Oakley
Forty-Five
The bar is busy tonight. College kids gather in clusters around the dim space, throwing back shots and conversing boisterously in a last hurrah before the school year starts up next week.
There’s a good mix of the older crowd in here tonight, too.
The waning summer sun seems to have coaxed everyone out of their mundane nights in search of a little fun.
“Can we have another round of Vegas bombs?” A petite brunette with dazzling blue eyes and cherry red lips drawls her order across the bar.
I grab a shaker and the bottle of Crown Royal and begin working on the shots.
Pop country music blares through the crackling speakers, and I watch the line dancing that’s currently taking place in the center of the veneer dance floor.
It looks fun. A few weeks ago, I never would have noticed it, too lost in my own worries and thoughts to pay any mind to something as simple as dancing.
Does Levi know how to line dance? Maybe he’ll teach me.
My mind has flitted back to those emerald eyes more times than I can count over the course of the night, my thoughts consumed with the way they looked down at me in adoration and longing as he thrust inside me last night.
Or was that this morning? Truth be told, we got very little sleep, the night blurring into morning in a tangle of limbs and heated breaths.
Both of us desperate to cling to this new version of us that, once the dam broke, there was no stopping the flood of desire that flowed out.
I push the shots across the bar to the brunette, who takes them with a thanks and a smile and hands over her card before passing them out to the group of friends surrounding her.
They suck them down with a cheers, and I toss the card, pen, and receipt on the bartop in front of her before moving on to the next group flagging me down.
It’s just me tonight, and though I could have used a little bit of help behind the bar, especially when I had to run and change the keg out myself, as well as restock the Miller Lite in the cooler, I’m happy I won’t have to share any of my tips.
In all honesty, it feels good to work like this, my mind laser-focused on each task as I move methodically through the motions.
Still though, the clock on the wall seems to move at a snail’s pace, and all I want is to get back home to Levi.
He texted me back earlier to let me know he’d be in later tonight, but I still haven’t seen him yet.
My eyes keep glancing to the front door, each squeak of the rusty hinges causing a kernel of hope to flail in my chest, only for it to extinguish when it’s not him walking through it.
I haven’t had a chance to look at my phone all night to see if he texted me again, but I’m too consumed with the task at hand to read too far into the fact that I haven’t felt it buzz in my back pocket either.
The doors open again, and I glance up from the mixed drink I’m making long enough to know that it’s not Levi who walks in. The generic mess of blonde hair poking out from underneath a baseball cap is all I need to turn my attention back to the drink in front of me.
The next two hours pass with little fanfare, the patrons growing more rowdy as the drinks flow and the night drags on.
In the back corner of the bar, a couple is making out, the woman pressed up against a man that leans against the wall, their tongues wagging out of their mouths as they try to eat the other’s face off.
I can practically see the saliva swapping between them in the midst of their drunken make-out session, and I grimace, quickly averting my eyes.
A flash of movement catches my attention in my periphery, and I sigh at the way the man drums his fingers along the bartop impatiently.
“What can I get you?” I ask, my voice betraying my exhaustion, though I do my best to keep my tone light.
“I thought that was you.”
I freeze at the voice as my pulse thrums in my chest. My eyes skate to the fingers still tapping their rhythm out on the bar, taking in the faded black tattoos that cover the knuckles.
No.
No no no, please, no.
Slowly, my eyes lift to meet piercing brown eyes set under thick lashes, the man’s mouth pulled up in a sneer that has my blood running cold.
This can’t be happening.
“It’s so good to see you, Oakley. You look—” he blows out a breath, his alcohol-ruddy cheeks puffing out “—great. Much better than the last time I saw you.” He chuckles and winks, like we’re sharing some kind of inside joke meant only for us.
Bile rises in my throat, my gut roiling as I try to swallow it down.
The only thing separating me from this monster is two feet of bartop, but it’s too close.
He’s too close. I back up a step, my ass hitting the back bar.
I grip it to keep myself upright, my knuckles going white.
I don’t say anything. I can’t. I stare at Travis in shock as the memories ricochet around in my head in flashes.
“I’ll take a shot of whiskey, sweetheart.”
My limbs move of their own accord, numbly going through the motions as I prepare his drink the way I’ve done hundreds of times before.
My throat constricts with the threat of tears, my eyes blurring as I work, and I will them with every fiber of my being not to fall.
To not let him see how his standing here in the flesh, the culmination of all my nightmares, is affecting me.
