by Olivia Chase
“Young lady—” he barks out, but I hang up the phone.
Anger washes through me, and I clench the phone in my trembling hand.
He doesn’t call me back. Not that I expected him to. He’s probably yelling about me to his girlfriend, telling her what a loser daughter he got stuck with.
Several minutes pass. I suck the tears back, ducking into the office bathroom to wash my face. I stare at my reflection in the mirror.
My life isn’t going the way I thought it would. But I’m not going to let this break me. I’ve gotten through hard spots before. I can do it again. I’m not happy about the turn of events, but George is right.
The test will be there in November. I just have to wait until then. Even if I want to leave right now. But New York City is way too expensive for me to up and move, not without a solid job lined up.
And I can’t get a solid job until I pass the bar.
I need some good, positive company. I march back to my desk and text my friend Rebecca. Hey, I know I fell off the face of the earth, but I desperately need girl time. You free tonight for drinks and pizza?
While I wait for her response, I close out of my computer and gather my stuff up. Even if she can’t make it, I don’t want to go home yet. I’ll walk around, or go see a movie, or something.
My phone vibrates. YES. Meet in a half hour? Our usual place?
Perfect, I write back.
I lock up the office behind me and leave my car in the parking lot. My apartment isn’t too far away. I can walk here in the morning. The pizza joint we’re meeting at, Ralph’s Pizza, is only a mile away.
I need the time to burn off the remainder of my anger at my father.
I should call my mom while I’m at it and piss her off, too. Why have one parent hate you when you can have both? But with my emotions as volatile as they are, I’m liable to say something I shouldn’t.
I get to the place and order a beer and a large pepperoni pizza, grabbing our usual booth in the corner. Mike, the man who owns the bar—there is no Ralph, funny enough—brings the beer to me.
“You look a little down, sweetheart,” he says kindly.
“I’ve had a really shitty couple of days,” I admit.
“This beer’s on me. Chin up. You can do this.” He slides the beer across the table and gives me a clap on the shoulder before going back to the register.
“Thank you,” I say to his back.
Rebecca and I have been coming here since high school. We even carved our names into the table right before we graduated. I trace the dingy, faded cutout letters with my finger. I have so much history in this town. Moving away from Rebecca is going to be one of the hardest parts of leaving. At least I’ll get a few more months with her before I go.
Rebecca arrives through the front door, a whirlwind burst of energy in a strapless black dress that probably came from the clothing boutique she manages. She spots me and practically gallops over. Her brown hair is messy, but somehow she manages to wear a bun that looks sexy. When I try to do the messy-bun thing, I look homeless.
In a split second, when our eyes connect, her face falls and she comes over to hug me. “Oh, honey. You’re a wreck, aren’t you. Did the test go badly? Do I need to stab someone in the face for you?” She slides into the booth across from me.
I spill the beans—about Jamison, the test, the interview that never will be, and my conversation with my father. As I talk, she makes sympathetic sounds and shakes her head.
“It’s well past time you stood up for yourself to your dad. He’s been a jerk to you for years. I’m proud of you.” She squeezes my hand. “And as for Jamison, sounds like you made the right choice. He might have a big dick, but that’s not enough to make a relationship work.”
I chuckle at her bluntness.
The truth is, Jamison was way more than that to me, but I need to try and move past him.
I give a deep sigh. “You don’t think I’m a total loser for missing the test?”
“I think the fact that after all of this, you’re up and out of bed, is a testament of how amazing you are. Shit’s gonna happen in life. You know that. But you never quit. It’s one of the reasons I love you so much.”
Her kind words are a balm to my heart. I sniffle. “Don’t make me cry anymore,” I say, and she grins.
“I’m like a fucking Hallmark card,” she deadpans.
“So how’s it going with…who’s the guy you’re seeing now? Adam?” At this point, I can barely remember their names.
She rolls her eyes and stands. “Hold on. This story sucks. If I’m going to tell it, I need a beer.” She saunters over, and Mike hands her a brew, then she slides back into the booth and tells me about her newest fling.
Rebecca is a serial dater. If she ever saw a guy for more than three months, I’d be shocked. She’s super picky and doesn’t want to waste time with someone who doesn’t meet her criteria.
I let my own drama slide away and get caught up in her narrative about Adam, the guy she met online last month. By the time the pizza arrives and we dig in, she leans toward me and says, “So, I finally take him to my apartment and we have sex that’s actually pretty good. And then the next morning I woke up to find him trying on my panties.”
My jaw drops, and I bark out a laugh. “Are you serious?”
“And then, Adam looks at me and just says, ‘I’m into panties. It’s no big deal.’ What the hell? Who does that?” She sighs. “Why do I even bother dating? Men are stupid.”
We clink our beers together.
A man a couple of booths down laughs, and it sounds so much like Jamison that I freeze in my seat, afraid to look but unable to stop myself. The hair is too dark. Not him. My body unclenches, and my heart rate slows down.
Rebecca must notice the way I turned to look over at the guy, because she gives me a sad smile. “It’ll be like that for a while,” she says. “You’ll look for his car, even when you don’t mean to. You’ll hear his voice in the crowd or see his hair or his eyes. But eventually, you stop doing that. You move on.”
