“A reason.”
I shake my head. “What?”
“You see, the only reason you’re still alive is because I don’t want you dead. Wanting you dead is the only reason I need to take you off this fucking planet. If you were a real man, I’d be dead now. But you’re not. You’re weak. Just like Johnny.”
“Get the fuck out of here, Butch,” Nancy says, walking toward him with the bat. “I mean it.”
Rolling my shoulders, I sit back down and chug the rest of my beer. Lainey takes the seat Butch was just in and leans her elbow on the bar. “You okay?”
“I’ll never be okay,” I say. “Not as long as he’s still breathing.”
“One day.” She squeezes my arm until I look at her. “That’s what makes you different. Better. You don’t just go around hurting people for no reason. Dad would be proud of you, Zep. He’d want you to have the proof you’re looking for before taking that motherfucker out.”
“I don’t know if I believe that anymore.”
She tilts her head, her dark hair hanging over her shoulder from her ponytail. “Hey, Dad loved you like you were his own. Saw you as his, okay? And we will find out the truth.”
“I fucking hope so.”
“Where’s your new girl? Misty. I bet she can help get your mind off stuff like she did before.”
While she giggles, I feel a pain in my chest. “She wants space.”
“What’d you do?”
“Nothing!” I turn to glare at her. “Why would you assume I did something?”
“Because it’s usually the guy’s fault. You two looked like a real item when you were in here. What’s going on?”
I leave out the details of our sex life, but I tell her what Misty said. How she’s worried about Chanel.
“Fucking bitch.”
“No, she’s not,” I scold.
“No, not Misty. Chanel. I never liked her.”
Snorting, I take the beer Nancy hands me. “Yeah, no one really did.”
“I hope she really is out of your system for good. Misty seems like a good one. And I hear she’s a great mom. Just make sure you’re ready to take on a woman with a kid, Zep. It’s not always easy.”
If only she knew Misty and Bernie are all I want. The family I never thought I’d want. And now, I want nothing else in this world. Except Butch Ballard dead.
Chapter Twenty
Zeppelin
Life still doesn’t feel right. I talk to Bernie after school, and sometimes Misty sits with us. But it’s never just the two of us. There are no touches. Nothing to indicate she still wants me the way she did.
Things have cooled to the point of being frozen. I know I said we’d take this at her pace, but I’m dying. All I want is to have her next to me as I sleep. To be there when I open my eyes.
The women I’d take to bed between visits from Chanel never stayed the night. Misty’s the first woman since Chanel and I broke up when we were twenty-one to stay the night. To make it until morning and still be in my arms without having to run away to something or someone else.
I never thought I was worth it, to be honest. That all I had to offer anyone was a good time hook up and call it a day. And then Misty blew that all out of the water. She sees things I never noticed. Things I don’t think anyone else would have noticed.
I have to see her. It’s Saturday, and I don’t have to do anything for the club until tomorrow. Things have been pretty quiet, and I’m not needed at Velvet Desire.
“What are you doing here?” Misty asks with a smile as she wipes down the counter inside Perk Up.
