I was happy to see the bar was essentially empty. There were a few stragglers but the chairs up on the tables were the cue that it was time to wrap things up. As the owner of the bar, I should have been bothered by the fact there were exactly three guys in the bar on a Friday night. I wasn’t the least bit worried. I was making plenty of money and a slow night wasn’t going to kill me.
“I thought you would be out with some hot model,” Davin said when I sat down at the bar.
“Not tonight.”
“What’s up? You look like you’ve been up for days.”
I shook my head. “I assure you I haven’t. It’s been a long day and I need a drink.”
He smirked as he grabbed a glass. “You say that every day.”
“Every day feels long,” I commented. “Are you closing up?”
“In five minutes.”
“Stay and have a drink with me, on me,” I added.
He grinned. “Only if you say I’m your best friend in the whole wide world.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be an idiot.”
He pulled back the drink he poured for me. “Do you want to know what I do to the drinks of assholes?” He held my glass to his face and pretended to be spitting in it.
“Very funny. Give me my drink.”
He laughed and slid the glass across the bar. “I’m going to grab a beer. These guys can finish up. My feet are killing me. Let’s sit at a table.”
I slid off the stool and moved to a corner in the far back. I pulled the chairs off and sat down in one. Davin joined me a minute later with a bottle of Coors Light.
“I hope I’m not paying you to drink with me,” I said dryly.
He winked. “Of course not.” He took another long drink from the beer. “How was the new business?”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. Not great but not a pile of shit. I’ll have it whipped into shape in no time. It will be one of the top tax firms in the country. I’m already looking into buying more space in the building. I’ll need to hire more people as well.”
“Look at you, always improving the economy one job at a time,” he teased.
“I do what I can.”
I could feel him watching me. “Why don’t you look happy about this new business? Whenever you snatch up a company, you are usually giddy. I’m not getting that vibe this time.”
“Because this one comes with added complications,” I told him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have a past with the manager of the place,” I said.
His blue eyes flashed, and his grin exploded over his face. The guy was a couple of years younger than I was, but he looked like he was twenty-one without a care in the world, especially when he smiled like that. “A past?” he teased. “Does that mean she was one of the many ladies left in your wake?”
“Not really.”
“Please, do tell,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for a juicy story all night.”
“It isn’t so juicy,” I lied. I wasn’t going to get into the details of that little tryst. “She was someone who did my taxes for me back at the beginning of my career. Back then, she was a CPA at the firm. I had no idea she was still there or running the place.”
“And is that a bad thing?” he asked. “Like she’s not good at the tax thing?”
“No, she’s very good. A little bossy but she saved my ass back then and kept me from paying through the nose in taxes. She was smart and knew a lot about all of the little loopholes and how to keep me from being audited.”
“Then what’s the problem?” he asked.
“There isn’t one.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I’m not an idiot. I’ve known you five years now and this is clearly a problem for you.”
“It just brings back some old memories,” I told him.
That really was the problem. Seeing Saige brought back a part of my life I had long tried to forget. Not that she was something I regretted, but that whole time was bad news.
“Now you’ve got me curious. Spill.”
I noticed the last customers had left and the employees had disappeared. The bar was closed. It was just me and him. “I was married, and it did not end well. It didn’t start well either, but the ending was especially bad.”
“You and this tax lady were married?”
“No, no. I was married to someone else.”
He looked confused. “So, the tax lady is just a tax lady? Not your ex?”
That was a tricky question. “No.”
He shook his head. “Are you purposely being cagey? Do you want me to know or what? You want to tell me. I can feel it. Spit it out.”
“My marriage was a fucking joke,” I blurted out. “A cruel joke. I don’t like to admit I’ve made a mistake very often, but that was the biggest mistake of my life.”
“What happened?”
I held up my empty glass. “I’m going to need another. Just thinking about those days makes me want to drink a bottle.”
I got up at the same time he did.
“I’ll get it,” he said.
“No, you’re off the clock.”
He laughed. “Cheapskate. You don’t want to pay me.”
“I’m grabbing the bottle,” I told him as I moved behind the bar. I quickly found the bottle and carried it back to the table.
“That bad, huh?” he asked as I filled my glass.
“It was worse than bad.”
“Did she cheat on you?” he asked.
“Probably. I don’t know. I don’t care. It wasn’t like I loved her.”
“Damn,” he hissed. “Why’d you marry her?”
“Because she was pretty and very social. I thought I needed a wife on my arm to impress people. I was trying to prove to the rich pricks that were running the business scene in the city that I was just like them. They all had their trophy wives and golfed on the weekends while the wives did the charity stuff. I was trying to fit in and ended up making myself miserable.”
“Harsh,” he said with a grimace. “What about her?”
“What about her?”
“Did you dump her?” he asked.
“She wasn’t married to me because she loved me. By the end of the marriage, she didn’t even like me. I didn’t much care for her either. We didn’t share a room. We were barely in the same city. She traveled and lived like a queen on my dime. I have no doubt in my mind I was supporting a series of lovers for her as well.”
“Damn, that is really rough,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Fuck it. I’m over it. It’s in the past. It’s just not something I think about. She got her money and now she’s out of my life. I rarely think about her. Seeing Saige just kind of stirred up those old memories.”
“Saige, huh?” he said. “Weird name.”
I shrugged. I never really thought about whether it was weird or not. “I guess.”
“I’m picking up on some animosity there,” he said.
“Where?”
“Between you and Saige. Did she dump you or the other way around?”