Chapter 4
chapter four
Madelyn
week two
The bar is quiet now, the last customer gone twenty minutes ago. I'm wiping down tables while Dash restocks the coolers behind the bar. Finn left an hour ago to cover for one of the firefighters who got called out, leaving me alone with Dash.
I've gotten used to these late nights. The way the bar feels different when it's empty. "You don't have to do that," Dash says, his voice cutting through the quiet. "I can finish up."
"I don't mind." I spray down another table, working the cloth in slow circles. "Besides, I'm not tired yet."
He doesn't respond, just keeps loading bottles into the cooler. But I can feel his attention on me.
I wipe down the last table while Dash rinses out the shaker tins behind the bar. His sleeves are rolled up, exposing forearms corded with muscle and marked with thin white scars.
"Want a drink?" he asks without looking at me.
"Sure."
He pours two fingers of whiskey into a glass and slides it across the bar, then pours one for himself. We drink in silence for a moment, the burn familiar now, almost comforting.
I glance at the scars running across his forearm. "Occupational hazard?"
He follows my gaze, then lets out a humorless huff.
"No."
I immediately regret asking. "Sorry. You don't have to answer."
"It's fine." He studies the whiskey in his glass for a long moment. "Most of them came from my old man."
I wait, sensing there's more. Dash isn't like Finn, he doesn't fill silences with easy conversation. When he does talk, it means something.
"My old man was a drunk," he says finally, his voice flat. "Mean drunk. The kind who used his fists when the bottle ran dry."
My chest tightens. “Jesus.”
"My mom left when I was five." He says it like he's reciting facts. But I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his knuckles whiten around the glass. "Just packed a bag one day and walked out. Didn't even say goodbye."
I don't know what to say. What do you say to someone who's just handed you a piece of their broken childhood?
"After that, it was just me and him." Dash drains his glass and pours another. "He'd drink himself stupid most nights. I learned real quick to stay out of his way. Spent more time at Finn's house than my own."
"His parents didn't mind?"
"They welcomed me." Something softens in his expression, just for a moment. "Fed me, let me sleep on their couch when things got bad. Finn's mom used to pack extra lunch for school, said it was leftovers, but I knew better."
I take a sip of whiskey, letting it burn away the lump in my throat. "They sound like good people."
"The best." He looks at me then, really looks at me, and I feel pinned by those gray eyes. "They taught me what family's supposed to look like. That I can choose my family, not feel tied to it because we share the same blood.”
"I get that," I say quietly. "The choice part."
"Yeah?" He leans against the bar, giving me his full attention now. "Tell me."
I shouldn't. I should keep my walls up, keep my past locked away where it can't hurt me. But something about the way he's looking at me, not with pity, but with understanding, makes me want to try.
"Foster care," I say, the words coming out rough.
"From the time I was six until I aged out at eighteen.
I went through... I don't know, maybe eight or nine different homes?
" I trace the rim of my glass with one finger.
"Some were okay. Some were awful. Most were just...
indifferent. Like I was a paycheck or a good deed, not really a person. "
"That's fucked up."
"Yeah." I laugh, but there's no humor in it. "The worst part wasn't the bad homes, though. It was the good ones."
He frowns. "How's that?"
"Because I'd start to hope." The admission costs me something. "I'd think maybe this time it would stick. Maybe this family would keep me. And then something would happen, they'd have a baby, or move, or decide fostering wasn't for them, and I'd get shuffled off to the next place."
"So you stopped hoping."
"I stopped wanting." I meet his eyes. "It's easier that way. If you don't want anything, you can't lose it."
Dash is quiet for a long moment, his gaze never leaving mine. Then he sets down his glass and moves around the bar, closing the distance between us. He doesn't touch me, but he's close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him.
"I know that feeling," he says, his voice low. "That fear of wanting something. Of letting yourself care."
"How do you get past it?"
"I don't know if you do." His hand lifts, hesitates, then settles on my shoulder. The touch is warm and sends tingles through me. "But Finn's family taught me something. Sometimes the risk is worth it."
I want to believe him. God, I want to believe him so badly it aches. "I'm scared," I whisper.
"Me too."
The honesty in those two words cracks something open in my chest. Hard, controlled, unshakeable Dash, is scared too. We're both standing here with our broken pieces showing, and somehow that makes it easier to breathe.
