by K. L. Jessop
Taking a seat, I decide to play along with his game. “Bartender it is then.”
Taking one of the glasses I provided for him, he throws the liquid back in one hit, not even wincing at the strength of the alcohol. Leaning back in his seat, he looks at me, or should I say looks right through me. My friend is no longer behind the eyes of the man that stares back at me.
“So being a bartender, you probably get your fair share of people dumping their troubles on you.” It’s not a question.
“It’s been known.”
He nods slowly. “Mind if I offload.”
Bingo.
“Go ahead.”
He’s silent a moment, staring into the brown liquid in his second glass. His jaw muscles flex, his body still heavy with anger, but I’m grateful that right now he is accepting the fact I’m sitting in front of him. He licks his lips before he speaks, and I feel like I’ve been kicked in the chest with his words.
“Ever feel like everyone you’ve ever loved doesn’t want you around anymore?”
My heart sinks. “Ash, people don’t think that.”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
The heavy weight of his remark wraps around my heart. The melancholy in this booth right now is pulling me down, and the ache in my chest that is only for him is crushing. I feel so helpless.
“Asher, talk to me. I’m your friend.”
His eyes flare at me, and his words come out bitterly. “You stopped being my friend the day you got your dick wet with my sister.”
“Don’t say it like that. It’s not like that.”
“I don’t see it any other way.”
I sigh, defeated before this has truly begun. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”
“It doesn’t. We can be like we once were. We can be those two guys who sat at the bar drinking and talking about pretty girls. We can be those two boys who grew up as best friends. You have the power to make that change, Gray.”
“How?” I ask, wanting to get back to us being like we once were, regardless of the challenges he faces ahead of him. But the look in his bloodshot eyes now tells me that his answer is one I’ll never agree to.
“Leave her,” he growls.
Shaking my head, I now wish that the glass of whiskey he’s holding was my own. “I won’t do that. I love her. I’m not breaking what I have with Nora just because it will suit you.”
He leans forward, displeasure now clouding his features. "So, you're saying she means more to you than the years of our brotherhood?"
"This isn't a competition, Asher. I can still have a friendship with you but love her also."
“No!” he yells, slamming his hand down on the table. “She's my baby sister!"
"Who is no longer a little girl. You can't protect her forever."
“And neither can you. Look at you,” he spits, the evil strike behind his words. It’s now that I realize whatever personality I just had has completely gone, and that reasoning with him now will be pointless. Whatever I say will be wrong.
“You are not a man. You're pathetic," he says, slurring.
"Is that right?"
"You weren't even a SEAL. You’re just some scrubby bartender who took the easy way out in life. You’ve never even fought for your country."
"You don't have to be a SEAL to be a man, Asher. And if we are talking about being one here, then you're not setting a good example of one right now either."
“Oh, forgive me. Daddy will not be proud.” He laughs. Fucking laughs.
That only gets my back up more. It’s one thing disrespecting me, but no way in hell do you disrespect the dead. With anger growing deeper and faster in my chest, I lean forward and spit my words out, hating that I’ve already got eyes on me from those who are trying to enjoy their lunch.
“What the fuck has happened to you? Did Nora’s words the other day not mean anything? Where is the respect of the man I once knew? I know you’re troubled, Asher, but right now, your behavior is fucking disgusting.”
“My behavior? Right.” He laughs again, and I’m so close to grabbing him by the scruff of his shirt and pinning him against the back of the booth. “You have no right to talk about my behavior when you have done what you have. If anyone is in the wrong here, Grayson, it’s not me.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t. What good will it do? If I say nothing, he drinks. If I give him home truths, he drinks. It’s a constant battle, and one I don’t wish to take part in.
Leaving the booth, Asher staggers over to the bar, slamming his hand down and yelling for service. Grumbles of annoyance start to filter through the eating area, and I know it’s only a matter of time before it kicks off between us, only I’m unsure who is more likely to start it: him or me.
When Ryan comes around the corner and looks at Asher, he shoots me a look, asking for my approval. Giving him the nod, I leave the booth and make my way over to the side of Asher. His low chesty growl tells me he doesn’t like my presence, but I couldn’t give two fucks.
“So, I’m with Nora, and you feel like I’ve betrayed you.” I nod. “I probably have, but I’m not going to apologize for something that makes me happy and I know makes her happy in return. But let’s just get one thing straight here, Asher, and look at the bigger picture—the one I believe is at the root of your problem but that you’re just too afraid to admit.”
“Oh, do tell.”
“You left. You left the people you love when they needed you the most. You took the coward’s way out and ran as far away as you possibly could. So, don’t give me that shit about not being a man when you’re the one that hasn’t got the balls.”
Like invisible fire has just come out of his nose, his nostrils flare and he slams his glass down on the countertop of the bar, turning to me with a look of pure hatred and poison in his eyes. I’ve hit that nerve, the one I’ve been poking ever since I sat in the booth, and to be honest, I couldn’t give a fuck.
“Don’t you dare spout shit to me you know nothing about,” he barks, coming up close to my face and pointing his finger in my chest. “You. Know. Nothing.”
