Page 48 of Look What You Made Me Do

Every time he thought about Ella – two bright stains of color in her chalk white cheeks – it tore at his gut and a silent roar of rage ripped through his chest. The urge to wipe Roger Hillman’s face all over the bar resurfaced.

He wanted to pound on him, make him pay, make him hurt.

It had been such a great day until that son of a bitch had ruined it with his despicable inferences.

Jake inspected the table now the balls had settled into place and chose the longest shot, sending the white flying across the felt, smashing the yellow into the distant pocket.

The clink of balls as he set about annihilating the table was a good distraction from the echo of Ella’s tears.

It was the second time she’d cried in his arms but it had been different this time. Two years ago, she hadn’t allowed herself to wallow. She’d ruthlessly suppressed her grief and channeled it into their sex, screwing him through it.

This time she hadn’t held back any of it and in every tear, he’d heard the echoes of his own lost childhood.

Jake stared at the last ball remaining, lining it up briefly before smacking it hard. It thunked heavily into the pocket and he wondered if Roger Hillman’s face connecting with his fist would make the same sound.

Reaching under the table, he pulled the lever that released the balls and they thundered into the return slot. Plucking them out, he set up another game. He had no idea how long Ella would sleep but he had no intention of waking her up.

Ready to go again, he drew back his stick and set the game in motion, the chaotic careening of balls oddly satisfying.

“Is this a private game or can anyone play?”

Jake started, squinting into the gloom. He’d turned all the lights out except for the one directly above the pool table.

“You’re awake.”

“What’s the time?” she asked as she moved into the stream of light spilling over the table.

There was a slight puffiness around her eyes that hinted at her crying jag and her hair was sleep tousled, but she looked better than she had.

Jake checked his watch. “Three-thirty.”

They stared at each other for a moment, the silence stretching between them. Silence that seemed out of place in a bar where only an hour and a half earlier music had throbbed into every corner.

“Have you got any change for the jukebox?”

Wordlessly, Jake laid his stick on the wooden surround of the table and fished into the change pocket of his jeans. He pulled out some coins and deposited them into her outstretched palm. She smiled at him before ambling to the jukebox.

He picked up his stick, returning his attention to the table. Or trying to, anyway. Hard when he could see her out the corner of his eye, hunched over the jukebox, the jersey she wore – number eighty-seven, his number – slipping off her shoulder.

Her bare shoulder.

Forcing himself to focus on the shot, Jake jabbed the white toward the target.

It missed.

Harry Ryan, his first coach as a rookie, had always said that women ruined men’s focus. He’d always been a wise old bastard.

The opening beats of Tracey Chapman’s ‘Fast Car’ filtered out before Ella made her way back. Jake attempted another pocket ball, slamming the white hard but it missed again and he cursed under his breath.

“Bummer,” she murmured, her hands sliding onto the edge of the table, her fingers caressing the wood grain.

Jake took a steadying breath then straightened. “Your turn.” He reached for the nearby cue rack and grabbed one, offering it to her.

“Oh. No.” Ella shook her head. “I’m hopeless. Rosie’s the one that you need. Rosie can beat a bar room full of bikers.”

Jake pushed the stick closer, hovering it just off the center of her chest. “I don’t want to play with Rosie.”

Her eyes widened a little at the innuendo but the haunting acoustics relaying a tale of small-town escape had set up a reckless kind of beat in his blood. And if he didn’t do something with his hands, he was going to put them on her which was wildly inappropriate considering she’d cried herself to sleep not that long ago.

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