Chapter 9
Jackson
“Thanks,” Lauren said, looking at me. “For the bed, the water, everything.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
“And sorry. About your dad.”
I shrugged. “He gets intense about the insurance stuff. It’s fine.”
Kevin opened the passenger door for her and carefully helped her in.
I stood in the parking lot, hands in my pockets, watching Kevin’s truck pull onto Main Street. The taillights got smaller.
Gone.
My neck was still fucked from sleeping on that shitty couch in the back room. The couch I’d been crashing on for two years whenever I worked late, basically a pile of springs at this point.
I looked down at my forearm. The tattoo of the date I bought the bar.
The day I finally told my dad to fuck off with his “you’ll never make anything of yourself” bullshit.
And the one for Marcus. He used to be one of my best friends who wrapped his car around a tree senior year because he was drunk and stupid and eighteen.
But none of that mattered.
Lauren wasn’t going to notice tattoos or the fact that I’d slept on a shit couch to make sure she wasn’t alone after the bar fight.
She was going to notice Kevin. Doctor Kevin with his perfect house and his perfect life, who showed up and fixed everything.
I had a bar finally turning a profit and a couch destroying my spine.
The bar was dead quiet.
I went back inside. Chairs were still scattered from last night. A couple tables had rings from beer bottles nobody bothered to wipe up.
Of course Kevin had a solution.
Kevin always had a fucking solution.
I grabbed a rag and started wiping down tables.