“I know you left them when they needed you. I know you chose to flee instead of standing up in your role of being son to a sick man who wanted nothing more than his family to be together. I know you left your baby sister—who you always promised to protect—to look after him and your mother while you drank the nights away. Your dad died, Asher, and you never came home. So, don’t you stand there and preach to me about me not being a man, when I was the one who stood by your family’s side when they lowered your father into the fucking ground.”
My back hits the wall before I can do anything. Chairs and stools scatter around us as voices of shock and horror fly around the bar. From the corner of my eye, I see Ryan jump over the bar counter and head over to us, but my eyes remain on Asher. Bloodshot and seething, his burn into me like I’m even worse than an enemy. All traces of my friend have now gone, and an alcohol-fueled male stands before me in a whirlwind of fury, pressing his fists into my throat and cutting off my breathing. My jaw is tight, and tense and my hands are wrapped around his wrists as I try to ease them off me to get air. The low unearthly rumble from his chest is one I’ve never heard before as he starts to foam at the mouth. His poisonous breath churns my stomach.
“I will finish you,” he growls.
“Do it,” I grunt, the blood now rushing to my head. My heart races double-time to pump what little oxygen I can take in around my body. “You won’t just finish me but your family, too. Who will respect you then?”
Like those words mean more to him than anything, a flicker of something casts over his eyes. The pressure in my throat is eased when I’m roughly released, not before the blow of his fist forces into my stomach.
“Fuck,” I hiss, leaning over to catch my breath as the throbbing of the previous hit to my ribs vibrates against my chest. Just as Ryan grips my shoulder to ask if I’m okay, I look around to find Asher, waiting for the impact of anoth
er hit. But he’s gone. Scanning my eyes around the bar, I get nothing, so I turn my attention to the window. When I see him staggering toward his car, my stomach drops.
“Fuck, no. Asher!”
My feet pound the ground as I head toward him, yelling at him to stop as the car reverses and turns. The window is down, and I lunge in, trying to grab his keys, running alongside the car to try and make him stop.
“Get the fuck off me.”
“Asher, you’re too drunk.”
“Get. Off.” The car swerves and his fist makes contact with my shoulder as I fight with him.
“Stop the damn car!”
“Fuck off!”
My head flies back from the impact of his fist, and I lose my grip on the car, plummeting to the ground hard. The burn in my shoulder rips through me as he speeds off.
“NO. NO. NO!” Ryan’s roar catches my attention, and I look up to where the car just headed.
Everything happens so fast.
Tires screech to a sharp halt, and the air around me goes deathly silent. Shopping bags and clothes fly through the air, and my eyes widen when I see Makenna standing frozen in place, right before a bloodcurdling scream leaves her lungs and my blood runs cold when I register the body on the ground.
Nora.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Grayson
I’ve not taken my eyes off her from the moment I was allowed in the room. The time I couldn’t be with her was the worst kind of torture I’ve ever experienced. Waiting to find out if she was okay, praying that I didn’t lose her and asking those from above to give me the hope I needed when I felt so lost.
The sound of the car tires, the deathly scream of Makenna, and the silence that followed rings in my ears like white noise. The flashes of seeing her body on the ground and everything that played out after still blinds me. My heart had raced so hard with pure panic that I couldn’t breathe. Seeing her laid so still, so broken, was something I never want to experience ever again in my lifetime. It had been worse than a nightmare, making me sick to the stomach. At that moment, I hadn’t known what to do first: care for my love, comfort a distraught Makenna, or beat the living hell out of Asher. People had raced to help, others were screaming to ring 9-1-1, and my world did a one-eighty as I hovered over her broken body while her brother just sat behind the wheel in complete shock.
Along with several lacerations and bruising to her face and arm, the impact of the hit was to her lower body and thankfully not her head. Her spleen was damaged and has had to be removed, her leg is badly broken, her shoulder is fractured, and they are keeping a close eye on her for any internal bleeding. The time she was in the surgery had been a living hell. Fiona had done nothing but cry, Makenna held onto her dad like her own life depended on it, and I paced the hospital floor as I found it hard to breathe. I’ve been in this place too many fucking times in the past couple years, and each time, I’ve never left with the outcome I wanted.
“How is she doing?” Fiona asks, coming to stand on the opposite side of Nora’s bed after entering the room.
“No change,” I whisper, stroking Nora’s hand.
“I’ve just spoken to the Doctor. They said she will wake once the anesthesia wears off, but they are happy with her progress and recovery.”
“Still doesn’t make it right that she’s been put here, though,” I growl, hating the way my words come out. None of this is due to Fiona, so I’ve no right to snap at her, but the longer I look at Nora, the more my mind wanders to what could have been a very different outcome today.
Closing my eyes briefly, I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Fiona. I didn’t mean to bite.”
“It’s okay. I understand. It’s the protectiveness in you coming out.”
Yet I failed to do that.
It should be me laying there, not her. I should have stopped him. I should have tried harder. But I fucking failed. My jaw clenches, and I focus on my girl, needing her to wake. I need her eyes on me. They are the only things that keep me grounded. They are the only things that help me breathe.
