Drunk In Love (Love #1)

by Kitty Parker

"Daisy and Matty adopted a dog from the shelter," Casey begins just as Jack knew he would eventually. "Made Tana the happiest she's been since the pit bulls all came in. Matty named theirs Otter."

  Jack's lips twitch at that even though he keeps his head down and makes sure Casey can't see. He pretends to be too busy with the engine to even be really listening to the man.

  "He seems to be a good dog for everything he's gone through. Seems to be pretty numb to a lot of it. But guess that's how it goes. Dog spends his entire life getting beat up, eventually, that dog will either turn into a mean son of a bitch or just turn into himself and go numb as a way to protect himself."

  Jack feels his back tense a little as he listens to what Casey's rambling about. It doesn't take a genius to guess at the connection Casey's attempting to make.

  "Tana was planning on inviting you and Daisy over for some couple's dinner but it seems like she can't do that anymore."

  Jack sighs heavily and stands up, turning towards the man. "What the hell you want from me?" He asks.

  Casey just shrugs and sips his coffee. "What?" He asks innocently. "Just keeping you up to date on your across the hall neighbors. Pit bulls make some people nervous and I figured you'd want to know if one was living so close to you now."

  "You know, Cletus already tried givin' me wise advice," Jack tells him and Casey understandably looks visibly surprised at that. "And it's too late for all of it."

  Casey frowns at him. "It's never too late."

  Jack slams the hood shut and wipes his hands on the rag always in his back pocket. He doesn't say anything. He shouldn't have to say anything. Of course it's too late. Daisy was always too good and too smart for him and that's just the way it is. He misses her worse every day than he had the day before but it's no one's fault but his own.

  …

  Martinez doesn't ask him to come to lunch with him. Jack's been silent the entire day, keeping to himself, not even answering when one of the guys asks him a question. He just grunts or shakes his head and keeps it down to whatever car he's working on. He knows Martinez is chomping at the bit, wanting to ask what happened to his face but his boss, thankfully, keeps himself quiet.

  When the garage breaks for lunch and all the other guys leave for the hour, Jack stays and keeps working in his bay. His head is pounding, his face is throbbing and his stomach is feeling too tight to try and shove food into it.

  He pulls himself away from the car he's working on to go buy a small bag of Cheetos from the vending machine in the front office and even those, he has a hard time getting down. The phone rings and he wipes cheese dust from his fingers before picking the receiver up.

  "Martinez Auto Garage," Jack answers. "Can I help you?"

  "Jack?"

  Jack nearly drops the phone. Johnathan.

  He takes a second but then remembers himself and clears his throat. "Yeah?"

  "I tried calling you on your cell but it goes straight to voice mail," Johnathan tells him.

  "Keep it in my locker when I'm workin'," Jack answers and wonders why the hell this man is calling. The last time he had called, Daisy had been in the hospital, and his stomach tightens even more. The few Cheetos he had managed to swallow down just seconds earlier now feel like shards of wood.

  Is something wrong with Daisy? With Matty? He nearly asks.

  "I was hoping you'd be free to come out to the farm tonight after work," Johnathan says, catching Jack off guard because for a moment, he's expecting the man to tell him something far worse.

  But then his words register with Jack and they leave him even more confused. Why does this man want him anywhere near him or his family or his farm? Johnathan has to know. He has to and he's probably inviting Jack out to the farm to add another bruise to the others already littering his face.

  "This darn tractor is acting up again," Johnathan continues to explain. "It has been working since the last time you worked on it and I thought it would stop giving me problems and then this morning, I go out to turn it out and it sputters and sits there like a paperweight."

  It takes Jack another second to reply. Johnathan can murder him and bury his body somewhere on the farm and no one would miss him and no one would certainly question Johnathan Greene about his disappearance. The man is one of the most well-liked and well-respected people in the county and once they find out what Jack did to Daisy, everyone would find that Johnathan was pretty justifiable in his murder of Jack.

