Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
If anything, he seems like the kind of dickhead who thinks the world revolves around him. Like more important than anyone or anything else. Even the law.
“How could you be charged with assault when you were trying to stop an already bad situation from getting ugly?”
“The first punch, I’d agree with you.” I purse my lips and shake my head. “But I punched him twice.”
“Sounds to me like he deserved it,” Clay comments and grabs the bottle of Woodford Reserve to pour himself a drink. “Cheers, brother.”
This doesn’t feel like a time for celebration, but I clink glasses with his and take another drink anyway.
“Plus, you can count your blessings because you got here after Eileen Martin left,” Clay updates with a knowing smile. “Though, something tells me you’re going to find yourself in the paper tomorrow. That little old lady was fucking amped.”
“Shit,” I mutter, and Clay reaches out to pat my shoulder with a hard hand.
“Don’t be such a downer, Ben. From what I can tell, you’re going to be painted as the hero of Red Bridge. The man who stopped a gang fight and a kidnapping with just his fist alone.”
My exasperation comes out in the form of a stilted laugh. “Great.”
Publicity and being painted as that fancy-ass woman’s hero—just what I need.
12
Norah
I stare out the window, my elbow resting on the door, and watch the brick buildings and streetlamps pass by as Josie drives us home from CAFFEINE in her SUV. Thomas’s dried blood has been scrubbed from the floor, along with the spilled coffee, and the now-rotten jugs of milk we forgot to put away before going to the police station have found a home in the dumpster behind the building.
Everything is as it was first thing this morning again—all except for my sanity.
Downtown Red Bridge is quiet, only the glimmer of the streetlights providing any action as we make our way through town. At this time of night, all the businesses are closed but one—a bar called The Country Club.
A neon sign boasts the name above the door, and a soft vibration of music floats from inside the place. The lights are on, and business is altogether hopping for a Tuesday night.
When I spot a familiar truck parked out front, I sit up straight in my seat.
“Pull over,” I tell Josie. “I want to go inside.”
But Josie isn’t listening. Her hands stay firmly on the wheel, and her eyes are focused back on the road.
“Josie. Please pull over.” I turn in my seat to face her. “I need to talk to Bennett. Apologize. Thank him. Something.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
My head snaps toward her. “What? Why not?” She doesn’t pull over, and instead, her grip tightens on the steering wheel almost imperceptibly. Almost. “Josie, I got that man arrested today. I really need to go in there and talk to him. It’s the right thing to do.”
She sighs, but she also makes a U-turn in the middle of the empty road and heads back toward The Country Club.
She parks and cuts the engine, hopping out before I’ve even had a chance to undo my seat belt. “Come on,” she complains through the open window on her door. “Let’s make this quick.”
I don’t know why she’s being so weird about it, but I get out of the car and follow her lead into the bar as swiftly as I can. My legs and feet are tired, my arm is sore, and my torso feels like it weighs nearly a million pounds. I’m not convinced I wouldn’t be better off if I were buried alive in actual mud.
Live music bursts from the band playing bluegrass-style music on a small stage, and at least fifty people fill the space, drinking beer and chatting and dancing.
Overall, the place has a good vibe. Colonial brick walls, hardwood floors, and a massive mahogany bar that has a shining display of liquor bottles behind it. It’s eclectic yet rustic and somehow hovers on the line of feeling like the exact kind of charming bar that would be in a small town, but also has an edge of big-city sophistication.
Whoever designed this place knew what they were doing. And if I hadn’t let Thomas and my mother talk me into quitting school just a year short of my interior design degree, I could be doing it too.
Josie stands beside me, her arms firmly crossed over her chest, and I do my best to locate the man I came here for at a speed she’ll find acceptable.
Luckily, he’s not hard to find, thanks to a larger-than-life presence you can’t miss. Slouched slightly, he sits with his elbows resting on the bar, his forearms cradling a glass of half-empty amber liquid in front of him. I can see the bartender’s mouth moving, his conversation directed at his brother-in-protein, Bennett. Forget going to church, these two must worship at the altar of fifty-pound dumbbells.