Fall to Pieces - Shari J. Ryan Page 0,2
friendlier to women. Between his good looks and charm, he’d make more cash somewhere else. Though, I doubt his wife would be too fond of that idea—money or no money.
“Dude, what is happening?” Luke utters, leaning the palms of his hands on the bar-top in front of me. “Did you hear all that?” He’s being quiet, but I’m not entirely inconspicuous. I get the feeling Miss August is giving us a lethal look, but I don’t want to look over and catch any part of that.
“Yeah, something crawled up her skirt,” I mumble beneath my breath.
“Chicks don’t come into this place. I don’t remember the last time I served one. Do you?”
I’m here every night, so I should remember just as well. “Nope, I don’t recall the last time a dame walked in through that door.”
“You look like you had a rough one today. You sure you had a good day?” Luke asks, grabbing a rag from his back pocket to clean up the smudge in front of me.
Luke and I are the same age, went to high school together, and started working on a housing development project down the street to build up a suburban community within the city. When that ended, I kept up with construction, and he landed a job here at Kenny’s Whiskey Bar. He eventually bought the place from the old man he worked for, and after all this time, I finally see how our decisions affected us. I look like I’m rounding forty, and he still has his baby flubber cheeks with doll-like dimples. Luke doesn’t give a shit about his looks, though. He’s never had a reason to care. Annabelle Bloomer snatched Luke up during senior year of high school, and they’ve been together ever since.
“The humidity was high today. The roofing project at Dunn's house was rough.”
“Damn, I don’t miss that crap,” Luke says.
Maybe I picked the wrong job. Hell, I’d settle down with a wife and kids if I worked in a bar too. “Yeah, it never changes. That’s for damn sure.”
“Saw you checking that chick out, August. Want me to get her number for you?” Luke jiggles his brows and pinches a toothpick between his lips.
“Are you crazy, man? She’d probably pull a pistol on you just for asking.”
“Probably,” Luke says. “I love ya like a brother, but not that much.”
“No offense taken,” I say, taking a peanut from the straw basket next to me.
“Funny, Chance. Real funny.”
Another local walks on in through the front door and Luke straightens his posture to greet the guy which offers me another minute to study the scene at the other end. With an elbow propped up on the bar, August leans the side of her head into her fist while she scrolls through her phone with the other hand.
This girl is so out of place here with her long flowery skirt and white shirt hanging off the sides of her shoulders.
“What are you looking at?”
I can’t help blinking a few times before I realize August is gawking at me, demanding an answer.
I hold my hand up in the form of an apology. “I—I ah was watching for the guy to step out of the bathroom so I can take a leak. Is that okay with you?”
August cups her hand over her mouth. She has long, slender fingers, and wearing too many rings, but not one of them is a wedding band. I guess I can scratch off the assumption of a cheating husband from the list of possibilities. “I’m so sorry. Chance, is it? I apologize.”
“No worries, hun. Sorry for interrupting you.”
August twists around in her seat and takes a handful of trail mix while fixing her eyes on the TV above the shelves of liquor bottles.
There’s a surprising trait. She accepts being wrong ... even though she isn’t.
When the bathroom empties, I fulfill my fib by walking past her as if I didn’t know she was still sitting a few seats down from me. If I glance at the bar mirror, I might see her looking at me, but I won’t risk our eyes making contact.
I take my time in the men’s room, but not too much time. When I step out, I watch August polish off the rest of her whiskey, slap the glass down on the bar, and strut off toward the door as if she knows something about the world I might die to discover.
Chapter Two
August
One Week Ago
I’ve seen horrible things, like a doped-up mother dropping her unsuspecting child