  "Yeah," Jack finally speaks and he clears his throat once more. "'round five?"

  "Perfect," he says and Jack can hear the man smiling through the phone.

  Jack has a lingering thought as he hangs up the phone. He wonders if he should leave work early and go up to see Cletus one last time before Johnathan Greene murders him.

  …

  When he pulls up to the farm, he holds his breath and looks for Daisy's car. But she doesn't drive anymore and her car has been sitting in the parking lot of their apartment building for months now. She'll start it every once in a while just to keep the engine active but she doesn't pull it from the spot and if she needs to go anywhere outside of town, to one of Matty's football games, someone else drives her.

  He can still smell her in the front cab of his pickup.

  He drives the truck towards the barn and Johnathan steps out when he hears him coming, and gives him a smile. Jack doesn't smile back but he tilts his head towards him. He gets out, bringing his toolbox with him.

  "Oddest thing," Johnathan says as they step together into the barn. "Tried fiddling with it myself after lunch again and it started right up."

  Jack doesn't say anything; just lifts an eyebrow at the man. He has a feeling the tractor had been just fine this whole time. Johnathan just needs to get him out to the farm. Jack can't help but look around the barn, wondering what the man is going to use as a weapon.

  He tries to think of a reason – just one – why he shouldn't want to die and the scary thing to him is – he can't think of one.

  "You look about as good as my daughter is feeling," Johnathan comments.

  Jack doesn't comment on that. There's pretty much nothing for him to say to that. He just stands there and is man enough to look the man in the eye.

  "I'm very protective of my children," Johnathan continues. "And my grandchild. And what you've done to them is a pretty terrible thing, son."

  Jack almost flinches at the use of that word. "Yeah," he says and can't help but finally drop his head, studying the floor of the barn, strew with hay. He wonders how many times he's going to get this talk from someone in his life. He knows. He knows he fucked everything up and there's no fixing it. He doesn't need reminders from everyone.

  What the hell can he say? He's absolutely miserable and trying to make himself numb to the entire damn thing because he messed up and can't fix it and it's the only thing he can do.

  "I was so disappointed in Daisyy when she came to me and her mother and told us that she was pregnant. She wasn't even a high school graduate yet and for a few minutes after, I admit that I thought that my daughter ruined her life," Johnathan says. "But Daisy is a Greene and she may not look it but she's stronger than most men."

  Jack feels himself nodding his head. He can't exactly argue with something that he's thought himself.

  "But Daisyy's a damn fine mom. The best I've ever seen after both of my wives. And she loves her boy more than anything in this world," Johnathan continues and again, Jack nods. "So, now, you've not only hurt her but you've hurt that grandson of mine."

  This is it. Just a second more now and Johnathan will bludgeon him with something. But it's okay. Jack's not going to fight. His survival skills that have gotten him this far in life are completely gone now. There's pretty much nothing anymore.

  "And I wanted to see you face to face and ask you why," Johnathan's voice sounds hard now but when Jack lifts his eyes once more to his, he sees the man's eyes aren't angry. They aren't dark. Instead, he's looking at Jack with a frown but open curiosity.
"I've seen the way you two were around one another. The way you looked at one another."

  Jack sighs. "I thought you'd be happy this was done," he can't help but say.

  Johnathan lifts an eyebrow and says nothing.

  "I'm not a good guy and we all know it. Me bein' out of Daisy and Matty's lives is the best thing they could have asked for," he says. "Daisy might be sad now but she'll get over it."

  He's not important enough for someone to miss him.

  Johnathan just keeps staring at him and he's still not say anything and Jack figures he better get out of there while he still can.

  With a slight head tilt towards Johnathan, Jack takes his toolbox, turns and heads out of the barn, back for his truck. He hears the slap of the screen door and he looks over to the house out of natural reaction. He sucks in a breath when he sees that it's Daisy stepping out onto the porch. And when she sees him, she immediately freezes.

