Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 77118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Would he have gone in a different career path?
Would I ever have met him?
It was fucked up to almost be thankful that fate had put him in my path, when to do so, it required so much suffering on his part.
That said, I was thankful he was in my life. That I could start to build a future with him. That we could maybe break the cycles that had been haunting our families for generations.
“I’m sorry everyone in your childhood just kept failing you,” I told him, reaching out to slip my fingers between his.
“Eh, I turned out alright,” he said, giving me a lazy smile, but there was something deeper in his eyes. “Besides, all that shit… it led us here, right?”
“Right,” I agreed. “Two fucked up people trying to figure out how to have a relationship this damn late in their lives.”
“We’re doing okay,” Slash said, shrugging.
We were, too.
I thought there would be more awkwardness, more uncertainty, more defensiveness about our walls.
I guess the thing was, Slash didn’t try to come in and break mine down.
He just climbed over them.
And that made all the difference.
He didn’t want me to be different, to change for him, he just wanted to be let in.
And so I did.
Let him in.
It was maybe the best decision of my life.
Choosing to go into work the next day, though?
Yeah, that was probably one of the worst…
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nyx
It was ridiculous, but The Bog almost felt foreign when I walked in the following day.
It had only been a few days.
But, I guess, I’d been such a workaholic for so long that even just a couple of days felt like a lifetime. And, somehow, spending that time with Slash, happy and lost in each other, completely oblivious of the time passing, only made it seem longer.
“Hey, Lula,” I greeted her as she came out of her office, looking all dolled up even though no one saw her but us. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen the woman dressed down. And, to be fair, she hadn’t ever seen me dressed down before either. We were just chicks who really liked our clothes and our makeup and the persona we showed to the world.
“Hey, you, how are you?” she asked, looking over my face, trying to find the bruises Cillian surely told her were there.
“Tattoo makeup,” I told her, waving at my face. “Covers up just about anything but the damn stitches.”
“Honestly, if you aren’t looking for them, they really aren’t very noticeable,” she told me. “And once everyone gets a drink in them…” she said, waving a hand out.
“Yeah. It’s why I decided to practically have my tits out,” I told her, jiggling my shoulders, making my boobs dance around dangerously in my balconette bra.
“I don’t even go that way and I’m hypnotized,” she said, giving me a big smile as she followed me through the door and into the bar to get her soda.
That night, she chose a lime and a maraschino cherry. I didn’t know what to make of that. Lime was her usual. The cherries were for hard days. So maybe a kinda crummy day, then?
I was just thinking that when the door pushed open again to reveal Renslie—Ren—, the replacement the Murphy brothers had for their sister when she finally walked away from bartending.
She was this cute, friendly, strawberry-blonde girl with freckles and big blue eyes. She looked all of eighteen, but was in her mid-twenties, new in town to take care of her ailing father.
I hadn’t worked with her much since she was the ‘eye candy’ the bar needed on the nights I wasn’t working. But with me being out, clearly the schedule had gotten a little wonky.
“Hey, Ren,” I greeted her, watching as her pretty face lit up.
“Hey! I heard you were back. How are you?”
“Good. Ready to get back to work. And with the two of us on, we are going to be raking in the tips,” I said.
And that was, you know, the plan.
How the night started, too.
It was all a blur of finding my rhythm again, of making excuses to the townsfolk for why I’d been gone since I didn’t want to tell anyone that I’d been attacked. Sure, I might have gotten pity tips, but I just didn’t want everyone in on my business like that.
“I wish you had trained me,” Ren declared a few hours later.
“Chet’s a good bartender too. And I trained him.”
“I think something gets lost with each time knowledge gets passed down, though. You make it all look so effortless.”
“Honey, I have been making drinks since I was in elementary school. Don’t compare yourself to me. Count yourself lucky that you didn’t have a fucked up child…” I trailed off as I saw someone moving outside of the bar, making a memory start to niggle at me. “Hold things down for just… five minutes,” I demanded, rushing out from behind the bar, then out the front door of The Bog.