Page 71 of The Spider & the Storm

Goddammit, Luke. Please, please, please don’t be in there.

The thought was on repeat as I got out of the car and crossed the street. My hand clenched around my keys, the metal digging into my palm as fear built higher and higher and higher. By the time I reached the door, my teeth were chattering, and my lungs were stuttering, barely able to hold on to a single breath of air.

Then, as I opened the door, I saw him.

Hunched over the bar. His hands in his hair. A half-empty glass in front of him.

Tears and disappointment bit angrily at the back of my eyes as I cursed for the hundredth time through gritted teeth and took the first step toward him.

The bartender—a middle-aged guy wearing a vest and more gold chains than a Mafia boss—nodded his chin in my direction.

“What can I get ya, boss?” he asked in a thick Brooklyn accent.

“My fucking brother,” I replied, mad, but not at him, as my hand landed heavily on Luke’s shoulder.

He was surprised to see me, his eyes rounded and his mouth open. “Charlie, I—”

I shoved at the shoulder in my hand. “Are you fucking kidding me, Luke?!”

The bartender’s brow crumpled with agitation. “Hey, man, if yous wanna fight, I don’t give a shit, but you’re not gonna do it in here.”

Luke looked back at him. “We’re not fighting.”

“The hell we aren’t!” I shouted, struggling to maintain control over my emotions and fists. “Jesus Christ, what do we have to—”

“Charlie, will you just fucking listen to me? I’m notdrinking.”

I guffawed and thrust my hand toward the glass on the bar. “What the hell do you call that then?”

“Yo! Guys!” the bartender cut in, smacking his hand on the bar to get our attention. “I don’t fuckin' care if yous wanna kill each other. Just—”

Luke lifted the glass from the bar and shook it in my face. “It's fucking water, okay?”

I didn’t believe him. I wanted to—God, I did. But Ididn’t. How could I? His track record was piss-poor, and he had to understand that it was going to take time for that trust to rebuild—if ever. For crying out loud, Luke had barely been sober—again—for six months, and here he was, sitting in a bar with a half-empty glass in front of him.

I grabbed it from his hand and sniffed the liquid inside.

It smelled like nothing.

“You didn’t show up,” he said quietly. “I thought you were just late, finishing up at work or something. So, I waited.”

I took the tiniest sip from the glass. The cool liquid evaporated on my tongue. No flavor. No burn.

Water.

He was telling the truth.

I hung my head as I slid the glass back onto the bar.

“After a while, I got bored, just sitting in the parking lot, so I came in here. I thought about going to that coffee shop, but …” He spun the glass in a puddle of condensation. “I wanted to see if I could do it.”

I didn’t ask him to elaborate.

I knew what he’d meant.

“And you did it?” I offered, and he only shrugged.

“It’s so fuckin' hard, Charlie,” he admitted in a weak whisper.

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