Chapter 6
Chapter Six
The Final Father
My first panicked thought is, I need to get off the street before the Unity Siren, and I’m not sure I don’t say it aloud.
With my heartbeat’s steady tick indicating the passing seconds, I lie still on the ground, the only remaining heat contained in my cheeks.
There’s talking, people asking if I’m okay, but I lower my eyes from the staring faces and pull my cap low.
When I push myself to sit, a reaching hand comes before me, which I politely refuse.
“Christ almighty! Take my hand!” Joey says with a burst of annoyance.
He stands before me with flared nostrils while shaking his head, but that only encourages me to slap it away. The onlookers disperse as he stomps to unlock the front door.
“Why wouldn’t you just wait? Seth told me you went off.”
When my weight shifts onto my feet, a sharp bolt shoots like an arrow through my ankle—enough to grip the air in my throat.
I’d love to snap back at him—the quips offer themselves so easily—but I need to focus on looking uninjured, thus not allowing him to prove his point.
With a deep inhale, I walk, but there’s no avoiding the limp.
“You’ve hurt yourself. Haven’t you?”
He presses his back against the open door to let me pass, while his exasperated brown eyes track me.
I roll my eyes while blatantly hobbling towards the counter to dump my bags and take a breath, but when I turn, there he is, in my face, with his hands on his hips, his face twisted with frustration and despair.
“Lee, what are you doing? Please sit for a second.”
“Joey, stop it! I’m fine!” I say. “I don’t need your help. I’m fine!”
“Oh, okay,” he says sarcastically. “Just to remind you, Krick will be here in the next half hour, so I can help … or you can struggle alone?”
“Shit!” My head rolls back with a grunted sigh. “Can you help me get my boot off … please?”
I hop on a bar-stool, and he lifts my foot to undo my boot, knocking my hands away and pulling the laces loose.
“It’s that you say we’re comrades, which I thought meant we were friends. Then you march around doing everything solo.” He shakes his head as he continues. “Look, I know I’m annoying, and I know you don’t want to be here…” He goes to pull the boot from my foot. “… but tell me what—”
“Joey! Wait—!” I cry as I suddenly realise what’s about to happen.
With the pull of my boot, my knife clatters upon the metal floor, and his jaw falls slack as his widened eyes meet mine.
Civilians shouldn’t have weapons, and if a ranger caught me with a blade, I’d be instantly detained, since they leave no wiggle room when it comes to suspicion.
At the diner, a team of rangers turned the town upside down looking for a guy who made fireworks, and beat him bloody before carting him away.
My eyes are wide as I say, “Don’t ask…”
He whispers, his tone defensive, “I won’t.”
He’s still holding my foot as he reaches to the floor, inspecting the knife in his palm, then cautiously handing it back to me.
There’s a moment of silence between us. I wonder what he thinks of me.
A scared newcomer to the big bad city? An innocent woman protecting herself from the threat of men—the likes of him?
Or could he go so far as to think of me as a rebel—someone who would actually use such an instrument?
The pause holds our throats. Like mine, his breath is tight with the stillness of a gulp caught in the column of his neck.
When he finally swallows, he gives a slight shake of his head, recognising my heel still resting in his palm with a spark of surprise. He returns to inspecting my ankle.
I dump the knife on the counter, saying, “I don’t find you annoying, Joey.”
He doesn’t look up, but raises his brow with what looks like a roll of his eyes.
“No, really, Joey. You’ve been great. I just don’t enjoy asking for help. I like to be independent, and you’re so helpful that it … it winds me up sometimes.”
My admission brings no reaction, and he ignores me. “You need some ice on this. Can you at least rest it until Krick gets here? Let me set up without you.”
His jaw is tight as he looks down at me, and I’m surprised at how it makes me feel.
I reluctantly nod, and I do as I’m told when he wraps ice in a dishtowel and packs it around my ankle.
The pain dulls while my foot is raised, but Joey moves harshly through the bar, and I keep waiting for his gaze to meet mine so I can fix the situation, especially at the mention of “comrades.” I’ve annoyed myself for being cold towards him after his kindness.
There was a panic at the comfort I was feeling here.
He has no idea why I keep a distance, why I refuse closeness to avoid the distress of being separated.
He chose to move to the city, and he still lives with family, while I’ve been shoved onto a conveyor belt of conformity, treated like a product for reproduction.
