It’s impossible to get him to take anything seriously, using everything as a fucking punchline like he’s afraid of the consequences of feeling anything besides humorous.
His snoring breaks the silence, and I internally groan.
I didn’t even get five whole minutes of genuine honesty.
Maybe I’ll have better luck with Stella in the morning.
For tonight, I need to get this dumbass a blanket and go home.
If I hurry, maybe I can catch a glimpse of Brigit before she goes to bed. I glance at my watch. 12:30. I dropped her off at about midnight, so she’s probably finished with her nighttime skin stuff routine and already in bed.
Pouring myself through the throngs of people, I keep my head down, hoping not to be recognized by anyone.
I only catch a handful of nervous eyes locked onto the tattoo on my neck, quickly averting their gaze the moment they realize I’ve seen them staring.
When I sink into a chair at Stella’s bar, she holds up a single finger before continuing to make drinks and scream at patrons to get their orders.
When she does have a free second, she slides up to me, placing her forearms on the bar and letting loose a sigh, “Is he passed out again?”
I nod, only now realizing this is a regular occurrence.
With an eyeroll, she digs into her pocket and signals to the other bartenders that she’ll be back in a minute, “I keep a blanket in the trunk for nights like this.”
“How often does he get like this?” I rub at my aching head again.
She barks out a soft laugh, “Used to be you could tell just by how his fight went when it was a bad one.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you remember about us? About what happened?” she pries, signaling me to follow her.
“I don’t rememberanything,” I walk closely behind her out into the parking lot. “That’s the problem. If I try to focus and pull the memories from thin air, all I get is a raging headache.”
She twists her lips, sorrow filling her features, “Well, long story short, the two of you were already discussing opening this place together. You had brought him on as a logistics manager for Balor,and he thought it had significant growth potential beyond just crafting and distilling.
“And our sister’s dad rolled up to Balor one day, accusing Skyler of god knows what, and tried to kill him. You?—”
“Wait. I thought it was your dad.”
“Gross,” she shudders. “No. Our stepsister’s dad. He came into our lives when we were teenagers so we never considered him our stepdad. He was just some asshole with a daughter about our age that took advantage of mom’s naivety until it put her in an early grave.”
“And he tried to kill Skyler? Why?”
She shrugs, “Sky still won’t tell me. Maybe even he doesn’t know. But what he did tell me, in no uncertain terms, is that he would have succeeded if you hadn’t stopped him. Skyler wasn’t quite the fighter he is now, and there’s only so much you can do when your opponent wields a knife instead of fists.”
“And I got my neck cut for my trouble,” I laugh.
All the color drains from her face as her eyes glance over my neck before she pops the trunk of her car, placing a bundle of blankets in my hands, “From my brother's drunken confessions of that day, the blood only made you more furious. You killed him with your bare fucking hands. Beat him half to death and then strangled him the other half. Scared the fuck out of Sky.”
“Really?”
She nods, “Yeah, he said you didn’t look like yourself at all. Like some ancient deity of vengeance took over your body. You know how he is with all that spiritual talk. Anyway, something changed that day. The business slowly became something it wasn’t before. For the longest time, I thought it was just the fight ring. But then the news broke… and Skyler told me everything.”
“And you stayed?”
She shrugs, slamming the trunk shut. “You took a life to protect my family when you hardly knew us. It wasn’t a hard leap to assume you were willing to do the same for others. I never thought you were a danger to me, even for a second.”
A pressure I wasn’t aware of lifts from my chest. I don’t give a fuck if strangers are scared of me and what I might do, as long as the people I’m closest to know I’ll protect them. Knowing Stella sees me as a safe person matters more to me than the headlines calling me a monster.
