The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,21
head and tell her she was doing okay.
He sat alone in the bar, on the stool closest to the door. An empty beer mug stood in front of him, with a few crumpled dollar bills beside it. Ash paused for a minute in the dining room and peered through the chair legs, now perched upside down on their tables.
J.T., one of the night bartenders, leaned on his elbows and told a joke out of one side of his mouth. Ash watched Eddie listen, watched the scars in his cheek dip and crease when he laughed, and she wondered again where the scars had come from, and why he hadn’t erased them. The one along his jawline, especially, cut so deep that surely plastic surgery could have softened it. Had he tried it? Had the surgery failed? She wiped her palms on her shorts. She knew nothing about Eddie and his scars, not really. Maybe he’d been born with them. Maybe they reminded him of something he didn’t want to forget. Maybe he didn’t want softening.
She crossed the floor and snuck up beside him. “Hi there.”
Eddie smiled and gave her a soft punch on the arm. “Hi, yourself. Done for the night?”
“Yeah. Finally.”
“You getting used to it?”
“I guess. Honestly, it’s harder than I thought.” That, at least, was true. Ash had no idea her feet could ache so, or that her legs could turn wobbly after a night of running trays back and forth. In just a couple of weeks, she’d discovered a newfound appreciation for the people who did it day in and out, year after year. She knew she could never be one of them, dependent upon tips to pay a mortgage, cover car insurance, or put food on the table.
J.T. flipped on the television as he wiped down the bar. Ash tensed. Not the news, please. She eyed the clock. Just about midnight. Good. Maybe the highlights would be through. She didn’t need any news from Boston discussing the senator’s latest statement or the opposing attorney’s trial preparations. She fidgeted on the stool beside Eddie and sipped a glass of water.
“I should get going,” she said. She watched the screen and prayed no political report would appear. “I’m beat.”
“You drive tonight?” Eddie didn’t look at her, just asked the question sideways as he watched a preview for some new reality show.
“Um, yeah.” She always drove when she worked the night shift. Didn’t matter that everyone she’d met told her she could walk down Main Street at two in the morning and not see a soul. City habits didn’t die that quickly. She’d keep on driving herself, for a while anyway. Until Paradise seeped into her veins a little more.
“Okay if I catch a ride back with you?” he asked. “I walked.”
This time he did turn toward her, and his gaze landed on her with such intensity that she felt as though he’d burned right through the fabric of her shirt.
“Ah, sure.” Stop doing that to me. Stop setting me on fire every time I get too close to you. “How’s the cat?” she asked, to change the subject.
“Better. Vet gave it some antibiotics.”
“You keeping it?”
He shrugged. “Haven't decided yet.”
J.T. adjusted the volume, turning it up as the final highlights from the eleven o’clock news flashed across the screen.
“Tomorrow at six,” the chipper blonde anchor announced, “tune in for the latest chapter in the Senator Kirk arrest.”
Ash’s throat closed.
“We’ll hear from the woman who used to work as the Kirks’ personal housekeeper, as well as tell you what’s in store for this sullied senator from Boston…”
Ash set her glass down on the bar, too hard. A crack splintered all the way up one side.
J.T. frowned. “Geez, take it easy. You okay?”
“Sorry. Wasn’t paying attention, I guess.”
He swept it into the trash. “No biggie. It happens.”
Ash buried her hands between her legs so Eddie wouldn’t see them tremble.
“Can you believe that guy?” he said, still staring at the TV. “You’d think we could find one honest politician somewhere in the whole damn country. But no. Even the ones who come across as Mr. Family Man, who tell us they’re gonna change things for the better—”
“Yep,” J.T. agreed, cutting him off. “Even they wind up bein’ like all the rest. Making decisions from between their legs. Kirk’s no better. Another John fuckin’ Kennedy.” He pulled on the tap and poured Eddie another beer.
Ash cleared her throat. “You know, some people say maybe he’s innocent. That he was set up by someone