Page 3 of Destiny

Brendan

The bar is busy for a weeknight, and hours pass before I remember to check my phone. Hmm. No text from Ava yet. I text her quickly and stuff my phone back into my pocket…just in time to see Pat Lamone walk into the bar.

Lord.

Did his mother tell him?

It’s not my problem, but man…

He walks to the bar and takes an empty seat right in front of me.

“What can I get you, Lamone?”

“Answers,” he says.

“Look, I’m sorry about your birth mother, and—”

“I can’t talk about that.” His tone is robotic. “Not yet.”

“So she told you.”

He nods.

“What can I get you?” I ask again.

“Scotch. Neat.”

I pour his drink and slide it in front of him.

He downs it in one gulp and slides it back to me. “Another.”

I pour another, set it in front of him. “If you have another after that one, I’m taking your keys.”

“No problem. I walked over here.”

“You still living at Mrs. Mayer’s place?”

He nods, takes a drink.

I don’t want to get into his life any more than I already am, but I’m a bartender. This is what I do.

“Spill it,” I say. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“My grandmother,” he says.

“Dyane Wingdam. Also known as Wendy Madigan.”

“Yeah. I went to see her tonight. At the hospital in Grand Junction.”

“I see.”

“I wanted answers. I needed answers. Answers my birth mother couldn’t give me. Answers about my grandfather. The man who made me a Steel.”

“I understand, but how did you expect to get answers from a comatose woman?”

“I don’t know, but my trip turned out to be in vain.”

Now my curiosity is piqued.

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