Rebecca wasn’t always a player, or super picky. She was in love with a guy in undergrad, to the point where I thought they were going to get married. Then he dropped out of college and moved back home to California. They did the long-distance thing for a month or two, but he told her he couldn’t do it anymore and broke up with her.
Now it’s like she’s filtering people out before they get a chance to hurt her again. As angry as she was at him, it took her a long time to get over him. More than one night, I held her as she cried.
I give a small shrug. “I’m more embarrassed that he got under my skin so easily. I knew better.”
“The heart wants what the heart wants,” she says sagely, eating a big bite of pizza, the cheese stretched out between her teeth and the pizza slice.
“What my heart wants right now is more pizza,” I say in an attempt lighten the mood.
I wish I could know that she was right. But I’m not so sure. What if I never find someone who makes me feel the way he did? Do I even want to try?
The thought of his voice, his smile, his eyes—they pull deep inside me, deep to my very core. I’ve never been touched so deeply, never.
The ache is nearly unbearable, more painful than the dismay I feel at missing the exam.
God, this sucks. Knowing that Jamison isn’t who I thought he was is bad enough. But realizing that maybe I still want him, despite knowing exactly who he is—that’s much, much worse.
Jamison
“Man, you look like the saddest fucking clown on earth,” Zack says, strolling into the kitchen and grabbing a beer. He holds one up to me. “Want a brew?”
I shake my head. “No thanks.” I spent the first full week after my breakup with Claire drinking myself into a stupor. Then I pulled my head out of my ass and realized I wasn’t doing anything but hurting myself.
Now I’m sober but miserable. I am the saddest fucking clown on earth—my brother is right.
/>
I grab a can of Coke and crack it open. God, our fridge is gross. We need to do some real shopping. I look around the kitchen. How has everything gone to hell so easily? Dishes are piled up. The floor hasn’t been swept in God only knows how long.
We need to get our shit together.
Zack and I sit at the kitchen table in silence for several minutes. Then he says, “Got another date tonight. She’s fucking hot. A stripper down at The Pink Pen.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m shocked you went for the girl with the huge tits who hates to wear clothes.”
“Life’s too short to date anyone I don’t want to bone,” he declares, chugging his beer. He laughs. “Anyway, she has a sister who’s almost as hot as her. I can hook you up if you want.”
“Not interested.” I sip my Coke.
“You should stop pouting and get on with getting on,” he drawls.
“I’m not pouting.”
“Well, whatever the fuck you call it, it’s bringing me down. I’ve never seen you like this.” He eyes me over his beer, one brow quirked. “Clearly you had it bad for this girl.” He stands and heads out of the kitchen. “Time to shake that off, bro,” he says as he retreats. “There are more where that came from.”
But there aren’t. No one is like Claire. She’s one of a kind. I had her, and I lost her.
And it hurts just as much today as it did the second we broke up.
My injuries are healing fine. Soon, I won’t look like I was in a fight at all. But I’ll be remembering that day for a long time to come. The end of something that was actually fucking meaningful to me.
Claire was the only thing in my life that ever really mattered to me. And it took me losing her to see that. I’ve been living like a moron, being irresponsible, not caring about anything or anyone. Until her.
She changed something in me.
And it’s past time I start focusing on changing myself. Being a man worthy of respect. I don’t ever want to see someone look at me again the way she looked at me that night. Like I was a monster, a stranger. A man who couldn’t be trusted. I still feel the shame from that in my gut. I’m too fucking old to act like this.
I stand up and go into the living room, where all my brothers are sitting on the couch, watching a baseball game. “We’re leaving Outlaws alone from now on,” I say.
Four sets of eyes jerk to me in shock.
“What the fuck?” Hale says. “Why would we stop? We’re close to getting them to cave. They’ll hand it over, but we have to keep it up.”
“Dad will be pissed,” Zack says. “You know he’s counting on us getting it up and running by the time he’s released.”
“I’ll deal with Butch,” I say. “But no more.” I glare at my brothers. They glare right back, but they don’t say a word. I’ve been raising them for years since Dad was thrown in the joint. They may not like me telling them to stop, but they aren’t going to go behind my back.
But I’m not done dropping bombs on them. I cross my arms in front of my chest. “Also, I’m out of the family business.”
“What the fuck is going on with you? Is this over a piece of ass?” Hale says.
I step toward him; he stands and gets in my face. “Don’t you fucking talk about her like that,” I growl. “I’m done with this shit. If you guys want to run the tattoo parlor and protection racket here, that’s fine. But it’s without my help. And you have to stay away from Outlaws.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Hudson says quietly from the couch. He grabs Hale’s arm and tugs him to sitting down again. Hale does so reluctantly, still glaring at me. “But it’s your choice, man. What are you going to do for money?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’m tired of being a thug.”
My brothers are quiet. The sound from the TV fills the space in the room. They all sip their beers and eye me in silence, different expressions flickering on their faces.
