Chapter 15 #2
It’s Kaleb and Jake, bellied up to the bar with Mason behind it. Do they want me to join them so they can take turns punching me? Maybe I deserve that. Maybe that’s even why I came here today.
Like a dead man walking, I march toward the men I’ve seen as my brothers since the day I showed up in town.
“Whoa.” Mason freezes mid-wipe when he gets a look at my face. “What happened, man? You look like hell.”
“Thanks.” I take a seat two stools down from Kaleb, just out of swinging range.
“Damn.” Jake stares at my face. “Did someone die?”
“Nice, dickhead.” Kaleb punches him in the arm. “Way to be sensitive.”
“Ow!” Jake rubs his shoulder. “What? Figured I’d buy him a beer if his dog died or something.”
Mason snorts. “Luke doesn’t have a dog.”
“Well shit,” Jake grumbles. “That’s why he looks awful. A man should have a dog.”
I can’t argue with that. And I also can’t sit here pretending everything’s okay. “I fucked things up with Hazel.” There, that should do it. I catch Mason’s eye. “Could I get a cheeseburger, please?”
“Aw, man.” Mason moves to the register and punches some buttons. “Sorry to hear that. You need something stronger than beef.”
“Just the burger.” I know better than to pour alcohol on misery. “No beer for me.”
“Who said anything about beer?” Mason slides me a curvy brown bottle with a blue label. “Brand-new concoction. It’s non-alcoholic, so you can have all you want. It’s damn delicious, if I do say so myself.”
“What is it?” I spin it around and read the label. “Sarsaparilla?”
“It’s a classic soda from the nineteenth century,” he says. “It’s making a comeback. Ever had it?”
“Nope.” I don’t tell them it was my father’s favorite drink. That doesn’t seem relevant here. “Thanks.”
“No prob,” Mason says. “Got a super-deluxe cheeseburger coming up with a double order of Cajun tots.”
“Appreciate it.” I take a sip of the drink, which goes down spicy and cold. It’s a little like root beer, but with notes of wintergreen and maybe licorice.
I hate licorice.
But I sip it again, wondering if my dad’s sitting somewhere in a bar, drinking his own sarsaparilla and reflecting on how he fucked up his chance at fatherhood.
Doubtful.
Jake eyes me over the rim of his beer. “So what’d you do?”
“Only if you feel like sharing,” Kaleb adds. “This is a safe space. You’re among men who’ve fucked up.”
“Not this bad.” I take another drink of my soda. It isn’t improving.
Mason snorts as he wipes down the bar. “I was too chickenshit to tell Erika I loved her, and she wound up thinking I planned to get back together with my old girlfriend.”
“Ouch.” But still not as bad as what I just did.
“I can top that,” Kaleb says. “I pushed Brooke away because I’ve got a metric fuckton of abandonment issues. I’m working on it.” He sounds proud of that last part. “Lucky for me, she’s got a soft spot for losers.”
“I’m definitely that.” And I guess I’m in good company.
“I’ve never fucked up,” Jake grumbles. Kaleb slugs him again, and he yelps. “Ow! I’m kidding, okay? I let my temper get the best of me and jumped to the wrong conclusions about Cassidy.” He mutters something under his breath, then adds, “She’s also got a thing for losers.”
Mason pipes up again. “Peter and Cal aren’t here right now, but they’ve got control issues and dead-parent baggage covered.” He grabs Kaleb’s glass and refills it. “Lay it on us, man. Maybe we can help.”
“Unlikely.” That’s the shitty thing, isn’t it? I can’t tell them much without betraying their brother, who’s not even here. As far as I know, Noah’s gone back to wherever he travels when he’s not lurking around Cherry Blossom Lake.
“Broad strokes, then,” Kaleb coaxes. “You didn’t cheat on her, did you?”
Jake growls from his barstool.
“Hell, no.” I guess I could have done worse than I did. Not much, but there’s comfort in that. “I promised Hazel I’d keep my nose clean. That I’d stay away from criminals and prison and all that. Then I went to visit an old buddy in the pen.”
“Ouch.” Jake takes a sip of his beer. “Well, that sucks.”
“Yep.” I chug some more sarsaparilla. It tastes like hell, but I’m starting to think I deserve it.
Kaleb looks thoughtful. “Did you say you’re sorry? A sincere apology can go a long way.”
“I’ve apologized six million times.” That’s only a slight exaggeration. Since I left Hazel’s house, I’ve left countless voicemails and texts. I also sent flowers and tried knocking again on her door.
No answer. I can’t say I’m surprised.
