“Noah didn’t even look in his direction for a month,” I laugh, slamming back another shot. I lick the whiskey off my bottom lip and shake the burning aftertaste down.
Jack had been a troublemaker with a secondary squad on my last tour. He was one of the only guys in the area who knew the boys that I had. The only problem was that his only hobby was drinking. I hadn’t touched an ounce of liquor since getting sober, but I couldn't erase the way Rhea looked from my mind. I knew Jack would be down to get day-drunk with me if I called.
“Man, those were the days,” Jack recalls. “What have you been doing these days?”
“Boone and I own the Hollow in Harbor,” I tell him.
“No shit,” he slaps the table, “I’ll have to come by!”
“Please don’t ever come to my bar,” I start laughing again as Jack slides me another shot.
“I’m offended, Bri!” He fakes it and takes back the shot. “You got a girl?”
And just like that, she’s back.
I see her, standing there, staring at me with those sad brown eyes and disappointed frown, and I wonder what God I pissed off to have her so briefly and lose her so violently.
“Yeah,” I hear myself say, the whiskey lingers on my tongue. “You should see her. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Jack. Tall, covered in tattoos, with big brown eyes and a mouth on her. Fuck.” I swallow tightly.I miss her.“She’s an angel of death,” I say, and he laughs.
“You sound like you're in love,” he jokes. I raise my dizzy gaze to look at him, and I can hear the laughter growing louder, but I’m tripping over his blurted statement like he’s tied a wire around my ankles.
My head snaps to the song playing from the jukebox, and I start to lose it, laughing asAbsolutelypours out of it and over the bar.Yeah fuck you too, I say to the ceiling, talking to anyone who will listen.
“Is your little sister still hot?” Jack interrupts my thoughts.
“Yup—and my hands still fit around your neck,” I remind him, and he shakes his head.
“She’s gotta have some pretty little friends you can introduce me to,” he pokes.
“I gotta be real sick in the head to let you near any of them, Jack. Stick with your cougars, they respond better to your bullshit.” I slap his face, and he rolls his eyes before he calls the waitress over. He took me to some small shitty dive bar in Lorette, and I don’t care where we end up, as long as it’s far away from Harbor. She leans over the table, and Jack’s hand teases the back of her skirt as she talks to him, but there are two guys at the bar watching angrily.
“Might wanna keep your hands to yourself,” I warn him, and he only pushes it up higher. The second problem, Jack loves to fight.
“There’s no fun in behaving,” he smirks at me as the two men slide from their stools.
I’m drunk enough that his enthusiasm hits.
“Fuck it,” I laugh as they charge us, spewing sentences of bullshit. The girl rushes back from the table as my hand connects with the face of the first guy. Jack doubles over, taking a shot to the stomach, and I kick my foot out, catching the bigger of the two in the knee. We’re both too drunk to be fighting. Our movements are clumsy, and I take a hard, closed fist to the side of the face as they get the upper hand.
“Duck!” Jack slurs and smashes a beer bottle over the top of the guy's head as I charge the other. I wrap him around the middle, slamming him hard against a nearby table, and he swings on me, clipping me in the ribs before I can tip him over to the ground. We both end up rolling around on the floor until the front of the pub is lit up with red and blue lights.
We sit in the drunk tank for six hours before they let either of us make a phone call, and it’s a lot of pained groaning from Jack as he rolls to his feet to call his friend. I stare at the phone, knowing that Boone’s going to kill me, but I shrug, too drunk to care, mind quiet for once.
I feel unchained from the nightmares.
I dial the number to the Hollow.
“Boone speaking.” It sounds busy, and I swallow my pride.
“Can you come get me?” I slur.
“Ifound him.” Boone hangs up the phone behind the bar.
“Where?” I ask.
“You’ll never guess, not in a million years,” he says as he moves around the bar to come out and wander into the kitchen. Kaia is helping pick up the slack, running food to tables as Boone double works the bar and the kitchen. We tried to convince him that we could close the kitchen to big orders for the night, but he insisted it would be fine, and Kaia backed him.
So now we’re all scrambling to keep the Hollow running the way Brighton does—without even breaking a sweat.
