“Yep, you always are.” Johnny pushed open the cracked door and shuffled in behind her, his reflection staggering past hers in the mirror.
“You could knock, you know,” she scolded.
“Could, but won’t.”
“Well hurry up. You’re supposed to be at work the same time I am.”
The others were all in the kitchen when she went downstairs. Someone had let Hektor back in the house and he was laying half under the table, gnawing on a rawhide chew. Cheryl was at the stove, trying her best to live up to Southern housewife stereotypes, steam curling up from the skillets she stirred; Lisa smelled eggs, bacon and potatoes. Her stomach rumbled, but she picked a granny smith apple out of the basket on the counter and sat down next to her dad.
“Morning, sweetheart,” Uncle Mark greeted her. He was only a few years younger than his brother, but he looked even younger than that. He was tan and dark-haired, his eyes green. They almost could have been twins. “You’re not eating?”
Ray gave her a sharp look.
“I’m making food,” Cheryl said, turning away from the stove, her expression perturbed. “You’re eating.”
Lisa rolled her eyes and earned an elbow from her dad for it. She bit into her apple with a loud crack and let her gaze wander across the kitchen – she’d become an expert at averting her eyes, pretending to be fascinated by the décor when her father and uncle had to whisper some bit of something important under their breath.
Their kitchen here in the old house was nothing like the one they’d had in Alpharetta. Old, antebellum houses tended to have small kitchens by comparison and this one was no exception. It was a narrow rectangle that mirrored the shape of the long, plank table they’d situated between two walls of cabinetry. The cupboards were original and had been painted and lined with contact paper, retrofitted with new hardware, but they still looked almost antique. The countertops were butcher’s block. A single window above the sink overlooked the side yard where Cheryl had planted her herb garden. The floor was linoleum meant to resemble marble. The appliances were new, but were white, not the posh, modern stainless of current kitchen fashions. Lisa had seen her mother wipe a tear from the corner of her mascara-lined eye on the day the fridge had been delivered, her one show of weakness.
It was not a glamorous kitchen, but it was comfortable. Lived-in and loved. And like all kitchens in the South, it was the hub of their household; the place where all the important conversations happened, where visitors gathered and meals were shared.
A plate landed on the table beneath her nose and the smell of finely-chopped potatoes cooked with sautéed onions turned the apple to lead in her mouth. She took another bite anyway.
“So, Uncle Mark.”
He twitched his dark brows and the movement put creases in his forehead.
“Have you got parts lined up for the Trans Am?”
He swallowed and nodded, a smile breaking across his face. “Some of them. And I think I got a lead on a new rear axle.”
She returned the smile, feeling some of his excitement for herself. “When you redo the paint are you going to – ”
“Put the eagle back on? Absolutely.”
“Thing’s a hick-mobile,” Ray said, but he grinned. “You couldn’t give the damn thing to me.”
“Good, ‘cause I’m not gonna.”
“Eat,” Cheryl said, sitting down across from Lisa.
“I’m eating.”
“Eat the carbs.”
All of them living together wasn’t so much a choice as a monetary necessity. And sometimes, Lisa just wished she could have a moment without someone else’s voice in her head. Eat more, don’t drink too much, get enough sleep, be careful…it never ended.
***
Ray could tell there was something his wife was having trouble holding in all through breakfast. She’d been asleep when he’d climbed into bed the night before, and downstairs already when he’d awakened, but there was a storm brewing behind her dark eyes and he was glad she waited until they were alone, Mark and the kids headed for work, before she let the reins slip through her fingers.
“You took Lisa to the fights last night, didn’t you?” she said without preamble, her head titled down toward her plate, but her eyes locked on his.
There was really no lying to Cheryl – she never bought it and it only intensified the argument. Not that this was an argument yet, but Ray knew it could turn into one if he wasn’t careful.
“Yes.”
She pressed her lips together into a thin line and sighed through her nostrils. “She’s a girl, Ray.”
“Huh. Hadn’t noticed.”
