Page 43 of Fought and Freed

What the Hell was he going to do with a baby? He wasn’t ready to become a dad.

At the same time, there was no way on this green Earth he’d let Amber raise his kid. Who knew how it would turn out? He hoped Maddy and Jace wouldn’t leave him.

He took another drink, all the alcohol in his gut hitting him hard. Everything felt numb, just the way he wanted.

Sliding off his stool, he headed over to the pool table with the bottle of Grant in his hand.

The guy playing straightened to glare at him. “What do you want?”

Skylar gestured at the pool table. “What do you think I want?”

“I don’t know.” The guy wore an old band T-shirt and a pair of grease-smeared jeans. “But what I do know is you’re going to get your ass kicked.”

“Maybe later.” Skylar’s eyes roamed over the guy. He was about six feet tall, with black hair and brown eyes. “But right now, I want to beat your ass at pool. If you win, I’ll give you a hundred bucks.”

The guy threw his head back and laughed. “I could always use an extra hundred. You got yourself a deal.”

They racked the balls and tossed a coin to see who would break.

“Heads,” Skylar called.

The coin landed tails up.

“Come on, Deke,” the guy’s friend said. “Take this asshole to the cleaners.”

Deke lined up and took the shot, scattering the balls, and a blue two-ball slid into a pocket.

“I’m solid,” Deke said.

Skylar took a drink from the bottle, then reached out to put his arm on the table but missed and stumbled forward.

He righted himself and smiled.

Deke sank the red three-ball before he missed his next shot.

Skylar stumbled to the pool table and squinted to make the double images of the balls come into focus.

“Try to hit the right ball,” jeered a blond guy.

“Fuck you.” He balanced his bottle of Grant on the edge of the table, lined up his stick, and bank-shot a striped ball into the pocket, leaving the cue ball tucked behind one of Deke’s solids.

The blond guy laughed. “You just fucked yourself.”

Skylar moved to the side of the pool table for his next shot. This would be difficult. He blinked to get rid of the double vision, but it did nothing.

Oh, well. He took the shot, but the cue ball swung wide.

“You’re making this too easy,” Deke said.

Skylar didn’t answer as he reclaimed his bottle of Grant and took another swig.

Deke’s next shot sank his yellow one-ball. He pocketed the purple and green balls, too, before he missed again.

Skylar set his Grant down and shuffled up to the table, searching for a shot.

He took the easy one first to open the table more. He then lined up his next shot and sank that one, too, but scratched on the next one.

Deke smirked. “You might as well just give me the money now.”

---