For You (The 'Burg #1)(49)

Dad, Mom, Morrie and me spent some of our time talking with customers, Mom and Dad more than Morrie and me as they had catching up to do. But most of the time we’d find ourselves over at Colt, Dee, Jimbo, Jessie, Meems and Al having a gab or a laugh.

I didn’t think about Colt and my kiss. I decided to think about being with my family and friends and how good that felt without me holding onto shit and feeling mostly dead inside. How good it felt to laugh and feel it down straight in your belly. How good it felt to watch the face of someone you love get animated while they talked about something they thought was funny or something their kid did that was cute. How good it felt to be alive, unlike Angie, Pete and Butch who’d never have times like that again. How good it felt to realize this was precious and holding onto pain meant missing times like these even when they were right there for you, close enough to take hold.

Evening hit the bar and Al and Meems challenged Jimbo and Jessie to a round of pool. They’d been drinking steadily for hours and they were making more noise than we usually had on a Saturday night and it could get seriously noisy on a Saturday night.

I was watching them when I saw Morrie come around the back of Dee’s stool, lean in and kiss her neck. I also watched as a golden Sunday worked its magic and she tilted her head to give him better access instead of trying to move away. My eyes slid to Colt who’d caught it too and his eyes had come to mine. We shared a smile and his hit me somewhere private, somewhere that had always been mine, somewhere that I’d never let anyone into, not even him decades ago. His smile just stormed right through the gates I had locked there and settled in like it was going to stay awhile.

I looked away and thought it was high time for me to break my cardinal rule. I never drank on the job. If I was back of the bar, I was sober. Morrie didn’t adhere to this tradition though he never got sauced just would have a beer every once in awhile, usually when Colt or one of his other buddies dropped in. I made myself a rum and diet and brought it back to the end of the bar.

“You let Feb pick breakfast, my woman wants Reggie’s pizza for dinner,” Morrie announced to Colt before he slapped him on the back and said, “dude, get your ass off the stool, come with me to order.”

Reggie’s was around the corner. Reggie was Irish, had a shock of red hair and scratched his beer belly when he laughed which was a lot, mostly at his own jokes. Even Irish, he made the best pizza in the county, bar none. You went there to order and if you were close enough, like we were, he sent his son, Toby, to make the delivery.

Colt slid off his stool. I had my drink on the bar, my hand wrapped around it. Before Colt left, his eyes dropped to my hand, he reached out and grazed my knuckles with his fingertips. The touch was there and gone, I could have imagined it if I hadn’t felt it zap straight through my system.

I stood there staring at my drink curled in my hand and I heard the front door close.

“Feb,” Dee called and my head snapped up.

Her eyes were on me and she looked happy. I hadn’t seen her that way in awhile, her look erased the lingering effect of Colt’s touch and I smiled at her.

“Thanks for giving my brother another chance.” A cloud drifted across her happy face and I wished I’d never said anything. “Shit, Dee, sorry. I should keep my mouth –”

She cut me off. “What’s happening with you and Colt?”

“Nothin’,” I said quick as a flash. “He’s helping me out, he’s just being nice. It’s an intense time. So intense, we’ve called, like, a truce or something.”

“Don’t know much about truces but I’m guessin’, even if they call a truce, enemies don’t touch each other’s hands and they sure don’t get caught by their parents making out in the kitchen.”

Mom and/or Dad had a big mouth.

I turned fully to Dee. “Dee, honey, don’t get any big ideas about this.”

“You know, Melanie left because of you.”

I felt my eyes grow round, actually felt them get big and I wondered if they were bugging out of my head.

“What?”

“She left, ‘cause of you.”

This couldn’t be true. I didn’t even want it to be true.

“She didn’t, Mom told me she left because she couldn’t have babies.”

“Would you leave a man like Colt ‘cause you couldn’t have babies?”

I didn’t answer that.

“Man looks like Colt?” she went on.

I took a sip of my drink.

“Man acts like Colt?”

I gave her a look and said quietly, “Dee, remember, I left –”

She shook her head. “When you left, Colt was still finding his way. I reckon you had reason but you held it to yourself, fair play and no one has place to judge. In the end, when you two broke, the age he was? He was a man but we girls know he was mostly still a boy. But he’s a man now. The kinda man you don’t leave for stupid shit.”

“Not being able to conceive isn’t stupid,” I defended Melanie.

“Nope, you’re right. I didn’t have Palmer and Tuesday, I don’t know what I’d do. But Morrie stayed the man I married, livin’ for me not livin’ for the bar, he’d be enough for me for always.”

“Morrie doesn’t live for the bar.”