He stretched his neck from side to side, seeing the sign to his hometown. His first instinct was to head straight to the big house. Instead, he flicked theswitch to turn on his blinker to turn left. It was Christmas morning, and he always spent the first ray of the day with his family.
As usual, the ride from the stop sign to the entrance took less than ten minutes. He couldn’t remember if he passed anyone as he rode. The disassociation from reality had taken hold the moment he flicked the turn signal. The loud rumble of his Harley echoed around him. It was the only sound in the snow-white landscape. Towers of concrete interspersed with flat markers greeted him. He didn’t look at any while continuing to ride until he saw the bench. His bench.
He stopped and brought his boots down on the packed snow. As he did back at the clubhouse, he went through the steps of shutting down his bike. His vision blurred. He slammed his eyes shut. “Fuck,” he yelled and yanked at his helmet.
He laced his hands behind his head and dug his fingers into his neck hard enough to remind himself he was alive, wishing otherwise.
“Let’s do this,” he said.
Bekkett snapped his eyes toward the bench facing a large quartzite headstone. He moved fromhis bike, muscles stiff from the ride. His chest hurt. Hell, his stomach ached, and his head pounded.
“Fuck. Will this ever get easier?” he asked.
One foot in front of the other, he stepped across the snowy ground until he stood before the headstone with his wife’s and daughter’s names engraved.
“Nancy and Sarah Larsen. Beloved Wife and Daughter,” he rasped as he ran his gloved finger over the words. The fucking irony. He’d have loved to have been a father. To have been able to hold his baby girl. If only...
“JINX, GET YOUR ASSin gear, girl. We got a shitton of customers waiting on drinks.”
Blair rolled her eyes at her boss and his snarl. “I’m coming, Frank. Hold your nads.”
“I’ll give you something to hold if you keep sassing me, girl.” Frank pointed his finger at Blair.
She looked at him. Taking in his pot belly, she let her eyes wander down to his feet. She smiled at the pair of loafers he wore, swearing her grandpa had a similar set in the twenties, and then she glanced back at the top of his head. The man had perfectedthe combover. “Frank, while I love you dearly, I could whoop your ass on my worst day. Besides, you wouldn’t know what to do with all this.”
Blair waved her hand down her side. Tonight she wore a pair of faded denim jeans with a few rips in the knees, not fashionably put there but broken in. They were the most comfortable pair she owned and ones she tended to wear a lot. She topped the outfit with a red-and-white flannel shirt over a red bodysuit. It was freaking Christmas, after all. Black combat boots completed her festive as fuck outfit.
“Not many men can, girl. If you don’t watch it, you’ll become an old spinster like Harriett. Mark my words.” Frank snorted.
Blair slid past Frank to make her way out to the bar. As he said, the place she called her second home could get rowdy, especially on Christmas, and people wanted to get away from their families.
“Jinx, I’m so freaking happy to see you.” Fred held his arms open, knowing she didn’t allow others to touch her without permission.
She walked into his arms and gave a brief hug before stepping back. “I hear it’s already been crazy today.”
Fred sighed. “You know my dad. He thinks the place is hopping if there are more than a dozen patrons.”
Jinx turned to the cooler. She double-checked the liquor stock before the evening rush. “I’m going to grab a couple more cases to stack off to the side. We good on everything else?”
Fred scrunched up his face, rattled off a couple of things, and then she left him to get other necessities.
By the time the evening crowd started filing in, Jordan, the newest hire and Fred’s roommate, moved to help Blair and Fred serve drinks. Their two waitresses were working their asses off, but Blair saw they didn’t have a problem keeping up.
She looked at the time, groaning. “We really should’ve closed at midnight instead of one thirty.”
Fred laughed as he noticed it was almost midnight. They still had over an hour and a half to work, and the idiots in the bar all appeared to think drinking was an Olympic sport.
“Jinx, do you see that table in the corner over there?” Taeloree asked, pointing toward the section near the dartboards.
Blair filled a glass of draft beer from Taeloree’s order as she eyed the twelve-seater table. “Yeah, I see them. What’s up?”
“They want to know if you’re single. Specifically, the guy in the sweater vest who looks like a cross between Glenn Powell and Kellen Lutz.” Jamie stood on her tiptoes and leaned over the bar, whispering near Blair’s ear. “If you decide to give it a go, you gotta give me all the deets.”
She shook her head. “Sorry, Jamie, I will not be giving any of them a go. Tell them I’m in my lesbian era.”
Fred gasped. “Girl, that is like waving a red flag at a raging bull. They’ll be waging bets on who can turn you strictly dickly again.”
Blair finished with Jamie’s orders. “Here you go, hun. Tell them I’m with him.” She hiked her thumb toward Fred.
