Blood in the Water
SLADE
Sutton’s on Thanksgiving night is its own kind of reunion.
Half of Marble Falls comes home for the holiday and ends up here by ten o’clock. The place is filled with my old classmates, neighbors, kids I went to school with who moved to Bozeman or Whitefish or further and come back once a year looking slightly different but somehow exactly the same.
I know almost everyone in this bar. A year ago, that would’ve felt suffocating. Trying to make small talk, trying to pretend I’m interested in any of them when I’d rather be at home doing my own thing.
Tonight I’ve got my wife on my arm and I don’t mind any of it at all.
My gaze skims across the bar. Tanner is already holding court there, surrounded by admirers as usual, but his eyes keep going to Cassidy, who seems completely unaware of him as she looks through the jukebox options with her brother.
Also as usual, Walker and Sadie are making out in a dark corner, oblivious to anything else around them.
“I love this place,” Lila breathes, eyes catching on the rainbow Christmas lights that John Sutton traditionally puts up on Thanksgiving Day.
I try to see it through her designer’s eyes.
The twinkle lights and neon signs cast a rosy glow over everything inside.
The walls are plastered with John Sutton’s collection of vintage signs, old railroad posts and Old West saloon warnings to be “Beware Pickpockets and Loose Women.” It’s all dark wood and red leather barstools and rainbow light.
I suppose in a certain light, it could be charming.
“Ooh,” Lila says, “there’s a photo booth. Let’s go take some pictures.”
She drags me inside the cramped booth and arranges herself on my lap. My cock jumps as she wriggles atop me and I band my arm tight across her.
“Keep bouncing on me like that, sweetheart,” I murmur in her ear. “See where it gets you.”
She reaches a hand in my pocket and my dick twitches hopefully again. But she’s only pulling out my wallet with a cheeky grin on her face before she feeds a bill into the machine.
“This is what happens when you don’t get a prenup,” she teases. “I’ll bleed you dry via photo booth strips and whiskey shots all night long, cowboy. Won’t be a penny left in this wallet.”
I stroke her hair gently. “Everything’s that’s mine is yours.”
Her eyes soften. Then the machine starts its countdown flashes and Lila straightens on my lap. “Quick,” she says, “smile for the camera.”
I’m not much of a natural smiler by nature, and doing it on command feels even less natural.
But then Lila kisses my cheek, and that does bring a real smile to my face.
Then, because I can’t resist, I tip her face back towards me and kiss her on the mouth, heedless of the machine whirring and flashing away in the background.
When the machine spits out the photo strip, Lila plucks it away.
“Oh,” she murmurs. “That’s really cute.”
I look at the triptych. The first photo is me with my usual stern, serious look, while my beautiful wife beams next to me. The next, her sweet kiss is pressed to my cheek and my face is transformed by it. There’s a look of profound happiness on my face that honestly startles me to see.
The last one is the two of us kissing passionately, the camera forgotten.
It feels like a good summary of our entire relationship.
“That’s a keeper,” I tell her. And so are you.
We kiss again before she tucks the photo strip carefully into her purse. I take her hand and we push back out into the noise of the bar.
“All right,” I say, “since we’re here, let’s get you the full dive bar experience.” I steer her toward the pool table in the back. “You ever play pool?”
She shakes her head as I rack the balls and hand Lila a cue, which she immediately holds incorrectly.
I step in behind her, hand over hers, adjusting her grip. “Like this, baby.” I have to murmur it right in her ear to be heard above the din of the bar.
I keep my hands on her longer than strictly necessary as I do it. Because I can. Because she’s my wife and these are things I can do now: nuzzle her, touch her freely, be proprietary. Know that she welcomes my touches and leans into it.
I help her pull the cue back and launch it at a ball.
She sinks the shot and spins around laughing. I catch her by the waist before she takes someone’s eye out with the cue and kiss her again. Displays of affection, public or otherwise, have never been my thing, but I can’t imagine trying to hold back my affection for her for any reason.
“Should we get a drink?” Lila asks.
“I’ll get you one, sure.”
I’m about to take her with me when Cassidy and Sadie appear. They all head to the bathroom together, because that’s apparently what women do in groups, and I figure I might as well do something useful while she’s gone and fight my way through the crowd to get us some whiskey.
