Rooted (Pagano Family #3)(80)

It was early yet, and this wasn’t the kind of place that would draw a lot of suited businessmen stopping off for a quick cold one before commuting home to the ‘burbs. There were a couple of older men sitting on stools at the bar, and a tired-looking waitress leaning on the service rail, talking to the men and the bartender, an older guy an iron grey crew cut and the deeply wrinkled face and neck of a man who’d spent his life in the sun. Retired military or commercial fisherman was Theo’s guess.

Theo sat at the bar, a few stools from the others. The old-salt bartender came down and swiped at the bar in front of Theo, then tossed the bar rag back over his shoulder. “What’ll ya have?”

For too many seconds, Theo just stared at him, at war with himself. He was forty-two days sober—he hadn’t had a drink since the night Carmen had left. Until today, it had finally been getting easier, even alone.

But sitting with his lawyer—listening to his dirty-play ideas, knocking away strategies to impugn Carmen, hearing what his chances were to build a relationship with his newborn child from a distance if he didn’t fight dirty—all of it made him sick and sad and desperate to empty his head. He didn’t want that fight. He didn’t want a fight at all. He wanted his family.

He really needed a drink.

“Mister? Ya here for a drink or not?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Bourbon.” He glanced at the bottles behind the bar. “Jim Beam’s fine. Neat.”

“Ayuh.” The bartender nodded, poured, and slid the glass over. “Eight.”

He took the ten Theo handed him, brought back two, and went back to his conversation.

Theo sat and stared at the drink in front of him. He bent forward and smelled it. God. His mouth watered. Hell, his brain watered. He practically got hard.

He needed the f*cking drink.

He stared into the open mouth of the glass, down into the dark amber liquid. A beautiful color.

He needed this.

A shadow fell over the glass, and he looked up to see the bartender. The older man put a thin stack of bills on top of the two dollars in change he’d left earlier. A five and three ones. Theo looked at the ten dollars on the bar and then back at the bartender. The sour-faced man stared back.

“Lost my brother to the drink. Took his wife and boy with him, over the Garry Road bridge and onto the rocks below. There’s AA over to the Methodist Church, ‘bout half a mile down the road. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Meet at half past.” He filled a glass with water and set it on the bar. “This’ll do ya if you’re thirsty.” Then he took the glass of bourbon, dumped it in the sink, and went back to the group at the end of the bar.

Recognizing a saving for what it was, Theo drank the water and got up. Before he left the bar, he waited and made eye contact with the bartender. He nodded, and the tough old Good Samaritan nodded back.

That AA meeting was the one Theo had attended sporadically in the past several weeks. He turned onto the road and headed to the church, where he should have pointed his Jeep in the first place.



oOo



Perhaps because he was still reeling a little from the lawyer and then the close call right after, Theo spoke at this meeting for the first time. He didn’t talk about Maggie at all. He talked about Carmen, about the daughter she was carrying, about what it was like to feel everything he wanted fluttering just beyond the reach of his outstretched fingers.

Afterward, though in the past he had simply left, this time he stayed for the traditional watery coffee and stale cookies.

But the coffee was good, and the cookies were—not cookies. Fresh, flaky, delicious pastries, some sweet, some savory. Wow. Impressive.

As he went for a second tapenade puff, one of the women who’d spoken at the meeting, and who seemed to speak at every meeting—he remembered her name as Joanne—stepped in next to him. “Good, huh?”

Theo smiled. “They are. You hear stories about the crappy snacks at AA. I figured it was in a rule book somewhere.”

She laughed. She was a pretty, rosy-cheeked brunette, her build sturdy but not overly stout. “It might be. But Curt is a chef, so we get spoiled.”

Curt was the meeting leader. Theo nodded appreciatively. When he stepped away from the table, Joanne followed him. “Can I ask you something? Call me nosy if I am.”

Theo’s guard went up, but he smiled. “Shoot.”

“Do you have a sponsor?”

“What?”

“I ask because I’ve seen you here before, but you don’t come anything like regular, and today was the first time I saw you talk. You had a rough night. Nobody to call, I guess?”

“Nosy.” It probably wasn’t an overly nosy question. They were at an AA meeting, for f*ck’s sake. Having a sponsor was part of the deal. But he didn’t have any likely candidates for sponsor. Theo felt intruded upon and defensive. And lonely.

Joanne smiled. “Fair enough. I’ll say this and then leave you to it. You should have somebody to call. Somebody who won’t judge but’ll get you through it. Somebody who knows. I’ve been sober five years, and I never would have made it to five weeks without my sponsor.” She patted his arm. “Nice talking to you, Theo. Hope I’ll see you here again.” And then she wandered off to mingle elsewhere.

Theo dumped his second tapenade puff in the trash on his way out the door.