Page 33 of Kings Don't Break

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Music blasts down the street from the Steel Saloon, even louder than usual. I park my bike where I always do, right outside the Chop Shop, and dismount with heavy shoulders and a grim, tight-lipped expression. The last few days have been like a dump of emotional baggage. Stuff I thought I was either over or okay with keeping in the past, have reemerged out of nowhere.

Mom guilt tripped me into coming by the house. She knew if she showed up out of the blue, I’d be so damn caught off guard, I could hardly turn down her pleas. It’s the same classic manipulation tactics I’ve come to expect of her.

She refuses to accept I’m not the son she wants me to be. I’m a screw up who can’t make up for what’s happened; I can’t change any of it.

What’s in the past needs to remain in the past.

The same applies to Korine.

My Kori.

I see it now. After two encounters gone wrong with her, I’m realizing I’ve been misguided all these years. I’ve thought of Korine in a way that’s put her and our relationship and friendship on a pedestal. Always the what if or what could’ve been between us had we stuck out together. The alternate future of how we could’ve made it had things turned out differently.

But these thoughts were never real. They were just fantasies of what could’ve been.

Reality has a way of crushing hope, grinding it into dust. That’s what happened with Korine. I’ve been forced to confront the fact that, as much as she looks like Kori, as much as I miss that version of her, things have changed.

Ten years have gone by. She’s not the girl she once was. She’s a woman now, grown and matured. She’s not the girl who used to run barefoot in the grassy ravine or leave her bedroom window slightly open for me to sneak into. Gone are the days we ate food off each other’s plates and finished each other’s sentences.

….and the belief that it was always gonna be us in the end. It was inevitable we’d be end game.

She’s married, and even if it’s to a piece of trash like her husband who cheats on her, I’ve got to fall back. She made it clear she wants nothing to do with me.

I shake back my golden hair, effectively shaking away the thoughts infecting my brain—and my heart.

Several of the guys greet me with drunken cheers the moment I enter the saloon.

“Look who it is!” exclaims Bush, tossing an arm around my shoulders. He sways on his feet though his grip on his beer bottle is more than secure. “Cash, anybody ever tell you that head of hair is a thing of beauty?”

The other guys snicker among themselves, each as drunk as the next.

“Anybody can have hair like that,” Johnny Flanagan scoffs. His own scraggly hair frames his face like greased-up curtains. “Some of us ain’t trying to be pretty boys.”

I push through the wall they’ve formed without the usual easy-going attitude I’m known for. “Johnny, you couldn’t be a pretty boy even if you tried. Only a mother can love a face like yours.”

Everybody within earshot erupts into raucous laughter. Suddenly rendered mute, Johnny flushes a shade of brick red.

I don’t stop. I keep up my stride, heading straight for the bar counter without a look at anybody else, despite their many sets of eyes on me.

Sydney’s behind the counter, pouring shots and polishing beer steins. Her face lights up when she spots me approaching, then dims once she picks up on my mood.

“Bad night?” she asks.

I slide fingers through my hair and rest my elbows on the counter. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

“Pour me a glass of whiskey. Straight.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you drink.” A thoughtful expression crosses her face as she moves behind the counter to make my request happen. She grabs a glass and a bottle of White Oak—an old familiar friend of mine—and pours the amber liquid ’til it’s half full.

I eyeball it with an edgy feeling taking root inside me. The sight’s hypnotic, like watching liquid gold that’s so damn tempting I’m locked into a trance. One that’s broken only when she reaches the halfway mark and stops pouring. I blink and refocus, remembering the rest of the bar around me. Everything other than the glass of whiskey.

Sydney’s talking to me like we’ve been engaged in a conversation this whole time. She’s got no clue I haven’t heard a word. “You should’ve been here for the poker tournament,” she says with a pretty smile that often charms most of the men in the bar. “Ozzie lost a grand. I tried to warn him his hand wasn’t good enough.”

“Right…” I mumble, detached from the moment. My mind’s made up of busy static while my body buzzes like it is.