Chapter Thirty-Six
? Jackson ?
Hannah didn’t say a word the whole way back.
Morning light came in low and gray over the fields, turning the frost on the ditch weeds into cheap glitter.
Her old Suburban rattled like it had loose change somewhere under the dash.
She drove the limit, both hands on the wheel, jaw set.
I started to speak once—something small and defensive and pathetic like it’s not what it looked like—and she cut me off without turning her head.
We pulled into the gravel lot and the clubhouse came up out of the cold like a freight ship—blocky, stubborn, familiar.
The sign over the door needed paint. The flag needed the wind.
A couple bikes were already lined along the front like dogs at a back door, chrome dull under the morning cloud cover.
She parked. I reached for the handle. Her voice, finally softer, found me before I got out.
“You smell like whiskey and regret,” she said. “Go shower.”
That was it. No lecture. No pity. Inside, the bar still held onto last night—fried food and bleach, a lemon wedge turned brown on a saucer, the jukebox quiet like it had been scolded.
I kept my eyes down, moved fast through the hall to the back showers, and let the hottest water the plumbing could manage burn me clean.
The stink of cheap liquor came off my skin like a confession.
When I was done I stood there with my head against the tile until the water started to cool, counted to thirty on my breath, and made a choice.
I got out before it could turn cold enough to feel like punishment.
By the time I came back to the main room in a clean shirt and my hair still damp, Hannah was at the stove, making breakfast. Maria was behind the bar with a coffee pot like a weapon.
Her sweater sleeves were shoved to her elbows, the small gold cross at her throat catching light from the neon beer sign that never turned off. She saw me. She didn’t blink.
“Coffee?” she asked, neutral as a judge.
“Sure,” I said. My voice sounded better wet—less gravel, more man. I came close enough to take the mug, and that was when her hand flashed.
She slapped me. No windup, no drama, a clean crack that snapped my head a fraction and lit fire across my cheek. I didn’t step back. Hannah didn’t move. Diego looked up from where he sat at the table.
“I can’t believe you,” she said quietly. It was worse than a shout ever could be.
“I didn’t—” The explanation died on my tongue.
“She is my best friend,” Maria said. “In the whole world. She is the strongest, most selfless, bravest person I know.” She didn’t give me a beat to recover.
“And do you know what color she turned in that bathroom?” she asked, voice shaking now, not with fear—with rage that loved this much. “You know what sound came out of Dalton when the door finally gave out and she didn’t get up? He held her while I dialed 911.”
“I watched her rebuild herself one day at a time. I watched her put vitamins in a stupid little organizer like a ninety-year-old woman because it made each morning more doable. I watched her talk to a therapist and tell the truth even when it made her gag. I watched hope come back into her eyes by millimeters. Then you walked in from the dead and it went brighter than I’ve ever seen. And now—”
Her voice shook, finally. “Now you throw all that in the trash. You make me watch her watch you drown so she can decide whether to follow. I watched hope crawl back behind her eyes—” she stabbed a finger toward my face “—and you are stealing that from her, you selfish son of a bitch.”
She stepped towards me like she wanted to hit me again but Diego was there, sliding in behind her like a catcher snagging a wild pitch.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and hauled her back as she came forward for another round.
“Baby, no,” he said into her hair, steady and low. “You said what needed saying.”
Diego’s jaw worked. He looked at me over her shoulder with something that wasn’t hate. God, I kind of wished it was. It was worse. Pity. Fury. Fear. A mirror held up to my wreckage. He pulled her closer and let her tremble against his chest, and that nearly buckled my knees.
Hannah didn’t say a word. She wiped the bar with one perfect swipe like she was clearing a surgical field, before fixing each of us with a stern look. “Enough,” she said. “We’ve got work to do.”
Maria’s eyes stayed on me until Diego moved her toward the door. She didn’t say another thing. She didn’t have to. The look she left in the space between us kept speaking.
I stood there with my cheek stinging and every muscle in my back tight enough to hum.
The hunger that rose in my gut felt like anger, but beneath it was something uglier—shame.
The kind that made you want to turn yourself inside out and run.
“Eat your breakfast,” Hannah said like we hadn’t all just watched a bomb go off. “Then go make yourself useful.”
I ate even though the food was like sawdust in my mouth. The bacon chewy. The eggs were over medium because she knew I hated runny. Coffee, black. The only way I should’ve been drinking it these past few months.