They don’t get why I want to change. But they don’t have to. They just have to accept it. There’s no other option.
“No problem, Jamison,” Zack says smoothly. “We’ll cover it without you. Go off and find yourself, or whatever it is you’re going to do.” He turns his attention back to the TV. “Now stop yapping and let us finish this game.”
Axel is the last of my brothers to stop looking at me. His brow is creased with concern, but he gives me a small nod and then sips his beer.
It’s done. I head to my room to grab my keys, feeling like a weight’s been lifted off my shoulders. I cut ties with all this shit that’s been dragging me down into the mud for as long as I can remember. I’m a free man, able to pursue anything I want.
I hop into my car and head toward Outlaws.
As I navigate my way to the bar, I muse over my skills, wondering what the hell I can even do for money, now that beating people up is out of the question. I could do something in security, maybe? I’m good at protection. But with my checkered past, there’s no way anyone would hire me to protect something or someone. People around here know the Beckett name too well to trust us.
I tap the steering wheel as I get closer to the bar.
I’m pretty good with my hands, and I’m strong. I’ve repaired shit around the house since Dad was arrested. Maybe I can do something with carpentry or construction.
This will be interesting. I can’t remember the last legit job I’ve had. Maybe never. Butch started the protection racket, and naturally when he went away, we kept it going in his place. When we realized how talented Axel was with art, the tattoo business picked up a few notches.
But what about me? All I’ve ever been good at was keeping my brothers in check and fighting.
And now, at twenty-eight, I’m off to find myself, as my smartass brother Zack put it.
I pull into Outlaws’ parking lot and kill the engine. Since it’s a weekend evening, the bar is hopping, the parking lot full.
Butch is going to hang my balls out to dry when he finds out what I’m doing.
Right now, I don’t care. I’ll deal with that later. He still has time to serve, anyway. And I’m tired of being his bitch and doing his grunt work while he’s gone.
I walk into the front door and head back to the bar. When Jax spots me, his smile drops and he gives me a hostile look.
“Where’s Smith?” I ask before he can say anything.
“Why?” he asks bluntly. “Trying some other new scummy tactic to steal our bar?”
I stop and look at my cousin. Really look at him. This feud between our families has gone on for years. Butch encouraged it, told us all kinds of shit about our cousins, how they think they’re better than we are.
But here they are, busting their asses to make a legitimate business work. They didn’t let our name drag them down. No, they’re making something of themselves.
“Nothing like that,” I tell him quietly. “I just want to talk to him.”
He eyes me warily, then points his thumb toward the door off to the side. “I’ll be listening,” he warns me.
I stroll back and knock on the door.
Smith hollers, “Come on in.”
When I walk in, he looks up and freezes. I take a seat across the desk from him. “We should talk,” I say.
“Oh, you want to talk now? Where are your brothers?” His brow creases as he looks me over.
“They’re home. And we’re leaving Outlaws alone.”
He narrows his eyes. “Are you fucking with me?”
I raise my hands. “Nope. The bar is yours.”
“But for how long? Until you or Butch decide you want it again? We’re not going to fall for your shit.” He leans back in his chair and steeples his hands, resting his elbows on the arms.
“The bar is yours. Keep it. I respect the work you guys have done. You deserve it.”
“Listen, I don’t need your fucking permission,” he growls.
I laugh and nod, appreciating his style. “I know. But I wanted to tell you anyway. We’re standing down.
”
“Butch is gonna lose his shit,” he murmurs.
“Let me deal with that,” I tell him.
“You’re serious. You’re really leaving us alone.” He eyes me warily, but his expression is relaxing ever so slightly.
I nod. “I’m done. Time for me to make some changes in my life. And frankly, I’m fucking tired of fighting all the time. Not worth it.”
Smith watches me closely, taking in my full measure. I can’t remember the last time he and I have just sat and talked. “I know what you mean,” he finally says. “It’s hard to shed the bad reputation of our name.”
“But you’ve done it. The bar is thriving.”
“We’re even opening a second location.” I can see the pride in his eyes as he talks.
“Good for you, man.”
“Met a woman, didn’t you.” His lips give the slightest of curls in the corners.
I remain silent. I’m still not quite ready to talk about Claire. I don’t know if I can get another chance with her, even after cleaning up my act. Every time I let myself think about her, I get this pressure in my chest.
“Yeah, I know that look,” he says quietly. “I had it myself. The right woman will make you want to change. Good luck with that. It’s not fucking easy.”
“But you got the girl in the end,” I say.
He nods. “I did.” His smile grows warm as he pauses. It’s clear he’s thinking about Aubrey.
“She’s beautiful,” I say.
“And smart. And she doesn’t put up with my bullshit.” He chuckles. “Takes a special kind of woman to put up with us Beckett men. We’re a handful.”
“Truer words were never spoken.”
Smith eyes me. “Are we…having a bonding moment here?”
“God, I hope not,” I say in an even voice. “One small change at a time.”
“Well, if I ever see you guys back in here other than as customers, I’ll be ready to kick your asses again.”
“Looks like the bruise on your jaw finally faded,” I say, just to give him some shit.