking a shot glass she lifted from behind the bar with a wink.
Leroy grunted his disapproval. The man missed nothing.
“You a religious man, then?” Jase asked.
“Are you?”
If it was a test, Jase was too tired to lie. “No.”
“Yeah, me either,” Leroy said.
“So why are you here?”
“I want to know what your intentions are with my daughter.”
I thought it was pretty obvious.
“I don’t have any intentions,” Jase said into his glass.
“That’s not what it looked like.”
Jase didn’t miss Leroy’s glance at his pants.
“Not what it sounded like either,” Luke offered.
The fuck?
“Dude. I thought I liked you.”
Luke grinned—he was such a shit—and downed his shot.
“She got hurt today,” Leroy said.
Jase finished his whiskey and set it out for another. He’d need the drinks to keep flowing to survive being boxed in by the Adams men.
“I know,” he said. “My only intention is to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Not by me.”
“I think you waited a little too long for that.”
Jase had said the same thing to Graham yesterday. The bartender refilled his glass and Luke’s shot.
“You said so yourself, she deserves better,” Jase reminded him.
“It’s no secret I wasn’t your brother’s biggest fan,” Leroy said. “There’s nothing wrong with him, per se, I just didn’t care for the way he treated Lindsey.”
“Dad, so help me. If you bring up the suitcases—” Luke huffed.
“It was a telltale sign, Luke,” Leroy argued.
“Let it go.”
“What’s with the suitcases?” Jase asked, leaning back out of their crosshairs. He vaguely remembered Lindsey mentioning something about suitcases once.
“Doesn’t matter,” Leroy said. “Graham didn’t care about her enough, and it was obvious to everyone but her. You…I think you care too much, and I’m trying to decide what kind of man that makes you.”
“The kind who would take a bullet,” Luke said.
“Luke, I swear to God,” Jase ground out.
“I already know,” Leroy said.
Jase whipped around to him. “You know?”
“About my baby girl getting shot at,” he said. “Yes.”
“Mr. Adams, see, the thing with that…” he stumbled, searching for an explanation within the handful of sober brain cells still swimming in his head.
“I know she was in danger, and you kept my daughter safe.”
“I wouldn’t have believed it if I didn’t see the bullet holes in the car,” Luke said. “When you told me the story, it was all about how Saul restored a bike for your dad for saving his wife’s life. You glossed over the part where you saved my sister.”
“I—” Didn’t.
Jase hadn’t interpreted the events at Saul’s Easy Out Autobody as lifesaving. A car had barreled up to Saul’s shop and Jase had carried Lindsey inside, stuffed her underneath a metal desk, and folded himself around her until bullets stopped flying.
“Anyone would’ve done the same,” Jase insisted.
“I’m not looking at anyone,” Leroy said. “I’m looking at you.”
Jase wondered what his dad felt when he saved Saul’s wife. He didn’t know the particulars of the story, only that his old man lived a reckless life with dangerous people back then. For all Jase knew, his dad could’ve saved Linda from a hail of bullets too.
Jason never mentioned it, as if it wasn’t a big enough deal to share with his boys.
It was a big enough deal to Saul to keep Jason’s picture on his wall and build him a bike.
And a big enough deal to Jase he’d been questioning his own worth, wondering if he’d ever matter to anyone that way, ever since.
He was sitting between those people now, and he couldn’t meet their eyes.
“As a father,” Leroy said, “a man who’d put himself in harm’s way to protect my daughter, is the kind of man I want sticking around.”
Jase’s nose stung, and he knew the eyes he leveled with Leroy’s were red and leaking.
“And, as a father,” he went on, “I’m sorry you lost yours. I didn’t know the man. If he was here, what do you think he’d say?”
Jase pulled the memory of his dad’s letter from the soggy meat between his ears. I’m counting on you to stand up and be the man I know you are. You can’t fail. Just show up. Every day, even when it’s hard, and even when you don’t want to, just show up.
“He’d jack me up,” Jase said. “Tell me not to be an idiot.”
“By jack you up, do you mean tell you to get your ass back there and start groveling?”
Jase huffed out a wet laugh and rubbed his eyes. Fuck.
Leroy finished his whiskey and stood. “Come on, Luke. Let’s head out and give Jase a chance to make the right decision.”
Luke leaned in. His grin was both amused and a little scary, especially with all the fading bruises and the gash taped above his eye. “This is where I tell you I’ll kick your ass if you don’t.”
A heavy hand gripped his left shoulder. Another warning, this time from Lindsey’s dad.
“And don’t be an idiot.”