His fingers tighten around mine. “Once. When I was eighteen, I went to see him in Christchurch. Thought an explanation might help.”
“Did it?”
He smiles bitterly. “No. All he said was that he couldn’t have the life he wanted with Mum. He hadn’t changed.”
My heart twists. I wish I could say something besides ‘sorry,’ but I can’t think of anything else. “I’m so sorry, Davis.”
“It’s fine,” he says. “Mum met Robert when I was fourteen. Big-shot banker, money to burn. Mum didn’t think he’d want the baggage of a step-kid, but he didn’t care. He married her, moved us into his three-story house, took me under his wing. Taught me about finance and restoring cars. But that’s my point: Robert was a good bloke before he met Mum. Dad wasn’t.” His smile sharpens. “So there it is. Love doesn’t change people.”
I’m at a loss for words. It’s a sweet story, his mum finding her ‘one’, but Davis delivers it with such a hollow edge it makes my chest ache. I squeeze his hand again. “I get why you might feel that way.”
“Good, because whatever’s going on with Ada and the All Black…” He jerks his chin at the door. “It’s not gonna work just because he buys her ‘gifts’and fucks her right. He did what he did, and he has to live with it. And I don’t think Adacanlive with it.”
I’m dying to know what he knows about Ada’s past. What she must have told him, but I can’t get past Davis’s fatalistic tone. He’s carrying around so much pain for his dad, his mum, and himself. My heart breaks imagining him as a boy, big-eyed and round-faced. I can just picture him trying to be the support his mother needed, trying his best to stay out of trouble and take care of himself because he thought she already had too much to worry about. It makes so much sense why he’s the way he is now.
“You’re a good man.” The words tumble out before I can stop them.
“I try,” Davis mutters, eyes down.
“No. You are.”
He lifts his gaze, and the floor tilts beneath me. For a moment I’m spinning through something vast and unsteady, then I find my footing again. “Youarea good man. I know that. Do you remember how we met?”
A shadow flickers across Davis’s face. “Of course.”
In my first month of running Afterglow, I announced it was last call and one of the leftovers from the Mitch years slurred at me to “shut up and pour the beer.”
I was stunned, but I knew I needed to say something. To show the old regulars that I wouldn’t be spoken to like that in my own bar. I told the guy to get out and took his glass away. That’s when he called me a ‘disrespectful bitch’ and shoved me. He was old and drunk and his fist barely grazed my shoulder, but I stumbled back, blindsided by the contact.
Davis was at my side in a second. I’d seen him drinking in the corner booth earlier. He must have crossed the room in three strides before he laid the old bastard out cold. Then he checked me for injuries and rang the cops. He also restrained Aggie when she came flying out of the kitchen, ready to go to town on the guy’s unconscious body with a wooden spoon.
I figured Davis was just a Good Samaritan who’d disappear once the police statements were written, but once the cops left, he turned to me. “You hiring?”
I remember gaping at him, so young and superhero handsome, I couldn’t believe he was asking me for a job. “You want to be a bartender?”
“A bouncer,” he corrected. “I’ve got a day job in finance, but I did security all through uni and I’ve still got my license. You need someone on that door. At least on weekends.”
I said no, I couldn’t afford a proper security guard. Davis nodded, but then the very next day he turned up in a black T-shirt and boots and started checking IDs and telling the regulars to pull their heads in. He came back the next weekend, and the one after that. Eventually, I signed him on to ease my conscienceabout taking advantage of him.
“I know you’re a good man because when I needed help, you were there,” I say to Davis. “You didn’t have to rescue me the night we met, or stay on to work here, but you did.”
“I hate that memory,” he mutters.
“You mean when we met?”
“I mean when I had to watch a drunk asshole push a woman around. Pushyouaround, Cecelia.”
A shiver flits down my spine. Davis never uses my full name, and hearing it all low and stern does something to me I can’t explain.
“I don’t hate that memory,” I say softly. “It’s the night I met you.”
Goosebumps rise along Davis’s neck, and I realise we’re still holding hands. I should let go. I’m his boss, the older woman signing his admittedly tiny paychecks.
“Cece?”
His breath brushes my temple, sending a tremor down my spine. “Yes?”
“Have you thought any more about what you want?”
