At Peace (The 'Burg #2)(14)

“I got her,” a deep, rumbly voice said from behind me.

I twisted on my stool, looked up, up, up and saw, standing behind me, Joe Callahan, his hair longer and more unruly, wearing his black leather jacket, a black t-shirt stretched across his wide chest, faded jeans and black motorcycle boots.

“Yo Cal,” Morrie greeted as I stared at Joe.

“Yo,” Joe greeted back.

“Great, Cal, thanks,” Colt muttered, I looked from Joe to Colt and watched Colt call to the back of the bar, “Feb, baby, got a callout.”

“All right, honey,” she called back. “See you later?”

“Yeah,” Colt replied, grinning at her then he slid off his stool, lifted a hand to squeeze the back of my neck, he nodded to Joe and Morrie then he took off.

Through this I sat there thinking firstly, that Joe freaked me out a bit considering he could come up behind me and I never heard him coming and secondly, that I didn’t want him taking me home.

I put my elbow to the bar, my head in my hand and I aimed my mouth at my straw. Capturing it, I sucked up cranberry juice and vodka and considered this dilemma.

“Beer?” Morrie asked Joe before I came to any conclusions about my dilemma.

“Yeah,” Joe replied and slid in between me and the empty stool beside me which meant he came in close to me as well as cut me off from the bar as Colt and I were sitting on the last two stools by the wall.

He didn’t sit though. He stood there even after Morrie opened a bottle of beer, set it on the bar top and walked away. Then he still didn’t sit, just took a pull on his beer, his body mostly facing me but his torso was twisted to the bar.

Then his torso twisted to me and he looked down into my eyes.

“You talk to her about condoms?”

Again, it seemed he was starting a conversation in the middle but, even mostly drunk, I knew what he was asking.

“No.”

He didn’t respond, just looked at me and I also knew what his silence meant.

“Kate’s responsible,” I explained though it was none of his business and even though my daughter was responsible, I was declaring this mostly hopefully.

“Were you responsible?” he asked.

“No,” I answered truthfully and pointing out the obvious.

He kept looking at me then he took a pull at his beer.

I aimed my mouth at my straw, captured it and sucked up some more drink.

I released my straw and asked, “Did you shovel my snow?”

His blue eyes leveled on mine. “What?”

“That day, when it snowed, did you shovel my drive?”

He didn’t answer at first then he said, “Yeah.”

When this knowledge was confirmed, I pulled in breath not knowing what to say because this was a nice thing to do and he didn’t seem like a nice guy then I settled on, “Thanks.”

He didn’t reply.

I was sucking up more vodka and juice, my head still in my hand, my elbow still at the bar when he spoke again.

“Your man gone?”

My chest got tight and my eyes lifted to his.

“What?”

“Your man, came home last week. He gone?”

I blinked at him thinking about Tim coming home and how impossible that would be, and how beautiful, then I realized what he meant.

“That wasn’t my man. That was my brother, Sam.”

He nodded and took a pull of beer. I stared at him.

Then for some stupid reason I asked, “What about your woman?”

His eyes came back to mine but he didn’t reply.

“The one you were with that night Sam came,” I prompted.

“Nadia?” he asked like I’d know her name.

“The blonde.”

“Nadia,” he stated.

“She around?” I asked, not knowing why but also thinking that I wanted to know the answer and not knowing why about that either.

“Nope,” Joe replied.

“Oh,” I whispered and aimed my mouth at my drink.

We were silent a good long while, me halfheartedly sipping at my drink, Joe standing and taking intermittent sips at his beer. This was not comfortable for me. I felt the need to fill the silence but found I had nothing to say. However, watching Joe, he seemed comfortable in some kind of zone where he, his beer and the bar were one and he was content with that.

Finally I figured out what to say. “You don’t have to take me home, I can get a taxi.”

His eyes again came to me and he noted, “You live next door.”

“Well… yeah.”

“Buddy, I can take you home.”

“What if you want to go home and I want to stay?”

“I’ll wait.”

“What if I want to go home and you want to stay?”

“I’ll come back.”

Yeesh, he had an answer for everything.

“That’s silly.”

“Why?”

“Because it is.”

This was lame but with that much vodka in me, and considering I didn’t drink much, it was all I had.

I figured he thought it was lame too because he didn’t bother to respond.

I captured my straw with my mouth and took another drink.

We lapsed back into silence, Joe turning back to the bar and leaning two elbows on it, cradling his beer in both his hands until I found another topic of conversation.