“You can still watch your stupid baseball game, old man. I’ll work this weekend.” The fingers of my good hand—if either of them can be called that—twitch toward the liquor bottles, wanting to switch them. If Angie doesn’t agree to taking the night off though, it’ll be pointless. I’m not gonna fuck with another bartender’s set up, even if I disagree with it.
I can, however, prep her sani buckets, so I get to work on that. It takes a bit more finagling than I appreciate in my current state, something Dale notices quickly.
“Now how in the hell are you going to work the bar whenone of your arms is in a sling and the other’s got a brace on it? Nope. Sorry, Charlie, it’s not happening.”
“Same way I drove here with one arm in a sling and the other in a brace. Carefully. Call Angie. We both know she’ll probably jump at the opportunity.” She’s in the first trimester of her pregnancy and every time I see her, she inadvertently reminds me of one of the many reasons I chose to be sterilized. To say it’s not agreeing with her would be an understatement.
Dale huffs. “Do the Whittakers know you’re here?”
“Getting really tired of everyone thinking the Whittakers own me or something,” I tell him, accidentally dropping the sanitizer tablet in the sink instead of in the bucket. I curse under my breath, but deem it a loss since it starts dissolving immediately thanks to the stream of water I had running. Normally, I turn it off just for that reason, but every step is taking twice as long as usual, so I was cutting corners where I could.
“I don’t think they own you, sweetheart, but I do think they practically own Cedar Creek, and god knows I don’t want to be on their bad side. I’d bet this bar that Maddox Whittaker thinks you’re resting up somewhere on his property right now and has no clue you’ve managed to drive yourself up here.”
The door opens behind him. “You’d lose that bet,” I mumble, catching the eyes of one pissed off cowboy headed our way.
Dale turns and grins, a gesture Maddox doesn’t return. “Great, you’re here. I was just trying to tell her to head back to your ranch.”
“Fucking narc.”
Maddox ignores both of us. “Kenny around here somewhere?” he asks me, hands on the edge of the bar.
“No? She’s at work, I think,” I say, confused. I thought I was about to get the reaming of my life, not questions about my best friend’s whereabouts. Unless… My stomach drops. “Why? Did something happen?”
“Tate? Bailey? One of the ranch hands? I know it wasn’t Jamie or Tyler.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Who drove you here? Because I know for a damn fact you didn’t hop your pretty little ass behind the wheel of that pickup with one arm in a sling, so who drove?”
My jaw clenches. Dale excuses himself under his breath, disappearing down the hall. I have a feeling he’s not calling Angie.
“I’m waiting.”
“Wait til you’re blue in the face then. I’d offer you a drink but Angie’s got everything all mixed up back here.”
I drop a new sanitizer tablet into the bucket and try to lift it out of the sink, but it’s an embarrassing struggle, my wrist unwilling to cooperate. I leave it there. Angie will put it under the bar when she gets here.
“Why do you insist on fighting me?” he asks quietly. It takes everything in me not to look up at him. I know what I’ll see and I don’t want to see it. There are a lot of things Maddox Whittaker is good at, but a poker face isn’t one of them.
“‘Cause you insist on coddling me. I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it my whole life. If you hadn’t found me that night, I would’ve just gone straight home from the hospital and would’ve continued with my day-to-day. There’s no reason I can’t still do that.”
Just to look busy, I grab a rag and douse it in the sanitizer, wetting my brace in the process. Wringing the rag with one hand is… damn near impossible, so I pretend I hadn’t been trying to and leave it in the bucket as it is.
The truth hangs heavy between us. If he hadn’t found me that night, I’d be dead. I wouldn’t have made it to the hospital, much less made it out to go home. I should feel grateful, and I do, but a much larger part of me wonders if it was worth it.
“I know you can take care of yourself, baby,” Maddox finally says, thankfully not bringing up the elephant in the conversation. “And I know you’ve been doing it your whole life, but you don’t have to anymore, and I just need you to realize that.”
I snort, fidgeting with the picks. There’s nothing wrong with them, but I rearrange them anyway. “Why? Because you’re gonna do it? Come on, Maddie, let’s be real here.”
“Yeah, let’s,” he says, finally taking a seat on one of the stools and gently pulling my hand into his. “I can safely say I’ve never had to deal with someone who refused my help so much, and there’s a big part of me that appreciates that about you—that you don’t ever take advantage of me, that you’re so capable and stubborn. But right now, you’re hurt, Austin. And I don’t just mean the broken bones and the concussion. Let me take care of you, baby. Please.”
My eyes stay glued to our hands so I can avoid his face. A lot of my hospital stay is blurry for me. Between the pain and the medications and the repetitive questions, most of it has faded from my mind already, just like the actual beating itself. The one part I remember clear as day though, is Maddox.
When they finally let him come back to see me, he stayed glued to my side with the exception of the social worker’s visit when she asked to question me alone. If he wasn’t holding my hand, he was touching me somewhere else—petting my hair, thumbing my cheek, palming my thigh.
It had been an anchor I’d relished in having, one I clung to. But like the medications, and like beer and drugs and gambling and the countless other things I didn’t allow myself to partake in, Maddox’s presence was addicting, and I was an addict by blood.
“I think…” I start, swallowing when my voice breaks. “I think maybe we’ve lost sight of what this is.”
