Page 55 of Cherry Beats

“Daddy says he doesn’t know what he’d do without you. He also said you’d look after the bar because you have a good heart and will do anything to make him happy.”

“Oh, did he now?” I smirked. Fliss was leaning forward, her little wrist working back and forth on a particularly tricky curve.

Children held so much beauty in their simplicity. They had no idea what the world had in store for them. I envied their innocence and their optimism. I envied the way they could get so much satisfaction from the simplest of things when adults never seemed satisfied, no matter what treasures were put in front of them.

Like me with the rock star.

Looking away, I banished the thoughts of Presley from my mind, even though I could still smell him on my skin, feel him inside me, still hear the ringing echo of his heartbeat in my ears.

“What are my two favourite girls doing over here?” Bourbon called out, the clapping of his boots hitting the wooden floor as he came closer.

“Daddy!” Fliss cried, looking up at him with nothing but adoration.

“You’re so lucky, you know,” I told him.

“Why so?” he asked, moving in behind his daughter to kiss her on the back of the head before he stood straight again and smiled down at me.

“Just…” I shrugged, “having someone love you so openly and unapologetically must be amazing.”

Bourbon dropped his hands to his daughter’s shoulders. His eyes searched mine, and the longer they lingered, the more his smile began to fade. Bourbon was as bad as Molly for doing this—the whole analysing my mood thing.

“Is this about the drummer?”

I scoffed, scowling and shaking my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I spun back into place in my seat and started to jot down some figures again.

“Tess, we both know he was in here yesterday asking where you lived. We both know he was all over the news, too. Let’s not do the whole lying to each other thing.”

“Damn you.”

Bourbon’s hands went over Fliss’s ears immediately, and my shoulder sagged as I mouthed a weak apology to him.

“Want to talk about it later?”

“Not really.”

“You sure you’re okay to pull a double shift today?”

“I actually can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be,” I said, trying to sound chipper.

“Sure you can’t.” Tapping Fliss on the shoulders, he leaned down to her. “Come on, little lady. You have swimming practice, and I have a lot of your friends’ mums to chat up from the stands.”

Fliss curled her little button nose up and started to collect her things before she hopped down off her chair. “Daddy, you always talk to the wrong ones. You know it’s Dawson’s mum who likes you.”

“Dawson’s mum? Really?”

“I overheard her telling Jimmy’s mum that you were a total hottie.”

Bourbon smirked before he looked at me and raised a brow. “How about that?”

“Go get ‘em, tiger.” I clawed the air and growled. Bourbon laughed and followed his daughter like the little lap dog he was. The love they shared was overwhelming to watch, and I couldn’t imagine a good enough reason for Fliss’s mum having the nerve to walk away from such an adorable little soul like that.

How could you turn away from something so in need of your love?

Right on cue, my phone rang, and I picked it up the second I saw Molly’s name lighting up my screen.

“Hey, Mol.”

“Hey, hot stuff. How’s the rock star? Bourbon let it slip that he’d been in town trying to track you down yesterday.”

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