“No matter how old she gets, or how far she may move away, she will always be my baby,” Fiona murmurs as she strokes her daughter’s cheek, a soft smile gracing her face as she looks down at her through glassed eyes. “The sweet, unexpected little girl that I prayed for so much. The day she came into our world was the day my family was complete. For someone so small, she had a good set of lungs on her and soon let everyone know that she should be noticed.”
“I said the same thing to Mark earlier today.” I smile. “She’s so fierce at times. It’s not in her nature to be like that, and I know she hates it when she is, but from nowhere this defensive woman comes out, and she fights tooth and nail for those she loves before falling apart behind closed doors. She was like it with me. At the time, I’d wanted nothing more for her to be quiet because everything she’d been throwing at me was true, but at the same time, I’d not wanted her to stop because it had made me want her more.”
“She’s a firecracker.”
“And so much more in between.” I lift her hand and hold it against my lips, hoping that she is aware of my touch in her sleep.
“You really do love her, don’t you?” She looks at me with a smile.
My heart clenches as I look back at Nora. The awareness of possibly losing her finally hits after hours of trying to remain strong for those around me. A thick lump in the back of my throat becomes painful, and my lip quivers, causing my eyes to fill as I speak with honesty. “I love her so much it hurts. Without her, my life wouldn’t be worth living. She is my saving grace.”
A single tear slips down Fiona's cheek as she smiles. “That’s a beautiful thing to say.” She looks back at her daughter, continuing to stroke her face softly. Silence falls between us, and it causes my mind to wander, thinking about how differently this day could have turned out. Neither of us have mentioned Asher since Nora came back from surgery. All I know from Mark is that he’s been arrested and due to Virginia law, he will serve a jail sentence of five days or more because he was drunk driving. I don’t know what will happen after that and frankly, I hadn’t wanted to know anything else because my priority had been, and still is, Nora.
“How did it come to this, Grayson? If Pete knew how broken his family had become since his death, it would break him. This is not what he wanted. This is not what his family name deserves. And it’s certainly something that Nora doesn’t deserve either.”
“I know.”
“What has happened to my boy?”
I could dance around my answer and go easy on her because she’s fragile, but I don’t. I can’t because although I’m torn, wanting to support my friend, the love of my life is laying in a hospital bed, injured, and scarred because of him. “Your son is the reason it came to this, Fiona. Asher has a drinking problem, and I’d even go so far as saying he’s an alcoholic.”
“I feared you’d say that,” she weeps. “But I don’t understand why I haven’t noticed before now. I’m a nurse, for Christ sakes. I should have seen the change in him. How could we miss something like that?”
I lower my head, hating that I saw signs long before now. “I saw the change,” I admit. “Or at least I thought I did, but when you have been through life living with an alcoholic you tend to think everyone has a problem if they drink one too many. I asked myself if Asher had a problem, but at times I wasn’t sure if I was just being over cautious. I suggested to him that he got help with what is going on in his head, but he chose not to and headed out to Cali. If I’d known then how bad he was, I would have said something.”
“It’s not your fault, Grayson. It’s mine,” her voice trembles.
“Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true. I shouldn’t have had to potentially lose one child for another to admit they have a habit. I’ve failed him as a mother. I failed them both.”
Her words make me look at her, shocked that she could even think this as she falls apart over her daught
er’s bedside. Her frail body shudders with tears, and exhaustion clouds her features. The anger that Asher has caused rips through my chest, but I suppress it for the sake of the two women before me.
Taking Fiona’s hand in a tight squeeze, I reply with nothing but the truth. “Fiona, you did nothing wrong. You can’t be a better mother than the one you already are. The love you have for your children is unconditional. You are not responsible for Asher’s actions. You are not responsible for Nora being in this bed. None of this is your fault. You hear me. Asher is sick. He needs help.” Needing to comfort her, I head around to the other side of the bed, pulling her into my arms.
She grips onto me tightly and weeps into my shoulder. “Why couldn’t he come to me, Grayson? I’m his mother.”
“He couldn’t come to anyone. They never can. Addiction is more than an illness, but the good thing out of all of this is he will get the help he needs now.”
“This is all such a mess. This family has been through so much already. When will the heartache stop?”
I rub her back, trying to comfort her. I couldn’t agree more. All of this is shitty and twisted, and it makes me sick to the stomach because she is right. But the only thing we can do now is focus on Nora. Asher will be held accountable for his action, but as much as I don’t want to admit it, it’s the wake-up call he’s needed. I’m livid with him and will be for a long time, but I have hope now that he will get the help that he needs to find his way back to us and be the man he used to be.
“Don’t blame yourself, Fiona. None of this is your fault. Okay?”
Wiping her eyes, she smiles softly and whispers. “Okay.”
I have so much respect for this woman, and I hate to see her so broken. I’ll forever stand by my promise to Pete to look after his daughter, but what I’d failed to tell him was that Fiona would be included in that promise, too. Kissing her on the head, I’m about to tell her to go get some rest when a shaky voice breaks through the turmoil in the room.