Page 72 of Just Like That

The Cask & Keg.

The trees around me spun as blood left my face. Cask & Keg was a tiny dive bar the interns frequented. It had cheap drinks and shitty karaoke on Thursday nights. A fuzzy memory began to take shape. A Halloween party with too many shots and a cute blonde with a wild streak and a great laugh.

Oh, fuck.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Hazel, it was a misunderstanding.”

Her soft brown eyes hardened and narrowed. “So youdoremember her.”

“I—I’m not—” I huffed, frustrated at myself that I was stammering and unable to parse out the truth. “I think it’s possible that I knew her, yes.”

She swallowed hard. “I told you. I knew it.” Hurt soaked her words, and I felt like the smallest man to ever live. “Iknewit and I still let you in.” She fought tears and my chest ached.

I raised both hands, the unfamiliar rush of panic threatening to overtake me. “I can explain ... I think.”

“You didn’t even remember hername. I don’t need an explanation.” She ripped the letter from my hands, tearing the corner. “I think I need to get away from you.”

My chest tugged into a knot.I was just starting to feel whole—for the aching emptiness to go away.

“Hazel, please—” My hand twitched and pathetically reached for her before falling.

She spun on her heels, pinning me with an icy glare.

I searched for the right words but came up flat. A solemn nod was all I could muster.

She was right, after all. I hadn’t recalled the one night I’d spent with Olive, until now. It was an alcohol-fueled good time that hadn’t meant much at the moment. I would have sworn on anything holy that I had always used protection, but it was so long ago, I couldn’t be sure.

I had no recollection of Olive coming to Outtatowner—I knew that for certain. She claimed I had dismissed her, sent her away only for my father to swoop in and comfort her.

The entire situation reeked of his manipulation.

On the way back to town, I focused my attention on Teddy and not the gnawing sense that I had already lost whatever footing I’d gained in Hazel’s favor. Her knuckles were white as she wound down the forest roads, back to reality. She had pegged me as a heartless asshole from the start, and recent revelations only proved her point.

As soon as she dropped me off at the office, my phone was in my hand, dialing Dad’s attorney. He answered on the second ring.

I didn’t bother with a greeting. “I need you to set up a visitation with the Department of Corrections. I’m going to see him.”

Russell King had satin the small, stark cell of the Remington County Jail, his once-imposing figure slightly diminished by the ill-fitting orange jumpsuit that clung awkwardly to his broad shoulders. His salt-and-pepper hair, which he had always kept meticulously groomed, had begun to lose its sharp edges, curling unruly at the nape of his neck—a subtle betrayal of the weeks that had passed.

His piercing eyes, with the same intensity I had inherited, still gleamed with that familiar mix of arrogance and defiance, the look of a man accustomed to commanding rooms, not languishing in them. Even in that miserable place, behind those dull, unyielding bars, he had held himself with an air of superiority, convinced that his influence—his money, his connections—would soon have him walking free.

I watched him through the window as I was cleared to enter. His jaw remained stubbornly set, and despite the sallow hue creeping into his once-vibrant skin, he exuded a haughty confidence, as though the entire ordeal of being accused of murdering my mother was merely a temporary inconvenience—a minor blip on his path back to power.

As he sat, waiting for me, the other inmates gave him space, not out of respect, but because of that unsettling aura he projected—one that said he was untouchable, even there.

I hated him for it, but more than that, I hated how clearly I recognized it. I could see the same tension in his posture that sometimes crept into mine, the slight tremor in his hands when he thought no one was looking. It was the fear that maybe—just perhaps—he had underestimated the system he had always believed he could bend to his will.

I loathed that I understood it all too well.

He was instructed by a guard to meet me in the visitors’ section.

I sat across from my father in the cold, sterile visitors’ room of the county jail. The air was thick with the smell of bleach and something far less clean—like the stench of fear or regret.

A glass partition separated us, but it could have been an ocean, a chasm carved out by years of lies, manipulation, and whatever twisted games he had played under the guise of fatherhood. His piercing eyes locked onto mine with the same smug superiority that had defined him for as long as I could remember.

It didn’t matter.

After his conviction, he’d be transferred to a state correctional facility where he’d be stripped of every shred of freedom, along with that shit-eating grin.

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