I repeat the words to myself again.It’s done.
I glance at my mussed sheets on the mattress which probably smell like him now. Would wrapping myself in them do me more harm than good?
I decide not to take my chances. Taking a leaf from Chris’ playbook, I leave the room without looking back. I need to see this for what it was—just a chapter of my life that’s now over. An agreement where I bit off more than I could chew.
Curling up on the couch, I close my eyes and cradle my arms around me. I also have a future I’ve been working toward that starts tomorrow. One that will be just as wonderful as I imagined it would be before I met Chris Mightener. I hold on to that assurance. I grip it even tighter when a tear slips down my cheek.
CHAPTER 1
Chris
It’s going to rain. The unimpressed look I flash Colin Bentley, the local weatherman on the television above the bar, doesn’t seem to convince him. Smiling, he waves his hand over the map of San Antonio.
“We might see a few clouds, but this low pressure system is going to move south of us. You can expect nothing but sunshine for the rest of the week.”
The schmuck.
“Shut the fuck up, Colin,” I mutter into my gin and tonic.
I’m not being salty. Heisa schmuck. I’ve run into him plenty of times while I was reporting sports events, but that’s beside the point.
Sunshine? My L3 through L5 vertebrae know better, and my knee and ankle second their motion. They’re the reason I’m sitting at Mahoney’s right now, medicating. I’m a walking barometer.
Throwing back the last of my drink, I close my eyes and weigh the state of the throbbing in my bones. It’s down to a dull reverberation—thank God—numbed enough that it isn’t shouting at me anymore. A fourth round would give me a better night’s sleep for the joyous outing I have tomorrow with Dad, but contrary to what he thinks, Ihavelearned a lesson or two in the last decade and a half. I could be popping painkillers rightnow instead of downing liquid arthritis silencer. The fact that I’m not drinking beer, which tastes much better, is proof I’m not here for enjoyment, but there’s no telling him or Mom that. So, my odorless friend gin it is when Mother Nature crawls out to screw with me and Dad drives down to screw with my life.
An upheaval of laughter erupts over by the pool tables near the door. Anything is more interesting than Bentley’s inaccurate weather report, so I glance at the commotion as I wave to the bartender for my tab. The gray and black letterman jackets are instantly recognizable—Leopards, football players from the local high school. I need to stop coming to bars that serve food where minors can get in during kitchen hours, even if it means the bar is conveniently located three blocks from my house. I know too many of the players’ names from covering games for the paper. I want to watch them play football, not watch their social lives.
Despite myself, and because I refuse to look back at the television for the weather recap that’s sure to be repeated, I study their youthful faces. Soft skin, hardly any signs of facial hair yet, smiles oblivious to the unknown the future holds. I both envy and pity them—little kings of the hour in the tiny bubble they know as their world.
“Twenty-seven, Chris,” Mike tells me, wiping down the wood where my glass left a ring of perspiration.
Tugging some bills out of my wallet, I toss them down and thank him. Gripping the bar, I rise, slowly letting my weight settle onto my joints. I stuff my wallet into the front pocket of my pants. The lump looks odd there, but it’s better than having to twist to tug it out of the back one once I get in my truck.
My gin-infused muscles cooperate, giving me smooth sailing. What a bit of liquor can do for stiff joints and a throbbing back. I should sleep like a baby. Maybe a temperamental one, but still a baby. No bags under my eyes tomorrow while Dad, no doubt, tries to make a spectacle of me. He promised he’s just cominginto town for some quality time, but I’m not about to hold my breath. I wish he’d devote all his time to living vicariously through my nephews, but as his only son, I’m unfortunately obligated to receive a turn now and then.
The toe of my shoe connects with something hard near the end of the bar. The scrape of metal against wood and the shift of an empty stool to my right tell me what I got caught on. I flinch and stutter my steps to a halt to keep from toppling forward so I don’t snag it.
Wrong move. Wrong fucking move.
The quick, jerking motion shoots a blade of pain up my spine, stealing my breath. I dig my fingertips into my lower back in a death grip to stop the assault, but it owns me already. I stagger to my right and grip the bar, begging my knees not to drop out from underneath me, and let out a garbled cry. There’s a loud clatter in front of me that silences all the chatter in the bar. I know it’s the stool without even having to open my eyes, but it’s the least of my concerns right now. Huffing, I exhale through the sensation of jagged metal stabbing my spine.
“Shit. Chris, you all right?” I hear Mike ask from the other side of the bar.
“Y-yeah,” I grunt, hating that someone has to hear how I can’t even get out a one-syllable word when this happens. Sucking in a breath, I try again. “Yeah. I’m good. Just…need a minute.”
“Hold tight. I’ll get the stool.”
“No,” I stop him, grateful I’m able to lift my hand from the bar. “I can get it.”
Damn it. There went my twenty-seven-dollar cure for the evening.
The commotion of conversations resumes around me, blending into background noise with the low music playing from the speakers in the bar. Good. I hope it means the ‘crippled guy’ at the bar is forgotten. Just the way I prefer it.
When my stomach muscles stand down from their preservation response, I bend down gingerly at the knees in a squat to retrieve the barstool. At least, Mahoney’s is a little hole in the wall that doesn’t get much of a crowd. Not that anyone knows me anyway, besides Mike.
“You know who that is?” I overhear one of the kids by the pool table whisper at bar volume.
“Should we?”