  He looks at her and wishes he was close enough to catch a whiff of her scent in the air.

  'm sorry and I miss you.

  He just has to walk up to her and tell her that. He just has to tell her about his asshole dad – about the beatings when he wasn't being completely neglected. About his mom dying and having to live with his dad and barely surviving all of that and her life is too good and filled with sunshine and smells like chocolate to know all about that but if she wants to hear it, he'll tell her anything.

  He'll tell her all about his back. He'll take off his shirt and show her and he'll tell her that he freaked out because he's never had something as soft as her fingertips touch these scars.

  He can walk up to her right now and just tell her everything and tell her that he misses her so much, he can hardly sleep and forget about eating and he's never been in love before but when he was with her, it was the best his life has ever been and if he had just been able to stick around, he knows that he could have been in love with her.

  But he doesn't say any of that. He doesn't even take a step towards her.

  Daisy's smart and she won't want to hear anything he has to say anymore.

  He's the first to look away. He knows she sees the bruises on his face but he can't imagine her caring. She should know that it's because of her; that getting his face beat in was better to him than sitting around and thinking about her.

  He gets into his truck and drives away – making damn sure he doesn't look at her in the rearview mirror as he tries to get himself away from her as quickly as he can.

  …

  Another playoff game and the Gators beat the Raptors, advancing towards the semi-finals.

  He watches from his spot behind the chain-link fence at the end of the end zone, watching Matty's two touchdowns and trying not to watch Daisy and Otter on the sidelines. Matty knows he's there and looks at him with each touchdown but he doesn't even smile. Just looks at him for a moment before turning away again and after the game, Jack slips away before anyone can stop him.

  He wonders if Daisy knows he comes to the games still. She must though. He can't imagine Matty not telling her. He misses that kid just as much as Daisy. He misses the way he was always so damn happy to see him; as if Jack was someone worth being happy about. He misses how good that kid is at football and talking with him about it over dinner and sometimes, coming down to his practices and smiling whenever Matty looked over and saw him and grinned.

  He's always thought that that kid is so lucky. He's got Daisy as a mom and Annette and Johnathan as grandparents and Maybelle as an aunt and Shawn and Nathaniel as uncles. Who needs some deadbeat dad around when he's got all of those people, loving him? And there was a time when Matty had looked at Jack and had pulled him into his inner circle of adults he could count on.

  Disappointing that kid, having that kid look through him like he's no longer there, it bites Jack deep in the pit of his stomach because he's worse than Jimmy. Jimmy never cared about him or showed an interest in him but Jack was a constant in the kid's life for months and Matty just probably thought that Jack would stick around.

  At the end of the game, Matty and Tavon slap one another on their helmets as they come off the field and Jack smiles a little, imagining these two playing ball together all through high school and then going off to college and maybe even playing in the pros together. He imagines Johnathan treating all the family – including Tavon with Michonne and his family – to celebratory pizza and ice cream and there's a brief moment when Jack almost hates them because they were so nice and happy to let him into their family and he got to be able to have a taste of that normalcy. He's never had that before and he'll never have it again and he finally gets that stupid quote people sometimes says in movies.

  It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

  But now that Jack gets the line he's able to think the people who say that are the biggest bunch of fucking idiots in the world if they actually think that.

  Because he had Daisy and he had her love him and now that he's not with her anymore, he honestly doesn't know what the hell he's going to do or what's going to happen to him.

  He looks over one more time towards the stands where Matty is standing with Daisy now and the rest of the Greene family, as he rubs Otter behind his bad ear. The dog just sits there with no reaction. And then, Jack sees someone walking towards them. Adam. Jack's jaw clenches for some reason and he wonders what the hell Adam is doing there.

  But then Adam drops an arm around Daisy's shoulders and she smiles up at him and after that, all Jack sees is red.

