Chapter Nine
Dean
“Fine.Fuck it.That’sit, I’m going over there.”
Dean let the heavy 1972 olive green curtain slide shut over the picture window in the living room and turned with resolve.Glancing at the clock on the equally outdated stove in the tiny kitchenette, he saw it was just past 3:00 in the morning.
He was still dressed from dinner.Hell, he’d never changed from his drive down from college.Hadn’t even taken off his sneakers, pacing the floors of his borrowed living room for the last however many hours, restless and excited and scared and nervous and wired ever since the moment Sully had dropped him off at the curb and, true to his word, waited in the rumbling truck until Dean had stumbled upstairs and thrown on the kitchen light.Then he’d heard the telltale roar of the old Ford engine, racing off into the night.
But a quick peek out the living room told Dean he hadn’t gone far, simply peeling around the block to park beside his bar, the winking neonPaddy’s Pubsign far more evocative at night than it had been during the day.He’d even walked in through the front door, the neon glare gracing his handsome face until he disappeared from view.
Dean kept waiting for him to leave again.Head back to his truck and maybe drive out into the country, where he probably lived in some log cabin surrounded by horses and cows and chickens and cornfields and tractors and whatnot, cutting wood shirtless every morning before cooking ham and eggs over a blazing fire in the front yard.
But he never did.Patrons did, each one a younger or older version of the three regulars Dean had met that day.Lots of tractor company ball caps and blue jeans, cowboy boots and shiny buckles and big, wheezing trucks chugging away from what appeared to be the town’s most popular (perhaps only?) bar.
There were ladies, too.Of the flashy, showy, cowgirl variety—tight jeans and crop tops, wriggling hips and jangly boots and pigtails aplenty, stumbling out of the bar after one-too-many Lucky Suds and clamoring on the corner as their designated driver pulled around to carpool them home.
Eventually the block calmed down, Dean still pacing, the curtain still pulled back, waiting patiently as the cocktail waitresses left, one by one, boasting a uniform of short denim skirts and Paddy’s Pub tank tops, calling out muted goodbyes before drifting toward the parking lot and heading for home after another long night shift.Dean thought that might be it.Then, a while later, another woman, older than the waitresses, a little tough looking, in jeans and a denim Pappy’s Pub collar shirt, walked out the front door, turning to lock it with a manager’s keen resolve.
She straightened up, lit a cigarette in the pale moonlight, took a long puff and then exhaled, walking briskly down the well-lit sidewalk to the parking lot behind the old, warehouse style brick building that housed Pappy’s.Dean waited by the window, feet tired from pacing the floor of the tiny storage room, heart pounding despite having not been in Sully’s presence for too many long, quiet, lonely hours.
A solitary creature, Dean was used to his own company.In class, in the dorms, in the library, late at night or early morning, he’d never feared being alone nor had he longed, in particular, for the company of others.But suddenly he felt more than lonely.
He felt ...homesick.
Not for his crummy off-campus apartment back at State.Not even for the family home back in North Carolina, where his single mom was a librarian, buried in books both at her work and at their cluttered, almost Hoarders-worthy home.He was homesick for Sully, the first person—and clearly the first man—who’d ever looked beyond Dean’s bookish little eyes to the heart and soul beyond.
No wonder he was double-timing it down the stairs, face flushed from more physical effort than he’d expended in the last nine or ten years.The sidewalk at the bottom of the steps was quiet, dark and desolate, making Dean feel like the last man on earth as he gently crept across the empty street, sneakers whispering on dark, quiet pavement.
The lights were still on in the Pub, despite the late hour and the lack of customers.And yet, somehow, instinct drew him away from the front door and back, to the parking lot where so many of the Pappy’s employees had headed before driving stealthily away.There, beyond clearly marked parking spaces, was a door marked “Deliveries Only”.
Dean walked straight to it, the sound of music faint but noticeable coming from just inside.He knocked quickly, persistently, pale knuckles rapping against the scarred metal door.Pressing his ear to it between frantic knocks, he heard grumbling, a curse or two and, eventually footsteps.He straightened, lest he be seen eavesdropping, and stood as casually as possible for someone who’d just spent the last six hours stalking his favorite bar owner from an upstairs window across the street.
“The fuck?”Sully spat, looking beyond radiant in a fluffy lavender bath robe he’d barely had time to cinch at the waist.“Dean?”
“Hurry,” Dean grunted, slipping in the half-open door before he lost his nerve.“Before I chicken out!”
There was a clatter and a clang as the heavy back door swung shut behind him, Dean glancing past his scantily-clad host to find them standing in a small, clean kitchen.
“We said tomorrow,” Sully growled, even as he turned the lock on the door at their backs.
