Page 48 of Dirty Roxie

Reed

I head to the first bar I see on the main level. It’s filled with large wicker chairs housing huge red cushions. A server appears at my side before I’ve barely sat down.

“What can I get you?” she asks as she places a cocktail napkin on the table in front of me.

“Something strong in a small glass,” I sigh, running my palm over my face.

“I’ve got just the thing.”

I watch her walk away, wondering if they make the servers wear bikinis all the time. I’d seen them out by the pool dressed accordingly, but that made sense. Here inside, it just seems weird. Even if the suit is gold lamé.

I see Mack enter the bar as the server sets my drink down in front of me. He flags her down, motions for another then takes a seat across from me.

“What’re we drinking?”

I take a sip. “It’s definitely whiskey. That’s about all I know or care about.”

The server sets Mack’s down in front of him. “Thanks, doll.”

She winks at him and smiles before leaving. It’s always amazing to me how he’s able to get away with saying such things to women today, and they love it.

He takes a sip. “Mm, that’s good. I hate to say it, but I was tired of tequila.”

“’Cause you’ve had so much of it lately?”

“No, I guess not.” He chuckles. “But it feels like we have. I mean, look at that,” he motions to a literal wall of tequila just beyond the bar. “There must be a thousand different kinds there.”

“Could be something we aspire to in our old age—having a wall of whiskey.”

“I like where your head is at,” he says, and pauses a moment before continuing, “So, you doing okay? That had to be kinda hard to hear up there.”

“What? That upstairs? Pfft. It’s just the truth. Truth doesn’t hurt, right?”

“Truth fucking hurts more than anything sometimes, if you ask me.”

“Yeah, well. It doesn’t change anything. She has every right to feel the way she does. Every fucking right.”

“Probably.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, man.”

“Well, what’d you want her to say?”

“I don’t know. Fuck.”

“I get it. I do. It’s one thing if you beat yourself up over something, right? But then if someone else does it too, it just becomes more real. Hurts more.”

“Mack, she’s upset that I didn’t rescue her sooner. There’s nothing I can fucking do about that. No matter how I feel.”

Mack stares at me. I can’t read his thoughts. “I get it,” he says finally.

“Then can you explain it to me? ’Cause no one could have rescued her sooner than I did. I’m confused as fuck.”

“Well, we did.”

“You did what?”

“We found her first.”