Chapter 6
Jackson
I dropped onto the old couch in the supply room. I was dead tired and nowhere close to sleep. The woman asleep upstairs in my bed kept showing up in my head, and the guilt came with her.
Kevin had it bad. Anybody could see that.
Didn’t change a damn thing for me, though.
She was hot, and women like that had always been my problem.
She grabbed my attention the moment she walked in.
Too put-together for this town and way too easy to look at.
She was passing through, that much was obvious, and all I could think, watching her drink, was that I wanted her once before she disappeared.
No chance of that now. She was drunk, maybe concussed, and even with her upstairs in my bed there was every chance she’d be gone the second she could walk. Plus, if she was going to fuck one of us, I’d bet any money she’d pick Kevin.
He was her hero, after all.
That should’ve been annoying for one reason only. It wasn’t. Every time I pictured him with his hands on her, calm as ever, something kicked in that wasn’t about her at all. He was the guy who hauled her out of trouble, and he was the white-collar one in a town full of work boots.
Kevin had his life lined up in a way mine never had been. All he was missing was a wife and a couple kids. He wore steady better than I ever would.
Lauren didn’t exactly look like the settle-down type, but she could’ve made him forget that dry spell real quick. God knew he could use it.
I sighed, propped my legs up, and fluffed the single pillow behind my head. I shut my eyes, and sometime after that, I was gone.
I woke up with a stiff neck and a mouth that tasted like stale beer. I sat up and checked my phone. Six fifteen in the morning.
Fuck my life.
My toothbrush was upstairs, and Lauren was up there in my bed with a busted ankle and a cut on her head and my sheets wrapped around her. I wasn’t waking her up just so I could brush my teeth. I grabbed a bottle of water from behind the bar and splashed some on my face in the bathroom sink.
I started back toward the couch when I heard keys turn in the front door.
I froze.
Nobody else had keys to this place except me and one other person.
“Jackson?”
Dad.
“Yeah,” I called out.
He came in with a cardboard tray and two coffees. Never a good sign. Dad only brought coffee when he had something to say he knew I wasn’t gonna like and thought caffeine might help.
“You’re here early,” I said.
“So are you.” He set the carrier on the bar and scanned the room. Chairs still sat crooked from last night. A busted rocks glass still glittered under the jukebox. A few tables still needed wiping. “Rough night?”
“You could say that.”
He pulled one cup free, took a sip, and didn’t say anything. Just went quiet.
I took the other cup. “Thanks for the coffee.”
“That rental car in the parking lot,” he said. “Whose is it?”
My stomach dropped. The damn thing was sitting out there for anyone to see. “A customer’s.”
“A customer who stayed the night?”
“She got hurt in the fight last night. She couldn’t drive. Kevin checked her out.”
He went still. “Jackson.”
“Dad, she hit her head and she can’t walk on that ankle. She needed somewhere to crash.”
“And you gave her your bed.”
“Yeah, I gave her my bed. What was I supposed to do, throw her out on the street?”
“You could have called someone. An Uber. The motel.”
“Kevin tried the motel. It didn’t work out.”
Dad set his coffee down hard. “The liquor license review is in two weeks. We’ve already had two fights this month. Insurance is bad enough. The last thing I need is people seeing a customer’s rental here after close and deciding we let drunks sleep it off upstairs.”
“She’s not just some drunk customer.”
“I do not care what she is. Insurance won’t cover this.” He crossed his arms. “Haley would’ve handled this before there was a rental in the lot and a customer in your bed. See a difference?”
“But she got hurt here,” I said. “I’m not shoving her out the door so this place looks cleaner by breakfast.”
“She needs to be gone by noon.”
I stared at him. “You’re seriously doing this right now?”
“I’m doing it because you don’t think.” His voice came down hard. “This bar is gonna destroy you, but you just won’t listen, will ya?”
The stair behind me creaked. I went still, knowing it was Lauren. She must’ve heard Dad. Did she hear him say she needed to be gone by noon? How much did she hear?
My grip tightened on the cup until the lid bent.
His boots hit the stairs going up.