At Peace by Kristen Ashley Read Free Book Online Page B

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 level ed 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.
    “ So, I’m guessin’ Kenzie’s keepin’ her mouth shut.”
    Joe’s head turned and he looked at me.
“Yeah.”
    “Everything cool with your clients?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You’re home a lot more than normal,” I
remarked stupidly since I didn’t want him to notice that I noticed
but at the same time I was bizarrely worried that Kenzie Elise was
costing him clients and that was why he was home more than
normal.
    “Yeah,” he said then said no more and I’d run
out of steam on that particular conversational gambit.
    When I fell silent,