“Don’t even start that,” Cheryl warned. She didn’t raise her voice, but there was a knife edge to it. She set her fork down and leaned back in her chair, pegging him with a look that left him wanting to squirm in his chair; he didn’t. “You know what I mean.”
He set his coffee down with a sigh. “Aren’t you supposed to take up her feminist torch? Tell me how I shouldn’t treat her like a girl?”
Cheryl clicked her long, red-painted nails against the table top. “She is a girl.” She gave him a sharp look. “A very petite, very pretty girl, and I don’t care how much she likes cars or boxing or any of that; if she falls in with the wrong kind of boy, if she gets drug off to – ”
Ray cut her off with a wave. He knew what she was getting at: Lisa was little and had the upper body strength of a toddler. “She’s still on her single crusade.”
“But – ”
But that wouldn’t much matter if someone tried to snatch her. “I know.” His voice was firm. “I know, alright? We never left her alone.” He shook his head, frowning. “I try to keep her away from shit like that.” Cheryl raised her brows. “But she listens about as well as you do.”
She held his gaze, unblinking, for a long moment, then a smile finally curved her lips. She turned away, presenting him with her graceful profile. Her long, straight mahogany hair was pulled back at the crown of her head and fell free at her shoulders, chin-length strands floating around her face. Her eyes turned from chocolate to amber as she faced the light coming in from the French doors. “I’d deny that,” she said, “but it’s true.”
Ray smiled. Sometimes, like now, he saw her without the lines that time and sun had pressed into her pretty face, without the worries she had as a wife and mother. She was twenty-two again and trying to hide a smile because he’d told her she was every bit as stubborn as her father, who refused to acknowledge their marriage and was trying to press an annulment on them.
“I just worry about her,” Cheryl admitted, glancing at him again. “I hate that bar job she has – it’s only two Lucite-heeled steps away from stripping and I just…” She heaved a tired-sounding sigh. “I never wanted her to struggle. The way we did.”
“Everybody struggles.” At least his daughter wasn’t struggling the way he had: no parents, an irresponsible little brother with bad taste in women. “Lis is fine.”
6
Drew had never been into the bar scene. He was on a strict training diet comprised of lean proteins, vegetables and lots of water. Every bite he put into his mouth was designed to build muscle or keep fat at bay; his body was a temple and all that – well, not really, but it was his livelihood. Because of that, he didn’t drink much; it was just sugar and carbs and a headache he couldn’t afford to have.
But tonight, one of Ricky’s other fighters, Josh, wanted to stop off at this place he’d been talking about for weeks. They’d made a run out to the warehouse to check inventory, and without a way home besides his feet, Drew couldn’t protest when Josh turned the van into a parking lot so full that people were pulling up onto curbs and medians. The long, dark building in front of them was massive and windowless, the only light coming from an orange neon sign above the door that labeled the place as the Double Vision.
“They’re s’posed to have seriously hot girls workin’ in here,” Josh said as he threw the van in park and killed the
ignition. They were double parked behind another car, but Drew didn’t caution him against it. “Or,” Josh chuckled, “maybe you could give a shit.”
Drew met the other boxer’s gaze across the van, the whites of the guy’s eyes shining in the darkness, teeth gleaming as he smiled nastily. Asshole, Drew thought. He stared him down until Josh became uncomfortable enough to look away and climb out of the van.
The lot was full of people: patrons coming and going, smokers out for some “fresh” air, and what Drew guessed were underage kids hoping to slip into the door when no one was looking. There’d be no sneaking for them, he realized, as they approached the door. Josh had talked about Double Vision as if it were some dive bar, but it was now obvious that this was a nightclub that had been modeled after a dive bar. Bouncers with headsets stood stationed on either side of the door – burly, well-over-six-foot meatheads in STAFF t-shirts – watching a knot of bearded, leather-clad biker types who lingered on the sidewalk.