A number. A wife. A walking, talking pair of ovaries.
I don’t even know what life I wanted, but I know it was never this.
The hum of an engine rises and ceases outside the bar.
Our gazes finally meet. I chuck the ice pack to Joey.
With the pull of my boot, I grunt with the skin swollen and sore from the cold.
A holy-shit heat floods my eyes when my heel slips in, while Joey whips my laces together.
He holds his hands before me, letting me share my weight between him and the counter, as I exhale a puff of pain through each snagging step.
“Let’s get you behind the counter. I’ll keep him away from you, see if he wants my shirt this time.”
Krick’s grumbling moves across the bar’s windows towards the door, and we set ourselves up to appear busy while polishing the tray of glasses Joey left. Donnie plods through the door, his arms swinging low while greeting only Joey, with Krick following close behind and rubbing his palms together.
“Lee! I’ve been hearing good things, good things about my bar.” He steps to the counter with an open palm. “Joey. My numbers?”
Joey reaches below the register to offer the black leather-bound book, which totals the bar’s revenue, and I feel my spine tightening with Krick’s presence alone.
I can smell the stale cigar-and-coffee breath from here.
His hair is so yellow, resembling the dry bristle of straw, with the same itch-inducing qualities if I were to get too close.
It makes me wonder how anyone could bleach it within an inch of its life, look in the mirror and go, “Oh, yeah! That’s the look I was going for. Hay-bale hair.”
It’s silent as we watch Krick flick through the pages and mutter to himself.
He looks up at Joey. “Is this right?”
“Profits up by a third in two weeks,” Joey says. “We were never left with food, and the games have been a success. It’s a different bar. New atmosphere. New faces.”
I’ve made Krick a lot of money, but he lost the compromise on my clothing, so I don’t get my hopes up for praise.
He takes another look over the book, sneering as he says, “Well. I don’t know how you did it, but it worked.
You’ve made me a pretty penny.” The conflict is apparent in his mood, matching that of a spoilt toddler.
“Can I offer you anything as a reward? Anything to tempt you into visiting Mabel’s for an all-expenses-paid wardrobe refresh? ”
“No, that’s fine, Krick… Thank you.”
“That’s a shame. I was so looking forward to seeing what else you had to offer.”
Krick’s breath deepens as his needy eyes move down my body, and he even tilts onto his toes as his nostrils flicker towards my waist, but I cannot control the snarl of my lip—which he spots.
He says, “Joey. How about you get the final say, since you know The Riverside better than the rest of us? Should she go to Mabel’s? Some of those short shorts, maybe?”
I gulp, because I don’t expect support at the risk of Joey upsetting Krick.
Joey’s looking down at the floor with his arms crossed.
He’s told me how close he is to opening his store.
Everything he’s worked towards balances on the next year of wages.
If he upsets Krick, if he loses this job, it could set his rental store back years.
I watch him as I try to conjure how short the short shorts really are.
So, when he shakes his head, my lips part in awe.
“Honestly? No, they enjoy her company. She’s a friendly face, she knows their drinks, she plays cards with them. They appreciate the personal effort, and that’s why people come here.”
I struggle to internalise the smirk creeping onto my face. He didn’t say a lot, but to me, it felt like a marching band, with heavy trumpets and pounding drums playing a new song I’d like to call, “Suck It, Krick!”, the merry tune flinching in his ears as he is forced, again, to accept the deal.
Krick’s gaze becomes distracted, like a double take across the counter, and my eyes widen as I catch the glimmer of light upon my knife. His bloated fingers reach towards the visible blade, but Joey steps forward, holding out his palm.
“This yours, Joey?” Krick asks. “What are you doing with a knife?”
“It was my father’s,” he lies flawlessly as Donnie looks at him, as stunned as I am. “I keep it in my boot, but I’ve been using it to open boxes in the storeroom.”
“Don’t bring knives into the bar, Joey,” Donnie adds with grumbling disappointment.
“Sorry. Won’t happen again.”
As he takes it, he’s clearly not familiar with blades, while awkwardly switching it between hands before leaning to put it in his leather boot.
He pushes it into the inside of the leg, which is wrong—it should sit on the outer side.
My face scrunches while internally cringing, hoping he doesn’t slice himself in the process.