Page 37 of Whiskey Moon

There’s the Odette I know …

We pull into the driveway, and I tell her I have to make a call and I’ll meet her inside in a bit. Really I just need a second to breathe. A moment of quietude. I gather my thoughts and emotions, breathe deep, and head inside. I’m passing my father’s study when I hear the soft shutting of file drawers and the rustle of paper.

Peeking my head into the doorway, I say, “What are you looking for, Odette?”

My father’s study is his private office. We both know not to go rifling through it without asking.

“I was looking for his last will and testament.” She collapses into his desk chair before a heap of files.

“Odette.” I cluck my tongue. “You’re assuming the worst here … I don’t think this is the time … why don’t you head on up to bed? I’ll bring you up some chamomile tea?”

Gray-eyed and weary, she nods, shoving the papers back into the desk drawer and shuffling up to bed.

I’ve done enough character studies over the years to know that grief—or the threat thereof—does strange things to people. It makes them act in ways they ordinarily wouldn’t. She’s scared. And she’s worried. And I need to remember that.

My father is an astute businessman and a true provider. I have no doubt that in the event of his eventual passing, he’ll ensure everyone he loves gets exactly what they need to carry on without him.

I fix Odette a mug of tea and place it on a saucer before dropping it off on her nightstand. Her bathroom door is cracked, nothing but a slit of light underneath, and her bathwater is running. Her tea will be cold by the time she’s out. Regardless, I hope she gets the rest she needs tonight.

And I hope I do too.

It’s been a long week—and it’s only Wednesday.

At least it can’t get any worse from here.

20

Wyatt

* * *

I take my usual spot at the end of the bar at Petty Cash Friday night. As soon as Cash spots me, he starts fixing my usual—two fingers of Tennessee whiskey on the rocks.

Scanning the room, I check for any sign of the beautiful brunette who invaded my life this past week, but she’s notably absent from this jukebox-blaring, cowboy-hat-infested place.

I’m equally relieved and disappointed.

“Where’s your girl?” Cash places my tumbler in front of me.

I snicker at his remark before rolling my eyes and taking a sip. It drips smooth and slow down the back of my throat, burning all the way down.

“I invited her out tonight,” Cash says over the Luke Bryan number playing through the overhead speakers.

“Why would you do a thing like that?”

Typical Cash, always sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. He can’t go more than two seconds without wrestling some kind of reaction out of someone.

“Just seemed like the two of you needed a little nudge,” he says with a casual shrug, despite the fact that he knows damn well what he’s doing. “You run into each other, then you’re talking, then you’re not, then she shows up at our house for Sunday supper, then you’re spending all that time together and then she’s gone again.”

“Not sure where you’re going with this.” I take another sip and scan the front door, where a group of women have just moseyed in. Eight of them, I count. None of them are her.

I toss back the rest of my drink in one swallow.

“Jesus,” Cash says. He knows it’s not my style. I usually sip and savor and show myself out. I’m a man of habit. A man who knows his limits. “Here you go, Wy. Drink up. It’s on the house. You need it.”

He pours me another double.

“No, no.” I wave him off, but it’s too late. My glass is half-full.

“Don’t waste that or I’ll make you pay for it,” Cash says even though he and I both know he can’t make me do shit.

I’ve got three inches in height and about twenty-five pounds of muscle on him, and I know all of his weak spots—physical and otherwise.

“Bottoms up,” Cash says.

“I have to drive.”

Cash shakes his head. “I’ll take you home in the morning. I’ve got you.”

As obnoxious as he can be, every once in a while he makes up for it.

Sipping the fresh pour, I settle into my bar stool, rap my fingers on the counter along to the beat of the blasting country song, and embrace the cliché I’ve become tonight.

I think of Blaire and all the characters she always said she wanted to play. She loved stepping into someone else’s shoes and seeing life through their eyes for a change. It was an exhilarating escape unlike anything else, she’d tell me. I tend to think that at the end of the day, most people are playing some kind of character version of their true selves. But when it was just the two of us, Blaire was always herself.

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