Page 96 of Off Season

She nods into my neck. “I know. I’m still happy you’re here. I missed you.”

“I missed you too. How’s Daddy?”

Bailey lifts her head and looks me in the eyes. “He’s surprisingly calm. He’s all business about it. It’s weird.”

Well duh. “He’s probably relieved to be rid of the witch.”

We chat about our father for a bit and then about my trip. At some point, Bailey yawns and stretches her arms. “I’m beat. I’m headed to bed.”

I place my hands on my hips. “What? It’s New Year’s Eve. Let’s go party. We can celebrate the new year and the end of an error.”

“An era?” she asks.

“An error. Beverly Hart’s existence was an error of grand proportions.”

She reminds me to behave tomorrow before she shoves us out of her suite and tells us not to stay out too late.

Once we’re in the hallway, I turn my head to Cheetah. “They’re probably gonna stay up and fuck all night.”

He nods. “Totally. We should do the same. Let’s see who gets the first noise complaint. We can bring in the new year with a bang. Literally.”

I look at my watch. “Tempting. We can still do that, but it’s New Year’s Eve. Let’s go get a drink or two first. I know it’s not the big party we were planning to attend in Jamaica, but let’s have a little fun. The locals here are morons. We can fuck with them.”

He takes me into his arms. “We can get drinks, we can go streaking, or we can get into bed and eat ice cream. Know that I’m here for you, and I’m up for whatever puts a smile on your pretty face.”

“What if it were to make me smile if I let you fuck me in the ass on my mother’s grave tomorrow?”

He sucks in a breath. “I read a dark romance once where they did something like that. It was shockingly hot, but I’m not sure I’m into it in real life. Fucking your ass I’ll happily do again though.”

I bite my lip. “Hmm. It’s kind of a fitting send-off for my mother. A little sodomy funeral foreplay before the big goodbye. Drinks first, ass later.”

He squeezes my behind. “Deal. Where should we go?”

My shoulders fall. “There’s only one bar in this shithole town. It’s called Fisherman’s Reef.”

He raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “So unoriginal.”

I nod. “Right? I haven’t lived here in over ten years. Hopefully I won’t see anyone I know.”

An hour later,we’re two beers in and slow dancing to the beat of the same old jukebox that was here when I was a kid. Bailey and I used to love slipping quarters in and making our selections. I don’t think the music in it has changed since then.

My father used to bring Bailey and me to eat here every month when we were little kids. He told our mother that he needed one date a month with his little girls. It was sacred time away from her when the three of us were temporarily free of the black cloud we lived under. It was consistent from the time we were five or six through high school graduation.

We’d have dinner, and then our father’s friends would come for a game of poker. For years, Bailey and I simply watched them while messing with the jukebox. That was when I learned to count cards. I have no clue how I did it, but I just started a system, and it worked for me. I taught Bailey how to do the same. She’s not quite as proficient at it as me, but she’s an amazing poker player.

At some point, I started whispering in his ear when to go all in and when to fold. I wasalwaysright. When we were roughly eight or nine, his friends indulged us by letting Bailey and I play a few hands. At first, we’d sandbag until the stakes got higher. Then we’d take those grown men for every dime they brought until they stopped letting us play.

Bailey and I hustled many high school and college boys out of their paychecks. Since our family came from very little, this was how Bailey and I made some of our living expenses in college.

While looking at the jukebox offerings, I selected the theme song fromTitanicin honor of my sister, which we’re dancing to now. We’ve watched that movie no less than a thousand times.

Cheetah runs his hands up and down my back as we put on a little dirty dancing show for the local nimrods. He asks, “Are you going to behave at the funeral tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Why not? Can’t you just pay your final respects?”

“As I’ve said before, respect is earned. Beverly Hart was a pieceof shit. She’s burning in hell right now, and I want to celebrate that fact.”

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