Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
I have no idea what Chandler is feeling right now. I never knew my birth parents and I haven’t spoken with my adoptive parents in years.
I don’t know what to do other than be a good friend. Considering I’m in short supply of even those these days, I’ll do whatever Chandler needs to help himself feel better, even though I know a couple beers at the local bar will merely be a Band-Aid for him.
He stays on the porch when I go inside to change out of my uniform, but he thanks me once again when I step back outside in jeans and a t-shirt, ready to head to the bar.
“It’s the least I can do,” I tell him when I crank my truck up and back out of my short driveway. “I wouldn’t spend a lot of time thanking me yet. My couch isn’t all that great.”
He huffs a laugh like he’s supposed to do, but I don’t hear a hint of humor in it.
“Man, I don’t know what to fucking say.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t expect you to say anything. I knew it was coming, but it doesn’t make it any easier. I don’t know why I thought it would.”
I stay silent.
“He’s just always been there, you know?” he continues. “I don’t know how to exist in a world where he isn’t a part of it.”
“I can understand that,” I say genuinely.
Someone being there one day and not the next has never made more sense to me than it does right now.
I’m so down about all of it that by the time I park outside of The Hairy Frog, it leaves me wishing we’d called someone to bring us both here instead of offering to drive. I’m in the mood for a beer or ten myself, honestly.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Chandler says once we’re heading toward the door.
“Why is that?”
“I don’t know that I’ll be able to stop once I get started.”
His statement gives me pause. “Do you mean tonight or in general?”
He pauses, his eyes glued to the door, and I can see that he’s running the question through his mind to come to the true answer.
If this is going to be the beginning of a downward spiral for the man, we’ll leave right now. I want nothing to do with his destruction, and I’d never forgive myself for being part of the catalyst if that’s the case.
“Tonight,” he answers with a frown.
“Tonight, let me be the responsible one. You can pick it right back up tomorrow with a hell of a hangover. Sound good?”
He nods. “I appreciate you, Cash.”
I give him a quick dip of my head. “Any decent man would do the same.”
He sucks in a deep, fortifying breath, as I pull the door open.
Word of his father’s passing has already begun circulating, I realize when Walker’s gaze lingers on Chandler for a long moment before he pours the man a shot and declares his drinks are on the house tonight.
For hours the jukebox plays nothing but fast-paced rock and roll, and Chandler drinks like a fish. His smile is genuine after a handful of shots when a woman I’ve never seen asks him to dance.
“Think he’s going to be okay?” Walker asks, as he inches closer to me while wiping down the bar.
“He has to be,” I answer honestly. “What other choice does he have?”
He mentioned having a great childhood. He said he had no regrets where his father was concerned. He simply wished he had more time with him. Their relationship grew by leaps and bounds when his father was first diagnosed with cancer a few years back. They both thought when he went into remission that his father was given a second lease on life. He said they didn’t take the gift they were given for granted, and I think that’s the best anyone can do.
“He’s all alone,” Walker says, and I feel the pain in his voice. I know it has to do in part with him losing his brother.
Ronnie told me once that he didn’t know how Walker survived after Jason was shot and killed. He said he couldn’t live a day without Donnie, and his twin was quick to agree.
“He’s not alone,” I argue. “He has us.”
“His family is gone.”
“You don’t have to be bound by blood to be family,” I remind him.
He looks at me in a way that tells me he’s only now realizing who he’s talking to.
Instead of apologizing like a lot of people would, he knocks his knuckles on the bar twice and walks away.
Maybe I was wrong about not knowing what it was like to lose someone you can’t imagine losing.
Isn’t that exactly what I’m going through right now with Adalynn?
I refuse to worry about my own problems right now, as I watch a drunken Chandler grinning from ear to ear as the woman who’s dancing with him laughs at something he told her.