It’s a busy night and a long wait. Normally, I’m a patient man, but I’m eager to get back to Lila. When I finally have her whiskey sour in hand, I head back to the pool table in search of her.
I stop walking.
Boone Hutchins is standing there by the pool table. Talking to my wife.
He’s still built like the hockey captain he was twenty years ago when we were in high school together, with a belly softened now by a few too many rich dinners.
The hardest workout he gets is probably at the golf course these days.
Rumor has it he’s now running his granddaddy’s oil operation near the North Dakota border.
He’s leaning on the pool table with his drink, saying something that has Lila smiling, his eyes sliding down her body the moment she glances away.
I flash back to high school, when he made it his mission to hook up with any girl who even looked my way. It was weird then and I don’t like it any more now.
In fact, I fucking hate it. Because he’s talking to my wife, and the way he’s leering at her body has me seeing red.
Moving faster, I set the drink down and slide my arm around Lila’s waist. I tip her face to me for a kiss. Her eyes widen as I pull back and I wonder what look she sees on my face.
“Hutchins,” I say, stepping in, keeping my body angled protectively between Lila and him. I turn to her. I’m not going to stand around and introduce the person I care most about to a scumbag I despise.
“Let’s go, sweetheart,” I tell her.
Hutchins’s gaze slides to me. That old competitive assessment rearing to life instantly. “Rhodes.” An oily smile. “Heard you got married. Hard to believe the ultimate free agent went and yoked himself to the old ball and chain.”
Seriously, fuck this guy.
I’m usually good at hiding my true thoughts and feelings behind an impenetrable, neutral expression, but I must be losing my touch.
“No offense,” he says, obviously delighted by the murderous look that must be on my face. “Just surprised. You never were much for commitment. Couldn’t even stay on a team longer than a season. Ever get a psych eval for that?”
Hutchins was a good hockey player and an even “better” bully, and now he’s a successful businessman all for the same reason: he can smell blood in the water like a fucking shark.
He smells it now, no doubt.
Even drunk as he is, he can still zero in on people’s weaknesses.
I take in the looseness around his eyes, the way he’s listing slightly. I guess that hasn’t changed since high school. He always got sloppy and belligerent.
He takes a drink, bloodshot gaze fixating on me.
“Slade Rhodes, married.” A chuckle. “I give it a year. Less. You gonna start trading in wives too? Every year a new city, new woman. Worse ways to live, I suppose. Too expensive, though. Just do like the rest of the players and get yourself a hot little side piece or two. Long as you give the wife a big fat credit line, she’ll tolerate a little tomcatting.
What choice do they have? Hell, I don’t need to tell you. Ask your teammates.”
Lila stiffens in my arms and I tug her tighter against me.
This guy. Piece of shit once upon a time, piece of shit still. Some things never change.
“No hard feelings,” he slurs to her, his voice openly mocking. “Just the name of the game, Mrs. Rhodes.”
I won’t stoop to getting in a fight with some sloppy drunk. I just need to get my wife away from him. I’m steering us away from him when he reaches out and puts his hand on Lila’s arm.
Instinct propels my body instantly.
My hand closes around his wrist and I slam it flat on the pool table in one motion, hard enough that balls roll across the felt. I get in close.
“You touch my wife again,” I say, “I’ll break every finger on that hand. Slowly. And then I’ll start on the other one.”
He squirms beneath my hold, but he’s not going anywhere, not with the grip I have on him.
He blurts out, “All these years and you’re still a fucking psycho.” His face is red, voice slightly strangled. “Ice cold until you snap.”
I apply slow, steady pressure to the wrist joint. He hisses through his teeth.
“This is me being reasonable,” I say coolly. “You’ll know the difference if I stop.”
He makes a sound between a grunt and a yelp.
I tell him, “You also owe my wife an apology for touching her.”
He glares hatefully up at me so I twist harder. His face has gone tomato-red. Sweat at his temple.
“Fine, fine!” he moans. That red-eyed glare transfers to Lila, who’s looking back at him unimpressed, her arms folded.
“I’m sorry,” he grits.
Lila just touches my shoulder. “Let’s get out of here,” she says in a low voice.
I release him and straighten up and turn to my wife.
Because I’m in the process of turning my back on Hutchins—big mistake—I don’t see the punch coming.