Mason scratches his chin. “Did you tell her you won’t do it again?”
“Yep.” Do I look like an amateur? “But it’s not like she’s gonna believe me. The guy who just lied?”
“Good point.” Jake frowns. “Did you have a good reason for lying?”
Now we’re getting into dicey territory. “Define good,” I mutter.
That’s meant as a rhetorical statement. I’m not expecting all three guys to answer at once.
“You lied to protect her from something?”
“You lied ’cuz you’re afraid to share the real you?”
“You lied because you’re a chickenshit?”
That last one is Jake, and Kaleb’s the one who sounds like a self-help shrink.
The answer’s the same for all three. “Sure,” I mumble. “That’s still no excuse.”
“It isn’t,” Mason agrees. “But it helps if your heart’s in the right place.”
“Not with Hazel, it doesn’t.” I take another long sip of sarsaparilla. Did my old man really like this shit? It tastes like a cross between toothpaste and tar. “Lying’s a deal-breaker for her.”
“I can see that.” Jake grunts. “Her dad fucked her up real good when he fucked over the rest of us.”
“She sided with him,” Kaleb adds. “When we first started raising a stink about Owen trying to screw us out of the land? She insisted her dad was just doing what Pops wanted. That our grandfather meant for Owen to claim all two-hundred acres and sell it off to the highest bidder.”
“Hazel probably regrets it now,” Mason muses. “Couldn’t have been easy being cut off from the rest of the family.”
“You guys shunned her?” I never heard that part. “Like, you stopped inviting her to family dinners and stuff?”
“More like she just stopped coming.” Jake frowns. “The details are fuzzy. I’ve kinda forgotten how it went down.”
But I’ll bet Hazel hasn’t. Family matters to her. Being cut off from the cousins she loves must’ve cut deeply.
“It’s water under the bridge now,” Mason offers. “We kissed and made up and all that.”
I’m not so sure of that. “So she trusted her dad, and it bit her in the ass. Backed the wrong horse, so to speak.” And that decision nearly cost her everything. “This is making more sense.”
“We barely spoke at all for a couple years.” Kaleb sounds vaguely embarrassed. “That kinda sucked.”
“Probably for her more than us,” Mason muses. “At least we had each other.”
But Hazel had no one. Not her grandparents, who had passed away sometime before that. Not her distant mother. Not her beloved Aunt Sarah, who was off playing dead at the request of her dad.
And not the cousins she thought of as siblings.
She just had her dad, and we all know how that one turned out.
I swill some more sarsaparilla, trying to dislodge the lump in my throat. “Guh.” Squeezing my eyes shut, I slam down the bottle. “Sorry, man. I don’t think this is my drink.”
“It’s okay.” Mason chuckles and whisks it away. “Can I get you something else? Soda or beer or—”
“Actually, could I get the food to go?” I push off my barstool, suddenly itchy to get out of here. “Sorry, guys. I thought I felt up for company, but I think I’m gonna go home and wallow.”
“I feel ya.” Jake nods. “That’s how I tend to do things.”
“Or fishing,” Mason says. “Peter learned to fly fish when he fucked up with Lucy.”
“Or therapy,” Kaleb adds. “That’s worked for a bunch of us.”
“And tater tots.” Mason turns as my order pops up behind him. “Those always help.”
“Thanks.” Between fried potatoes, fishing, and spilling my guts to a shrink, I’ve got all the helpful input I could want from these guys. “I’ll give it some thought.”
Mason finishes stuffing my food into boxes. Tucking them into a bag, he hands it over the bar. “Good luck, man.”
“Thank you. I mean it.” I survey the guys I’d started to think of as family. “I might not be seeing you for a while.”
“Don’t count on it,” Mason says cheerfully. “In this small-ass town? You couldn’t avoid us if you tried.”
Something tells me Hazel will try pretty hard. “Have a good night.” Grabbing my bag of food, I head for the exit.
Any relief I felt from chatting with men who screwed up before me slithers away as cold rainwater rolls down my spine. I feel hollow and achy and incredibly angry at myself. All that anger aimed inward means I don’t have much appetite for the meal in this wet paper bag.
I jog toward my car through the downpour. In the time I’ve been inside, dusk has given up the fight and let darkness ooze like a slug through the parking lot.
Maybe that’s why I don’t see him.
Or maybe Noah Spencer-King really is some sort of phantom.
“Hey.” He steps out of the shadows and points to my car. “Let’s talk.”
“This really isn’t a good time.” I move past him and open the door, slinging myself into the driver’s seat.
