Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,53

me ice for my bruised knuckles, the ones I’d bruised punching a woman I used to be friends with at a Black Mountain football game.

He’d corralled me out of there quickly after pulling me off Wendy. Everything was a blur. People had been shocked. Fights happened at football games, sure, but usually on the field. If not there, then between two testosterone fueled boys fighting over the same girl. Not a mother on the wrong side of middle age pouncing on another mother who arguably deserved that beating.

Zeke had driven home, and I hadn’t argued him on that point. In fact, I hadn’t spoken for the entire ride home. I was too shocked at myself. Ashamed. I’d done exactly what my father had taught me not to do. Exactly what I’d argued with David about after that bar fight all those years ago.

Most importantly, I shamed my boys. Word would’ve gotten around about what happened by now, and most likely there was video to go with it.

Ryder would’ve seen it. It would likely be all over social media.

So I brooded over all of that and more on the ride home. Zeke, for his part, hadn’t said a word.

He’d driven silently with a bland expression on his face, pulled up at my place, and to my surprise, walked me inside. I should’ve protested harder at having him here in the daylight. But I didn’t. I let him in, let him follow me into the kitchen and rustle through my fridge.

“You know, I don’t even know what you do for a living,” I said, taking the ice and doing my best to shake myself out of my head. “I know you used to be in a super deadly, criminal gang that’s gunning for your blood. And I can guess at the kind of things a deadly gang might do for an income stream. I also know I might not be switched on to the underworld of Black Mountain, but I’m pretty sure I can say the underworld consists of some kids who sell pot to each other. So your income opportunities are somewhat limited here.” I glanced around the kitchen. Perfect. Expensive. Like a lot of homes in Black Mountain.

Sure, this wasn’t some Stepford town. Families of all income brackets lived within the limits. The other side of town was decidedly less manicured. But the high home prices, even the modest homes, kept a lot of the lowest incomes out. There was a town council that actively did whatever they could in order to keep out ‘undesirables.’ Not my words. My mother-in-law had gone on a tirade after one too many martinis.

I abhorred it, of course, considering the fact if I’d grown up in this town, our family would’ve been looked down upon by people like David’s mother. But I liked how safe it was for my boys. I liked that David grew up here, that this town was littered with landmarks of his youth.

When I’d been able to think straight enough after his death, I’d been certain we were going to leave. To go far away from this place, from every memory. I thought we might be able to leave our suffering behind if this town was in our rearview.

I regained enough of my wits to realize what a stupid plan that was, how cruel it would be to rip my boys from everything and everyone they’d ever known. To take them from their own landmarks that would always remind them of their father, take them from the soil in which he was buried.

It didn’t mean I liked it here. Especially now when it was clear how few friends I really had.

But then there was the man next door, the man currently standing in my kitchen, holding my ice. The one who used to be in a gang. Who lived in a million-dollar house. Whose daughter went to a school that cost ten thousand dollars a year.

Something moved in his eyes that was almost a twinkle. Zeke was not a man to have twinkling eyes. Piercing, threatening, electric? Yes. Twinkling? No.

But there it was.

“I wondered whether you were going to get into that, or if you just wanted me for my body.”

I blinked. Was that a joke? A dry, sarcastic one at that but a joke nonetheless. This man had depth.

And he was also right. I’d taken little effort to find out things about him, the things he did in the daylight. Things beyond the fact he used to be in