The garage drew me like a magnet drew filings.
Metal and noise. The holy smell of oil and cut steel.
Men who didn’t say things until they have to.
Mac had the top half of a Panhead open like a book.
Dalton sorted parts on a rag towel with that quiet precision he got when he didn’t trust his temper.
Diego came in a few minutes after me, jaw hard, eyes blown out and black, hands still shaking from holding his woman back.
They all looked at me. The world tilted the smallest measurable amount. Dalton continued his task and he didn’t look up at me when he spoke.
“Do you love her?”
“I—”
He set a part down harder than necessary. Metal rang against concrete.
“No. None of that. Do. You. Love. Her?”
I glanced at the three guys I’d grown up with. The only ones who’d seen every version of me. “Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
Mac shook his head once. “You’ve got a real shitty way of showing it lately.”
My jaw tightened. “Y’all don’t get it.”
Dalton huffed a dry laugh. “Nope. Sure don’t. Never been dead. Never crawled out of a hole we shouldn’t have walked away from.” He stepped closer. “But you got a second chance.”
He held my stare.
“And if it were me? I wouldn’t be pissing it away.”
“It’s not that easy.”
Diego finally looked up. Calm. Too calm. “Do I need to bring Maria back in here?”
I winced.
“I watched Holly fight it,” Dalton went on. “So I know it ain’t easy.” His jaw ticked. “But she made a choice.”
Silence.
“And now you have to.”
Diego folded his arms. “You don’t get to keep the whiskey and her.”
Mac nodded. “Pick one.”
“Personally?” Dalton said. “I’d choose her.”
Mac pushed off the tool chest, brushing his hands on his jeans. “We can help you face your demons,” he said. “But—”
Dalton smirked, “—but when it comes to a certain five-foot-tall blonde menace…you’re on your own, brother.”
That got a real laugh—from me, from all of us. The kind that didn’t erase the pain but proved we’re still standing in it together. For the first time all day, I could breathe. .
I found a broom and started to sweep. Something, anything, to keep my hands busy.
The sound of bristles on concrete filled my head where whiskey wanted to live.
A discarded washer, a cigarette butt, random bits of metal.
I pushed them into a dustpan like a man collecting tiny wrongs.
My hands steadied. I didn’t feel better. But it was better than doing nothing.
Hours knocked by. Prospects drifted. A couple regulars came through for coffee and gossip. The sun got tired of all of us and started down. Hannah reappeared with food from time to time. The next three days went by just like that.
One evening, Hannah found me on the back steps, elbows on knees, staring at gravel like it might spell an answer if I read it long enough. She set a coffee beside me and sat with the kind of sigh that belied her age.
“You already know what to do,” she said. No preamble. No parable. “You keep waiting for someone else to tell you it’s time, so I’ll say it: it’s time.”
My eyes burned. “I don’t have the right words.”
“That’s the thing about honesty. It doesn’t have to be perfect or right. It just has to be real.” She nudged the cup toward me with a knuckle. “You’ve got everything you need. Keys. Jacket. Backbone.”
“Backbone’s on order,” I joked half-heartedly.
She almost smiled. “Expedited shipping. Go to her. And remember, you both deserve this.”
I stood. The lot air cut clean lines through the fog in my head. My cut still smelled like rain and the kind of trouble you survived by choosing not to be the guy you were when you bought it. I grabbed my keys. My hand didn’t shake until I put them in the ignition. Then they did. I drove anyway.
Holly’s building sat square and ordinary and holy.
The front light put a cheap halo on the brick.
The ficus in the lobby looked healthier than I did.
I took the elevator ’cause I’m pretty sure my knees wouldn’t have made it up those damn stairs.
My knuckles hovered over the door like they were checking for heat.
I knocked.
Footsteps. A pause. Then the chain slid. Deadbolt. The door came three inches, four, stopped.
She looked like the longest night and the reason you waited for dawn. Hair twisted up with a pen stabbed through it. Old sweatshirt. Bare face. Eyes swollen and furious and wounded all at once. God. I had never wanted to kneel so badly in my life.
“Hey,” I said. It sounded useless.
She didn’t open the door wider.
“I’m done,” I said, and my voice shook before I could stop it. “I’m done.”
“With what?” she asked.
“With hurting you. With making you look at me like you’re already planning the funeral.”
Her jaw tightened.