Ignoring my attitude, Noah opens the passenger door. Settling himself, he slams the door shut. “This won’t take long.”
“What part of ‘this isn’t a good time’ did you miss?”
He pulls an envelope from his pocket. “Here.”
“You already paid me for meeting with Enzo.”
“That’s not what this is.” He drops it in my lap. “We’ve located your father.”
I feel…nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
It’s like a wet paper bag full of soggy tater togs centered in the space where my heart used to be.
“I don’t care anymore.”
Noah frowns. “Seriously?”
Grabbing the envelope, I start to rip it in half. Noah snatches it back before I succeed. “I can see this isn’t a good time.”
“You think?”
He tucks it into the console and stares at me. “What’s your fucking problem?”
“Your goddamn prison job cost me the woman I love. That’s my fucking problem.” Snatching the envelope, I crumple it up and toss it in the backseat. “This doesn’t matter. None of this matters. Now will you leave me alone?”
“Damn.” Noah doesn’t budge. “What happened?”
“What do you think happened? She found out I broke my promise and made contact with a prison pal. She’s been betrayed before, so there’s no second chance for me. Game over, do not pass go.”
“Shit.” He drags a hand through his hair. “Sorry, man.”
“Yeah, well.” I rake a hand through my hair. “I’m a grown-ass adult. I made my own shitty choice.”
“How’d she find out? Did you come clean and confess all your sins to her?”
“Fuck you,” I snap. “I’m a lot of things—a liar, a shitty father, a deadbeat ex-con. But I’m not a rat.”
He frowns. “Who says you’re any of those things? You’re a helluva guy, as far as I know.”
“Thanks,” I mutter. “That’s like getting a letter of reference from Satan.”
“Am I Satan?” He sounds bemused.
“Get lost, Noah.” I sigh. “You’ve done enough already.”
He still doesn’t budge, the stubborn bastard. “I’ll talk to her.”
I bark out another humorless laugh. “Yeah, that’ll go over well. Newsflash, buddy—one ex-con vouching for the other doesn’t go over so well.”
Something dark and deadly sparks in his eyes. Not for the first time, I wonder if Noah is dangerous. Does it even matter at this point?
“You didn’t try to tell her what you were doing at the pen?” He sounds incredulous. “Not even to save your own ass?”
“I told you,” I grit out. “I’m not a rat. I signed an ironclad NDA, remember?”
“I’m aware.” He’s quiet a moment. “Some things are more important than keeping your word.”
“To Hazel?” Yeah, I’m not so sure. “If I’d kept my word to Hazel and turned you down for that job, we might still be planning a future together. We’d still be in love and excited to raise our girls together if I hadn’t broken my promise to stay on the straight and narrow.”
“Not what I meant,” Noah grumbles. “Most guys I know would throw me under the bus in a heartbeat if it meant saving their own skin.”
“Yeah, well I’m not most guys.” Maybe if I were, I’d still be with Hazel. “This whole thing was a mistake.”
He doesn’t ask what I mean. To be honest, I’m not sure I know.
Do I regret taking that last job with Noah? Sure, but I could’ve said no.
Even when he dangled the carrot of finding my father, I still could have honored my promise to Hazel.
When Noah speaks, his voice is a low rumble. “What do you do with the money?”
“The money I make from these side jobs?”
“Yeah.”
“Dig myself out of debt from five years of criminal trials and incarceration.”
“What else?”
“I’ve been pouring a lot into the nursery.”
“And?”
I’m sensing he already knows all this. “I donate to a charity that helps teenage kids on the wrong track. A charity named for the girl who got killed.”
“Kayley’s Foundation.”
“Yep.” Now I’m annoyed he gets to ask all the questions. “Who do you work for?”
Noah sighs. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
I figured. “All right then, how about this—do you really believe the work I’ve been doing makes a difference? That my small part in whatever this is has somehow improved people’s lives?”
Noah stares. “Damn right it does.”
But I’m not convinced. “This inmate rehabilitation program—is it just some bullshit cover for more criminal shit? Be honest with me, Noah.”
He looks at me long and hard. Stares into my eyes like he’s searing two holes through my brain. “I swear on my own life,” he says slowly, “what we’re doing matters. You’ve saved lives, Luke. A lot of them.”
That makes me feel marginally better. “Fine,” I mutter. “Will you please get out of my truck now?”
I expect him to argue. To tell me I did the right thing by taking the prison job. To give me more platitudes about saving the world, or hell—to urge me to look in that envelope.
But Noah opens the door without another word. He casts one look behind him before closing the door and vanishing into the night.