Where the fuck is Levi?
When I’m done, I slide the drink across the bar to him. He wraps his fingers possessively around the glass, squeezing it the same way he had them wrapped around my throat the last time I saw him. Panic has me in a vise-grip, and the sounds of the lively bar around me dull to a low hum.
He throws the shot back in one fluid motion, his eyes never leaving mine. He doesn’t flinch at the burn of the alcohol as he swallows it down, but I do, knowing that each drop of that liquid is leeching into his bloodstream and turning him into more of a monster than he already is.
It’s a poison, deadly not to him, but to those unlucky enough to be within his reach. I bore the brunt of his violence more times than I can count, and it all comes rushing back to me, freezing me in a place somewhere between fury and fear.
He motions to the empty glass, and I pour another without a word, still too stunned to speak.
I don’t know what I would say even if I could speak right now.
I try to calm my rapid breathing enough to think of what to do.
I glance at the clock on the wall and let out a breath when I see that I only have about an hour left until closing time.
Travis knocks back the second shot with practiced ease while he drags his gaze over my face and down my body, his lip curling up like he thinks I’m a petulant child in need of punishment.
Rage boils in my blood at his perusal, and I tamp it down.
Meeting his fire with a fire of my own never boded well for me in the past.
“Thanks for the drink, sweetheart.” He flashes me a saccharine smile, and I suppress a shudder of disgust. “I’ll see you around.” He knocks his knuckles once on the bar before turning and disappearing into the sea of people.
I expect to feel relief that he’s no longer standing in front of me, but the smothering weight of his gaze still sits as heavy as a rock in my throat. My eyes dart around the room, trying to follow his retreating form through the crowd, but he’s gone as if he’s vanished into thin air like a ghost.
“Hey, bartender!”
The summons from the group of guys at the other end of the bar catches my attention, and I hastily wipe my sweaty palms on my jean-clad thighs as I make my way over to them and take their order. I go through the motions monotonously, my mind still reeling.
Why did he wait until now to show his face?
I knew he was likely still in town, but how had I been so fucking naive to think that, just because the calls stopped, he wasn’t still lurking in the shadows?
He’s never been the smartest man, the alcohol and drugs effectively killing what few brain cells he had to begin with over the years.
So why now?
Over the next hour, I spend more time scanning the crowd of people, looking for him, than I spend actually focusing on my job.
I spill countless drinks and offer even more apologies.
When last call comes around and most of the drunk patrons have left the bar, I half expect him to come back up to me, but he doesn’t. He’s nowhere to be found.
When the final customers have left and the DJ is packed up, I flick on the house lights and do a quick scan around the room, even going as far as to check both bathrooms, but I am completely alone in the musty, alcohol-infused air of Joe’s Bar.
I check my phone quickly, noting no texts or missed calls from Levi, which only serves to heighten my anxiety.
I rush through my closing tasks, not caring whether things are in tiptop shape for Layla to open tomorrow.
I shouldn’t even be here tonight. I was never supposed to be here. She fucking owes me.
Pocketing my cash tips, I grab my bag from behind the bar and make my way to the front door. Usually, I leave out the back, but my nerves are all over the place right now.
I stand at the front windows and scan the empty parking lot.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three.
When a full ten minutes have passed, and no new cars have joined my solitary one in the lot, I shake out my arms and open the door.
The cool air caresses my flushed skin, and I breathe in deeply, willing some of that mountain air magic to calm my racing heart.
The night is quiet around me, only the sound of my shoes crunching across the gravel with each quickening footstep greeting me as I haul ass towards my car.
The parking lot is unusually dark tonight.
I guess that flickering bulb finally went out, and I laugh sardonically to myself at the timing of it.
Just my fucking luck.
My car is only a few steps away, and I glance down to reach into my purse for my keys, cursing myself for not taking them out before I left the safety of the bar. I dig around in my bag, and unease settles into my bones when I don’t feel the familiar cloth keychain.
“Shit,” I mutter, stopping in front of my car to open my bag and peer into its dark depths, but I can’t see with the streetlight out. Something jingles in front of me, and my head snaps up, dread washing all of the color out of my face as a shadow peels itself away from my driver’s side door.
“Looking for these?” He shakes the keys again, the clanging of the metal an exact replica of the pounding of my heart in my chest.
But the dread is nothing compared to the bone-chilling terror that consumes me when I hear the distinct click of a gun cocking, its barrel pointed right at my head.
“Get in the fucking car.”