Page 17 of Tank
CHAPTER NINE
Nadya
Fuck!
This was not good.
Hewalked into my bar.
My fucking target was mere feet in front of me. He could see me. Again, this was not good.
Outside I was a mask of cool, but inside my anxiety skyrocketed. I did not like to be seen. I was a fly on the wall. A shadow. And now I was going to be front and center having to serve the fucker. I kept telling myself that there was no way he could know who I was. For all I could tell, he didn’t even reallyseeme anyway.
He barked out his order, his voice sounded strained, like it almost hurt him to talk.
I stood there, taking him in up close as slyly as I could. The cameras I had installed were not that great. I could see him, track his movements, but I couldn’t really make out what he truly looked like. He was fucking big, no, massive. When he walked in he filled the whole doorway and his legs were so thick that I could make out the muscles even under his jeans. His chest was wide and firm, filling out his wrinkled shirt and the cuffs of the arms strained around his biceps. I could count the squares of his ab muscles. EvenIwas a bit intimidated. Who the hell was this guy? And more importantly, why did I even care?
He was a job.
Sure, it was a job that I was currently stalling on. But why? I didn’t have an answer for that.
I tried to shake the uncertainty of it all as I poured his drink. He didn’t once look up at me. Until he reached for his drink, that was. My fingers felt like they were in glue and I couldn’t pull them away from the glass. He noticed and I watched as his gaze swept over me and when his eyes met mine, I had a strong urge to suck in a deep breath. I held my ground though and showed no reaction. But something in his steel gray eyes made me sad. It gutted me and broke my heart all at the same time. Before me sat a man who was broken, and didn’t even care to try and hide it.
For the first time ever, I felt something I had never felt.
I wanted to know more.
I wanted to know his story.
But that was ridiculous, and I knew it because knowing wouldn’t change anything. This was going to end one way, and one way only. He was a job. Just like every other one had been. Knowing him, seeing him, wouldn’t change that, no matter how much the curiosity tugged at my insides.
After a few beats, he dropped his gaze from mine. His expression unreadable. He seemed unaffected by me, yet tripped up by something. I hated not being able to read people. So, I just tossed it up to the fact that he was a drunk and that alcohol was the only thing that mattered to him. I gave him what he wanted without a second thought.
When he told me to leave the bottle, I hesitated for a second. Not sure why, though. I cared about few things in life, and he was not one of them. If he wanted to drink himself into oblivion, then fuck if I gave a shit. That would make him an easier target because as everyone knew, drunk men didn’t move as fast.
I did my best to not watch him as he sat there. Over the next two hours, he drained the bottle. Like completely empty, making sure to get every last drop.
A few times I caught myself blatantly staring at him, but luckily he was too lost in his own head to notice. I took in everything that he did, filing it away in my mind for some strange reason. The way his movements were slow and almost lazy. The way his tongue would dart out to lick his full bottom lip after each swallow. The way his brows were constantly pinched together. He seemed like a man who hated the world and at the same time appreciated it for all its jagged pieces. Like he knew just how broken life could be but he wasn’t sure how to put it back together. The sadness radiated off him like a thick poison and I found myself feeling a heaviness in my heart as well. It was a strange feeling, one that I wasn’t fond of and I had no clue what to do with.
I didn’t feel sorry for him but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was that I did feel. Maybe it was more of wanting to know the man behind the dirty shield of hair. What was it that he was hiding from? Or maybe he was running?
I wondered what it was that made him leave the house that night. Why was today different from the rest? He’d never come in here before, I knew because he was home all those times I wasn’t working. Because I was watching. The only time he seemed to leave the cabin was when he ran out of alcohol and then it was just a quick trip to the liquor store before he was back in his same spot on the couch. He had done the same thing for almost a month now. Sure there was the occasional grocery bag, but he hardly ate or did anything other than drink. So what made this night different?
I guessed it didn’t matter because I was never going to ask him anyway. I had to keep my distance as best as I could. The bar was closing soon and that would be the end of this tortuous up-close encounter. He would go back to being in front of the screen and I would be the person behind the curtain. Hidden. Unseen. Right where I was comfortable.
But then he passed out on the bar, the empty bottle next to his head. It was last call and the bar was mostly clear. What the hell was I going to do? I couldn’t just leave him there but he was too big for me to try and move by myself, and I wasn’t even sure where to move him to. If his truck was outside I could put him in it. But what if he woke up, still drunk and tried to drive. I wouldn’t put that shit on anyone. Sure, the town was quiet at this time of night and the chances of anyone being on the road were slim. However, slim was even too much for me.
“What you gonna do about that one?” Kevin, one of the regulars who seemed to be there nearly every night I worked, asked jutting his head to the massive lump at the other end of the bar.
“Fuck,” I said blowing out an aggravated breath. “Can you guys, drag him upstairs?”
Kevin looked over at Will who was sitting next to him, like always, and they shared an uneasy look.
“You sure that’s a good idea?” Will asked.
It wasn’t a good idea—like at all and I had no idea why the fuck I’d even suggested it.
“Yeah, let me lock up and I’ll follow you out the back.”
