Stay with Me (Wait for You, #3)(6)

This had not boded well.

There also hadn’t been a single photo in the house. No picture frames on the walls. No memories. That hadn’t surprised me.

I lifted my head and dropped it on the steering wheel again. “Ugh.”

At least the electricity had still been turned on in the house. That was one good thing, right? That meant Mom had some kind of money.

I winced on my third steering wheel head bang.

A horn blew behind me, and I immediately straightened and peered out the windshield. Green light. Whoops. My hands tightened on the steering wheel as I blew out a determined breath and continued on. There was only one other place she could be.

Ugh.

Yet another place I never ever—ever—wanted to see again. Forcing myself to take several long and deep breaths, I coasted along the main road, probably driving under the speed limit and annoying every car behind me, but I couldn’t help it.

My heart banged around in my chest as I hung a right and hit what was considered the main drag in town, only because it was where all the fast-food joints and chain restaurants surrounded the mall and shopping centers. About ten miles down the road was where Mona’s sat, across from what looked like a pretty dicey strip club that was lined with rough-and-ready-looking motorcycles.

Oh boy.

The streets were congested, but as I cut across the lane and pulled into the all too familiar parking lot littered with potholes and God knows what else, there weren’t a lot of vehicles there.

Then again, it was Monday night.

Parking the car under the flickering neon sign at the back of the parking lot that was currently missing an a in the name Mona’s, I took several more deep breaths and repeated, “I will not kill her. I will not kill her.”

Once I was sure I wouldn’t break down and go all redneck on her ass when I saw her, I climbed out of my Ford Focus and tugged on the hem of my denim cutoffs, then readjusted the soft and flowing cream long-sleeve blouse that would’ve been longer than my shorts if I hadn’t tucked the front of it into them.

My flip-flops echoed off the pavement as I crossed the parking lot, clutching the strap of my bag in a way that meant I could wing this thing around like a deadly weapon.

As I neared the entrance, I shored up my shoulders and let out a low breath. The square window in the door was clean, but cracked. The white and red paint that used to be so vibrant and eye-catching was peeling off like someone had splashed acid across the walls. The big window, tinted black and with a flashy OPEN sign, was also cracked in the corner, forming tiny spiderweb fissures across the center of the glass.

If the outside looked like this . . .

“Oh God.” I so did not want to do this.

My gaze drifted back to the dark square window in the door, and my blue eyes looked way too wide and my face too pale in the reflection, which also made the superhot scar cutting down my left cheek, starting just below the corner of my eye to the corner of my lip, more visible.

I’d been lucky. That’s what the doctors and the firemen and everyone in the world who had an opinion had declared. Less than an inch higher, I would’ve lost my left eye.

But standing where I was now, I didn’t feel so lucky. Actually, I was pretty sure Lady Luck was a coldhearted bitch who needed to die.

Telling myself I could do this, I grabbed the rough handle and yanked the door open. And I immediately stumbled to an awkward stop just inside the bar, losing one of my flip-flops as the familiar scent of beer, cheap perfume, and fried food washed over me.

Home.

No.

My free hand closed into a fist. This bar was not home to me. Or should not be home to me. It didn’t matter that I’d spent almost every day after high school holed up in one of the back rooms here or that I snuck out to the main floor to watch Mom because this was the only place where she smiled. Probably because she was usually drunk when she was here, but whatever.

Things looked the same. Kind of.

Square and high round tables with rough and worn tops. Bar stools with backs and tall chairs. The clang of billiard balls snapping off one another drew my attention to the back of the bar, beyond an empty raised dance floor, to the pool tables.

A jukebox in the corner played some kind of tear-in-my-beer country music as a middle-aged woman I’d never seen before barreled out of the Dutch doors across from the dance floor. Her bright blond hair, obviously not natural, was piled atop her head. A pen was shoved behind one ear. Dressed in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, she looked like a customer, but then again, Mona’s had never been a uniform-wearing kind of bar. She carried two red baskets stacked high with fried chicken wings as she sashayed over to one of the booths lining the wall near the jukebox.

Balled-up napkins were under tables and there were patches of the floor that looked sticky. Other sections looked like they simply needed to be replaced. With the dim bar lighting, I knew I wasn’t even seeing half of it.

Mona’s looked like a woman who’d been ridden hard and left out to dry. It wasn’t dirty, but more like almost clean. As if someone desperately tried to stay on top of the losing battle and was doing the best they could.

Which could not be Mom. She had never been into cleaning, but she used to be better. There were distant, blurry memories of her being better.

Since I was standing at the door long enough to look like an idiot, and as I scanned the floor, I didn’t see Mom, I decided it would be a good idea to, I don’t know, move. I took a step forward, then realized I’d left one of my flip-flops by the door.