We keep a nine-millimeter handgun behind the bar, loaded. My dad hates the reminder I might need to use it someday. But in all honesty, I’ve never been frightened when I’m there late. Our bar is south of Charlotte, skimming the suburbs. It’s off the beaten path, but not an unsafe path, and most of the men who come in are guys like my dad. Many of whom I’ve known since birth. Also, the Ice Kings. Obviously, we have other customers, but while we turn a decent profit now, I know that if Dad hadn’t paid off the mortgage on the building right around the time I graduated college, we’d be struggling to stay afloat.
I like the slowness of it. The family feel of it since I know most everyone. Charlotte’s one of the top fifteen largest cities in the country, and yet our bar has a small-town, know everyone who enters, feel to it.
“You give any more thought to what you want to do now?”
Not this again. He’s been asking me for the last few months if I’m looking for other jobs. I haven’t once had the urge to try to find something.
I duck my head. “Not really. I’m happy where I’m at. You trying to get rid of me?”
“Never, Georgia. You know that. But that don’t mean your old man likes the idea of you tendin’ bar the rest of your life. Not sure it’s gonna give you the passion you need.”
See? Such a good dad. I get his concern. I’m the girl who always needs the next greatest adventure. I get bored sitting still and even while we’re eating dinner my knee is bouncing. I need to be moving, reading, dreaming and then going. Spreading my wings.
Helping him run the bar is the exact opposite of me.
There’s also no way I’m leaving. Not with my dad’s health issues in the last year.
But he doesn’t want me to stay for him. He doesn’t want me having those regrets. What he hasn’t yet realized is that I’ll never, ever regret a single moment where I stay and help him with something he loves and spending this time with him.
“I’m staying busy. Taking pictures. Doing what I love, but mostly, I’m loving being home for a spell.”
“Don’t ever hold yourself back on my account.”
“I won’t. I promise. And I’m not.”
Dad doesn’t know I’ve started a photography account on social media. It’s mostly me, walking around Charlotte. The trails. Day trips to Kings Mountain and other places I can get to and back easily. He’d hate to know I’m off on trails alone, even if I stay armed with pepper spray.
He also wouldn’t understand, but in the few months since I’ve started, I already have over forty-thousand followers and every time I post I get hundreds of comments from people with their excitement of where I’ve been, what I’ve eaten.
For now at least, if I can inspire others to travel and pursue new sights, that’s good enough for me.
“So what was wrong with Hendrix, anyway?” Dad asks.
Dad’s come to care about the guys, though. He’s a huge fan, although I know he’s never let on. He once told me it’s because he was afraid they wouldn’t come back if he freaked out with excitement. After a while, he got so used to acting like he didn’t care who they were, it actually became not a big deal.
It helped that when they started coming, they weren’t dicks with big egos. They drink a lot. Tip even better. And they’re nice to everyone.
“Had a bad day, I guess.” It’s not my story to tell, but I hate lying to my dad. It’s not like he’ll say anything.
“Odd. He’s playing well. Team is doing good, too.”
“Yeah.” I shove a bite of potatoes into my mouth.
“Careful with him, butterfly.”
“He’s married.”
I haven’t hidden my crush on him that well if my own father can tell.
“Exactly. That’s why I’m telling you to be careful.”
Yeah. It’s good advice. If only my hormones would get the notice and react accordingly.
“I was there for him during a bad night, Dad. That’s all. I swear.”
Dad’s eyes narrow on me and I feel like a teenager who broke curfew all over again. Luckily, the buzzer on the dryer goes off on my last load and I’m saved from further inspection with the lame excuse of gathering my things before they get wrinkled.
Later, when I’m back in my apartment, and I’m putting the freshly cleaned sheets back on my bed, I hate that I miss the smell of Sebastian on the pillow next to me.
Which definitely means he’s trouble.
And I need to stay far away.
Chapter Five
Sebastian
“Come on, Ben. I just want to talk to her.”
“You know I love you like a son. You know that deep in my soul, but unfortunately, this time, I’ve gotta take my girl’s back.”
My jaw aches from holding back a curse. Ben Ritter has been my second father since the moment I took Madison to homecoming our freshman year of high school. Our lives are so damn entwined they can’t be untangled. He’s always been there, rooting me on. Hell, he was always louder than my own parents when he sat in the stands, freezing his ass off, years on end.
It’s been over a month since Madison told me she was leaving to spend the holidays with her family in Minnesota. Three weeks since I was served divorce papers, papers I still haven’t returned even though the deadline is coming up. I have at least called a lawyer and have a meeting with him later this week.
A part of me wants to give her so much more than she asked for. The other part of me wants to shake some damn sense into her and beg her to come home.
Which is pretty damn impossible considering she won’t answer a single phone call. Hence why I’ve called her dad as soon as our plane landed back from a ten-day-long stretch of away games.
I figured calling in the big guns and talking to her dad would get me somewhere.
“Ben—”
“I can’t do it, Sebastian. And it kills me. Kills me seeing you two going through this hell, hiding it, not telling us what’s going on, but Maddie, she’s a mess.”
“Because she’s not with me.” My eyes burn and fuck. I can’t stand this. “If she’s in pain, it’s because she knows she’s doing wrong, here, Ben. Come on.” I don’t give two shits at how I’m begging. The quiet pain in Ben’s voice is worse. He’s torn up, torn between the two of us.
I’d feel bad about that if this wasn’t my last shot.
“Yeah, but right now, she just wants her mom and dad and as much I think what she’s doing isn’t right, I also want to do right by her and give her what she thinks she needs.”
I scan the hangar to make sure no one can hear me, but fortunately, everyone else on the team is still getting their bags.
“She’s my wife,” I grit out.
For the first time, that word seems to mean a whole hell of a lot less than it once did. We’re supposed to lean on each other during hard times. She’s supposed to let me give her strength. She’s supposed to love me, damn it. Better or worse. All of that shit. Marriages survive worse than the hand we’ve been dealt. Quite possibly, it’s talking to Ben, finally getting able to take out my anger on someone other than my punching bag in my workout room that I realize how absolutely, completely fucked up this all is.