They were out in the suburbs, not downtown, so there wasn’t a line wrapped around the building. But one of the bouncers halted them with a raised hand the size of a dinner plate and asked to see IDs.
“Really, dude?” Josh asked as he dug for his wallet in his jeans pocket. “We look underage to you?”
“Just policy,” the bouncer said in a voice that sounded like a diesel engine turning over. He’d most likely been a fighter at some point. His broken nose gave testament to being hit, and his size led Drew to believe he’d done more hitting than what he’d received.
“You too, cupcake,” the other bouncer said, and Drew pulled out his wallet, flashed his license and followed Josh inside the bar.
The interior was everything the exterior was not: a riot of color and sound. The doors opened up onto an elevated platform that seemed to stretch to the left and right and go on forever, most likely wrapping around the whole perimeter of the club. Tables and couches served as seating for patrons who’d obviously wanted a more intimate setting than the main floor provided. At their feet, wide, wooden steps inset with lights led down to a crushing sea of humanity.
The bar was a monolithic wooden rectangle at the heart of the structure. Ringed by stools, draped with colored Christmas lights and centered around a pyramid of liquor bottles. A half a dozen girls worked behind it in short cutoffs and halter tops, pouring draft beer and rattling cocktail shakers, all of them coiffed, painted and smiling.
To the right of the bar, pool tables and a stage marked a gaming area. A dance floor, round tables and booths filled up the left wing.
Drew turned his head side-to-side three times, and noticed something different on all three passes: the karaoke machine, the photo booth, the beer pong setup, the stripper poles. Double Vision was an odd cross between a frat boys’ paradise and an old west saloon. He saw cowboy types and preppy jocks shuffling around in the crowd below.
“Really?” he asked, giving Josh a sideways look. “You just had to come in here?”
“What? It’s great!”
Drew didn’t argue – he wasn’t big into arguing – and followed Josh as he descended the stairs and then wove a path between bodies on the main floor. They found two empty stools at the bar and of course Josh hopped on the one beside the hot blonde in the denim miniskirt, leaving Drew to sit beside the fat trucker-looking guy in the CAT t-shirt.
A bartender was in front of them the moment their asses touched their seats, little white cocktail napkins at the ready that she set before them. “What can I get you gentlemen to drink?”
She was on the small side – no doubt she was wearing the same platforms as the girls Drew had seen walking out amongst the crowds – and she was thin, fit-looking. Her tan arms and legs were lean and tight with muscle. She looked like someone who spent time outside, who got real sun and not tanning bed rays, who liked exercise, and oddly, that was what he noticed about her first. Then he registered the thin, delicately-boned face, the big green eyes. Her long, dark hair was pulled back in the front and fell loose down her back in big twists. Her voice had sounded genuine enough, but her eyes were guarded, her expression one of polite, but forced, interest. Drew made a living out of reading other people, anticipating their moves, their thoughts, no matter how hard they tried to disguise them, and this girl looked like she’d rather be anywhere but behind this bar, serving drinks.
“Lemme get a gin and tonic,” Josh said, and Drew watched the bartender’s eyes move toward his fellow boxer.
“Okay.” She dipped her head in acknowledgment, but there was something about the twist of her small smile that made Drew want to grin too. Bitch drink, he’d thought the second the order left Josh’s mouth, and he wondered if the girl thought the same. “What about you?” She flashed him a bright white set of teeth and a big dose of fake sincerity.
“Beer. In a bottle.”
She lifted her brows and tapped chipped, red nails on the bar top. What kind? Her stance asked.
“Just whatever’s closest.”
Her lips parted and she looked like she was about to speak, but then something flashed across her face, some thought that narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to the side. She looked him over, all of him that was visible from her side of the bar, and then nodded. “Good way to end up with Pabst Blue,” she said, and moved away.