"Thank you," I say. "For telling me. About your dad, your mom. All of it."
"Thank you for listening." His thumb brushes against my collarbone, a small gesture that sends warmth spreading through me. "And for trusting me with your story."
We stand there for a moment, the silence between us different now. "I should probably head up," I say eventually, though I don't want to.
"Yeah." But he doesn't move, doesn't drop his hand from my shoulder. "Maddie?"
"Yeah?"
"You're not alone anymore. You know that, right?"
I nod, not trusting my voice.
"Good." He steps back, giving me space. "Sleep well."
I climb the stairs to my apartment, Dash's words echoing in my head. You're not alone anymore.
For the first time in my life, I think I might actually believe it.
week three
I'm in the back room doing inventory when Finn finds me. I've got my clipboard and I'm counting bottles of vodka, trying to focus on the numbers instead of the way my mind keeps drifting to Dash's confession last week. To the way he looked at me when he said me too.
"Hey, Maddie." Finn leans against the doorframe, his easy smile in place. "Need any help?"
"I'm almost done." I mark down the vodka count and move to the gin. "Just finishing up the liquor."
"Mind if I keep you company?"
I glance at him. He's still in jeans and a Rusty Anchor t-shirt that stretches across his broad shoulders.
His blond hair is slightly mussed, like he's been running his hands through it.
There's something different about his expression tonight, though.
Something more serious beneath the usual charm.
"Sure," I say. "Company's nice."
He grabs a stool and settles in, watching me work. For a few minutes, neither of us speaks. The silence sits comfortably between us.
"Dash told me you two talked," he says finally. "About his dad."
My hand stills on a bottle of rum. "He did?"
"Yeah." Finn's smile is soft, understanding. "We don't keep secrets from each other. Never have."
"That must be nice." I write down the rum count, then move to the tequila. "Having someone you trust like that."
"It is." He's quiet for a moment. "My parents used to joke that they had two sons. Dash was over at our house so much, he basically lived there."
I set down my clipboard, giving him my full attention. "What are they like? Your parents."
"Good people." His blue eyes are warm with memory. "Dad's a contractor, Mom's a teacher. They're still here in Silver Lake, actually. Retired now, but they keep busy."
"And they just... took Dash in?"
"They saw a kid who needed help and they helped him." Finn shrugs like it's the simplest thing in the world. "That's what you do for family."
Something twists in my chest. I've never had that, someone who chose me just because they wanted to. Someone who showed up and stayed. "You're lucky," I say quietly. "To have grown up with that."
"I know." He watches me carefully. "But you can have it too."
I shake my head. "It's not that simple."
"Why not?"
"I don't know what a normal family looks like. I don't know how to trust that someone will stay. Every time I've tried, every time I've let myself hope?—"
"They left," Finn finishes gently.
"Yeah." I turn back to the inventory grabbing the clipboard to have something to do, blinking hard against the sudden sting in my eyes. "So I stopped trying."
Finn stands and crosses the small space between us. He takes the clipboard from my hands and sets it aside, then turns me to face him. His hands are warm on my shoulders, steady and sure. "Look at me, Maddie."
I do, reluctantly.
"My parents taught me something important," he says.
"Family isn't about being perfect. It's about showing up.
It's about choosing each other, every single day, even when it's hard.
Especially when it's hard. They chose me when I was a baby, adopted me, made me theirs.
And they chose Dash when he needed someone.
That's what real family does. They see someone who needs them and they choose to show up. "
"But what if I don't know how to do that?"
"Then you learn." His smile is gentle. "That's what Dash did. He didn't know what a real family looked like either, not until my parents showed him. And now? He's the most loyal person I know. He'd do anything for the people he loves."
I think about Dash, the way he watches over the bar, over Finn, over me. The quiet intensity in everything he does. The way he said me too when I admitted I was scared.
"He's lucky to have you," I say. "To have your family."
"And you're lucky to have us now." Finn's thumbs brush against my shoulders, a comforting gesture. "Both of us. We're not going anywhere, Maddie."
I step back and return to the inventory, suddenly needing something to do with my hands.
"My mom wants to meet you," he says after a moment.
I glance up. "Really?"
"Really." He grins. "She's been asking about our new waitress all week."
I laugh. "Should I be worried?"
"Only if you don't like homemade lasagna."
"Why?"