  …

  Adam's a flirt. Always has been, according to Casey, and according to Tana, he always will be. But he's completely harmless and he likes to call her Sweet Cheeks and make her laugh. It feels like it's been too long since last time she's laughed and she welcomes it. And she admits. Having a man like Adam flirt with her makes her feel good – even though she knows that it's just a joke between them.

  She can never see herself with someone like Adam – mainly because he is such a flirt and she can't imagine him ever wanting to stop that and settle down with just one girl. But also because… well, he's not Jack and despite everything, she still really misses him. She tries to tell herself not to. She tries to remind herself that she doesn't need Jack Belton and she's never needed him and he clearly doesn't need her and things will be so much better without him in her and Matty's lives but she loves him. She can't help it. It's not like a light switch which she can just switch off any time she feels like it. She hates him at the moment but she loves him and she wonders when that love she feels will start to fade.

  It may be youth league but it's still football and it's still Georgia and the playoffs are a big deal for pretty much everyone. She's used to Adam and Casey randomly showing up at games and she doesn't want to brag but others in the county are starting to be aware of Matty Greene – number 22 running back for the Gators that runs as fast as the wind. She knows some people come to the games just to see Matty – as if they want the chance to say that they saw him when he was just a little kid because they all know he's going to go on past this and play in bigger and greater games.

  And she knows Jack comes to the games, too. Even if Matty hadn't told her after the first game, she would still have known. She saw him the first time he showed up, standing on the other side of the fence at the end zone, watching the game from there and then leaving again as soon as the clock ran down to zero and she keeps waiting for him to come to the bleachers but he never does.

  She wonders how he's so good at staying away. She wonders if he misses her and Matty at all. She can hardly sleep at night and she knows she's not really eating either. She hates that she has let this man effect so much of her life but she misses him so much and even after everything, he's not just some man. He's Jack. And she loves him.

  Adam is saying something that makes her mom laugh and her dad chuckle but she's hardly listening, looking instead down to Matty and Otter.

  She's getting more and more worried ab
out Matty. He's gotten so quiet over the past couple of weeks and she knows it directly has to do with Jack walking out and not coming back. And that makes Daisy nothing but even more furious with Jack because he walked out on her but he walked out on Matty, too, and that little boy just adores that man. And Jack promised her that he wasn't going anywhere.

  This isn't like Jimmy. Jimmy was never really in Matty's life except for the occasional weekend here and there. There was nothing for Matty to miss when Jimmy was no longer around. But Jack… Jack came over for dinner and for breakfast and he came to football games and he took Matty hunting and he was always there and knew what was going on with Matty and his life and now, he's just gone and Matty doesn't know how to handle that.

  And Daisy doesn't know how to help him handle that. She knows she's to blame – just bringing men in her son's life without thought for his attachment to them – and she won't be making the same mistake twice. She isn't going to be bring any more men around. There was Spencer and then Jack and she's done now. She'd be pretty sick of men altogether even if Matty wasn't so deeply hurt by all of this.

  She sees movement from the corner of her eye and turning her head, she instantly stiffens at the sight of Jack approaching their group. He's cut his hair so it's not quite as long as it was growing to be and he has circles under his eyes as if he hasn't been sleeping but Daisy won't allow herself to think that that has anything to do with her.

  "Can I talk to you?" He then asks and they all look at him but he's staring right at her and for a second, she thinks that he's talking to her and her heart stops in mid-beat.

  But then Adam's arm is gone from around her shoulders and he's grinning. "Sure, man."

  She watches as the two men step away and she'd give anything to be a fly near their heads so she could hear that conversation. But then she reminds herself that she doesn't care. Why should she? She and Jack are done and they have nothing to do with one another anymore and never will again.

  And Daisy ignores the hollowness in her chest as she thinks that.

  "Come on, Matty," she says, reaching out and putting a hand on her son's head. "Let's go get some pizza and ice cream."