Lynx. It was him – the boxer she’d marveled over just the night before. Lisa had caught a glimpse of two men standing at the top of the stairs, just a chance flash of clear sight in which she’d registered two men entering the bar, and she’d wondered if maybe the fighter had been one of them. She’d dashed the thought instantly, chalking it up to another mental hiccup akin to her critical self-assessment in front of the mirror that morning. But now that she’d seen him up close, on a stool just across the cracked wooden bar top from her, she was certain her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her. And she was also certain she cared waaaay too much that this guy had come into Double Vision.
A wide, stainless-topped island held the liquor in the center of the bar and she went there first to mix the G&T. “Hey.” One of the other bartenders, Trish – a thickset redhead who carried her weight well and detracted from it with teased hair and bold accessories – sidled up to Lisa. “You got any limes over where you are? I’m out and these bachelorette bitches I’m ‘tending are going through the Cuervo like crazy.”
“Maybe.” Lisa twisted around mid-pour without spilling so much as a drop of gin with the intention of checking the plastic tub of lemons and limes stowed beneath the bar top over at her post. Instead, her eyes went to Lynx.
“Ooh,” she heard Trish say and felt a light elbow in her ribs. “He’s hot.”
She hadn’t been actively thinking that, but at Trish’s comment, she reassessed the boxer. He didn’t have the typical roadmap of broken facial bones that most fighters did. The little bump halfway down the ridge of his nose looked genetic rather than the result of a break. His dark hair was buzzed so close to his scalp it was only a shadow on top of his head. He had surprisingly big, dark eyes, not the slanted pig eyes of a dumb jock.
And then she almost smiled when she realized she’d looked at his face first and that Trish had probably been drawn by the bundles and cords of taut muscle visible beneath his shirt.
“I guess,” Lisa said, noncommittal, as she faced her task again, finishing off the drink with a little splash of tonic water.
“You guess you have limes or you guess he’s hot?” Trish smiled and waggled her auburn brows. Her eye shadow was the same color of blue as her halter top – her halter top that flashed enough cleavage to make a man’s eyes pop out of his head. Sourly, she reminded herself that Trish was feminine and bold and hot, whereas she was not – she was just a skinny girl who loved cars, who, besides, wanted nothing to do with men right now anyway – and the frown that had been threatening fell away.
“I’ve got limes,” she said. “Lemme get these orders filled and I’ll bring you some.”
“’Kay.” As Trish returne
d to her post, a wide smile painted on her face, she swayed side-to-side as she walked, keeping time with the Mötley Crüe song that crackled through the speakers and pulsed up through the floorboards.
Growing up, Lisa had never tried to compete with other girls. She was addicted to nail polish and loved makeup, had her own particular fashion code, but she’d never tried to be sexy like the other girls, never tried to outdo any of them. Here at work, with her padded bra and uniform heels, she felt like she was being forced to compete…and coming up short. The thought was as effective as a bucket of ice water dumped over her head; as she dropped a swizzle stick into the mixed drink and grabbed a Bud from the cooler, she smoothed her expression into one of serene indifference. She approached her customers without any real interest. So Lynx was a damn good fighter – that was all he was.
“Gin and tonic.” Lisa set the drink on its napkin and earned a nod from the blonde who’d ordered it before he returned his attention to the girl beside him. “And for you.” She couldn’t stop her smile, so she turned it into a smirk instead. “Beer. Whatever was closest.”
“Thanks.” The boxer had a deep, deep voice. A raise-the-hair-on-your-neck, don’t-want-to-hear-it-in-a-dark-alley kind of voice. It gave Lisa pause, held her in place just long enough that she watched his eyes lock onto hers without so much as one inappropriate glance at what her pushup bra was doing for her chest.
Dangerous, she warned herself, even though she didn’t break eye contact. And the danger had nothing to do with him and everything to do with her own sudden wish that she was a better flirt.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” he finally asked, frowning. The expression pulled his brows tight over his eyes, made him look more threatening.
“No.” She twitched a quick smile and forced her eyes away. “We’ve never met. Excuse me.”
In an almost rude haste, she pulled the tub of citrus from beneath the bar and did an about face.
Made for Breaking Page 5