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My hands fell to the table. God, fuck, dammit.

She was right . I hadn’t intentionally used her—of course not—but I had taken her for granted for years.

Always expecting her to be there, always expecting her to be waiting for me to be ready—but ready for what?

! To grow a backbone? To come to the grand epiphany that I wasn’t, in fact, a soulless piece of shit like my father?

And what if that never happened? Had I really expected her to wait endlessly, for all of eternity, losing chance after chance to live her life?

God, what a selfish fucking bastard I was.

Just like him.

A wolfish whistle broke through the barrier of my thoughts, and I turned my head to watch that asshole from the bar—Ritchie—walk in my direction. I narrowed my eyes, wondering what the hell he wanted from me now, when I noticed his attention was on a nearby table and not on mine.

“Well, well, well, what are you doing here?”

“Go away, Ritchie. ”

I turned my head to glance down the row of booths along the wall. It was too dark, the dividers between each table were too high, and I couldn’t see who he was talking to. A woman, from the sounds of it, and it was clear she didn’t want his attention.

“I don’t think that’s a very nice way to talk to an old friend. How about you invite me to sit down?”

“I said, go away.”

“You know, most girls beg me to stay . It usually sounds more like, Oh, harder, Ritchie. Deeper. Give me —"

“Please, go ,” the woman shouted over his lewd mockery, and now I vaguely recognized her voice.

“Oh, baby, you’re hurting my feelings. Why don’t you kiss it and—"

The rage hadn’t yet evaporated from my veins. It just needed a place to go. So, I stood abruptly and barreled toward the pigheaded asshole, standing beside a darkened booth, and shoved his shoulder with such force that he nearly fell over.

The flash of fury in his eyes told me not many people dared to stand up against him, and I thought, It’s about time someone did.

“Who the fuck are you, man?” he sneered at me, righting himself and bumping his chest against mine.

“Doesn’t matter. She asked you to leave. That means you leave. Now, get the hell out of here.”

He grinned, his eyes twinkling with something feral. This guy wasn’t right. He was drunk and high on substances I could only imagine .

“Yeah? And what the fuck are you gonna do to me if I don’t?”

He was challenging me, trying to get a rise, and I didn’t know what came over me as I gave in, leaned closer, and whispered in his ear, “I could end your life with one of my hands before you had the chance to take your next breath,” but it felt good to watch fear overshadow his crazed eyes.

“Bullshit,” he muttered, raising his chin and standing his ground.

I lifted my left hand, stood taller, and said, “Well, let’s find out then, shall we?”

For a moment, I thought he might call my bluff again. I thought he might just be crazy enough to test me. But then his nostrils flared, his lips pursed, and he turned to storm out of the bar.

An audible exhale came from the table I stood beside, and I looked to see her. The woman from the repair shop. She glanced up at me, and as if on cue, her cheeks took on the color of pink roses.

“Thank you,” she muttered, brushing away a strand of her reddish-blonde hair. “He’s such an asshole. But honestly, I should’ve known better than to come here, so that’s on me.”

I noticed the bottle of beer on the table in front of her. “You should be allowed to have a drink without some douchebag harassing you.”

She rolled her eyes toward mine. “Not in this town.”

I didn’t know why I nodded with understanding. I guessed maybe I’d heard something she wasn’t saying. That she was stuck, trapped—for one reason or another—and didn’t yet have an escape route.

I offered a curt smile. “Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your—"

“Was that your girlfriend you were talking to?”

I froze on the spot, staring into her eyes like a deer caught in the headlights. I wasn’t sure her cheeks could turn any redder, but there they went, looking now like ripe apples hanging from a tree, ready for picking.

“I, uh … I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. You were just … talking really loudly, and—"

“No, it’s okay,” I finally said, then shrugged. “She wasn’t my girlfriend. Not really anyway. I … I wanted her to be, but—"

“You screwed it up?” she offered, tipping her head with soft, apologetic eyes.

I smiled sheepishly. “Pretty much.”

She hummed a quiet, thoughtful sound, looking off toward the open mouth of her beer bottle. “But you didn’t beg her to stay,” she said, almost as if to herself. “You didn’t beg her to change her mind.”

I tucked my hands into my pants pockets and considered what she had said with a furrowed brow. “Why would I beg her to do something she clearly didn’t want to do?”

