Page 12 of Promise Kept

He looks back and calls out for another bottle.

Devyn smiles. “Put it on Ellis’s tab!”

“I’ll cover it,” I say. “Come on. Have a drink.”

“To Heston,” Julian says.

We all raise our glasses to our fallen friend.

Some of us closer to him than others.

Some of us more distant from the guy.

All of us tied to him through current business and an old friendship.

One by one we all clank glasses.

Me. Aron. Julian. Henri. Damien. Devyn.

The six of us.

Friends? Enemies?

A toast to our dead friend.

Forty-five years old.

Could have been one of us.

No, it couldn’t have.

We all knew what Heston loved more than women…

Our thoughts are saved in our own minds.

We down our drinks.

Julian is quick to pour a second shot.

As he hands me the glass, I hear giggling from my left.

I don’t exactly mean to look, but when I see Larissa, I look even harder.

The way my neck jerks has Julian and a couple others looking too.

“Ah, fuck,” Henri says. “Poor kid.”

“She’s not a kid,” Julian says.

“Always will be to me,” Henri says.

I nod, just to play along.

Play along with what?

Heston’s daughter is here.

She’s wildly drunk already.

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