“Because you like her,” she replied like it was obvious.

So, I shook my head. “But she deserves to be happy more than she deserves me.”

The woman turned abruptly to look at me, her glossy lips falling open for a moment.

Her eyes widened with revelation and surprise.

The look made me uncomfortable, but not in the way my father did.

I didn’t want to run away. I didn’t want to fight.

No, I wanted to sit with her and ask her just what that look was for.

Get inside her head, find out what she was thinking.

“Oh, no,” she murmured slowly as she turned away, shaking her head as she reached for her bottle of beer.

The side of my mouth lifted in a reluctant smile. “What?”

“You say that like you’re an asshole, but”—she turned her eyes back on me as she brought the beer to her mouth—"that’s not something an asshole would say.”

I sniffed a gentle chuckle as I hung my head, turning away as she took a pull from the bottle, if only to try—pointlessly, I might add—to keep from thinking about those lips being around something else.

Then, when I heard the glass clink against the table, I swung my gaze back to her to notice she was no longer wearing the hideous brown shirt she’d worn at the shop.

Now she was dressed in a pink sweater with a neckline that dipped low enough to reveal just a hint of cleavage.

Her hair was twisted into a messy-looking knot with free-falling strands framing her face.

She looked casual but put together, and I turned around to sweep my eyes around the dark room, if only to keep myself from staring too long.

“I’m sorry. Were you meeting someone?”

“No,” she answered quickly. “I actually came out to do some grocery shopping and thought I’d stop in for a quick beer.”

Just like that, hope reached out toward her with long, desperate fingers. I glanced at my table in the corner, where my burger and beer still sat. I was hungry again, I was alone, and God, this ache in my chest hurt so much that I dreaded going back to the motel by myself.

“Would you, uh …”

I swallowed, realizing quickly that I had never done this before. Laura was supposed to be the first, but …

“Would you like to have dinner with me?”

She seemed startled at first, then hesitant, an unspoken battle warring behind her blue eyes.

I almost told her to forget it, to pretend I hadn’t said anything, before sulking back to my table with my tail between my legs.

But before I had the chance, she seemed to make up her mind, held her head high, and smiled boldly.

“Yes,” she replied, nodding. “I think I would like that a lot.”

***

“So, what made you join the Army?” she asked after the bartender brought a burger over for her.

I’d already eaten half of mine—now barely warm but still every bit as good as the motel guy had said it would be—but I waited for her to start eating to finish the rest. Now, she grabbed her cheeseburger in both hands and watched me with expectant eyes as she took a bite.

“My father,” I answered honestly because what did it matter?

There was a freedom in sitting there with this woman.

I could be myself. I could be uninhibited.

I could be unapologetically truthful because she didn’t know me, where I had come from, or the people I knew—and she never would.

Because I was always just passing through, wasn’t I?

And this moment, this night, this date was no different.

It couldn’t be, and it didn’t matter how much that struck a painful chord against my already-aching heart.

She didn’t seem at all surprised by the answer. Instead, she nodded. “Was he in the service too?”

“No,” I said, threading my fingers together and resting my chin on my knuckles. “He just wanted to get rid of me.”

That answer did surprise her, however. “Why would he want to do that? Were you a bad kid or something?”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “Not particularly. He’s just always hated me.”

“He hates you?” she shouted disbelievingly. “What parent hates their kid?”

“I mean, I have my theories.”

“Like what?”

I cleared my throat and continued to ride the rush of adrenaline that seemingly only came from telling the truth.

“Well, I think maybe he actually hates himself, and I am too much like him. I think it could also be that he was never shown enough love as a child or some stereotypical shit like that. But I can’t really say since I never knew my grandparents. ”

She watched me with a type of suspicion that should’ve left me uneasy, but didn’t. Instead, I wanted her to figure me out. I wanted her to peel back my layers and see who I truly was, the me even I was scared of, and I wanted her to tell me there was nothing to be afraid of at all .

Her lips pursed as she swallowed, and then she asked, “He hurt you a lot?”

I nodded and unfolded my hands to gesture at my ears. “He smacked me around so much that I have chronic ear infections. My hearing isn’t as great as it probably should be at my age.”

“And what about your mom?”