And it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Chapter Two
Bash
“If I don’t let you go, he’s going to press charges,” Marco said with a shrug of his beefy shoulders. “It’s a no-brainer, kid. His family’s got cash out the wazoo and can cause me a shit-ton of problems. This bar only exists because of the students at Crestville. I’m really sorry.”
That made two of us. I squeezed my eyes closed with a nod and moved to yank my apron off, but Marco held up a hand to stop me.
“You don’t have to go until the end of the week. Apparently the bozo called his daddy from the airport this morning to complain. He's on his way to Cabo and won’t be back in Boston until Monday. What he don't know won't hurt him, right?"
I wasn’t too sure about that. The guy hadn’t known me, and I sure as hell hurt him.
Bastard.
I flexed my hand, recalling the satisfaction of busting the motherfucker in the chops. Maybe it was wrong to feel that way, but I didn’t question it. Fighting was a way of life. Something I'd done from the cradle on. First with my brothers over the last piece of chicken or whose turn it was to be at bat. Then, later, with my father when he took us to the gym and taught us to box. Those had been the best years of my life. Before everything turned to shit.
I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth that came rushing in every time I thought about my parents and focused on the now. Not that it was all that hot, either.
"Any chance they'll let it go?" I asked. Seemed unlikely, but I’d kick myself if I didn’t at least ask. I needed this job for another couple months.
"Didn't seem that way.” Marco scrubbed a hand over his hangdog eyes. “His father was a real dickbag, tossing out words like 'felony' and 'battery.' I think it's best for you if you stay out of his way, kid."
I’d figured as much. "Okay. If that's the way it has to be, that's the way it has to be."
Marco's pursed lips and the regret on his face told me it hadn't been an easy decision on his part. There was no point in making him feel shitty about it. Shorty's was his livelihood. What choice did he have?
"I appreciate you letting me stick around for the week." That would give me some time to figure out another way to come up with next month's rent. Not ideal, but definitely not the worst thing that had ever happened to me.
"And look, come see me again mid-May. Once the students leave for the summer, you can come back. Hell, maybe the kid is even graduating. We could look at this as a hiatus and it'll be like you never left."
Hiatus my ass. If I was still in Boston come summer, I'd eat a fucking bullet. This little hiccup only lit a fire under me to go harder. I made a silent vow to contact Butchie as soon as I got home and talk to him about scheduling some amateur fights in Atlantic City. He’d bitch a little, and say I shouldn’t get into the ring again until the Spada fight, but in the end, the almighty dollar would win him over. Twenty percent of my take was enough to override his objections.
Marco and I stood there for a long, uncomfortable moment created by a bad situation, until I gestured to the back room. “I’m going to go re-stock for tonight.”
I’d started to cross the beat-up floor when Marco's low voice stopped me.
"Hey, kid?"
I threw him a quick glance over my shoulder. "Yeah?"
"Was she worth it?"
Shit, that was the ten-thousand-dollar question, wasn't it? Or at least the four-hundred-and-eighty-dollar question, since that was what I made at Shorty's in a given week.
Was she worth it?
I thought back to the girl with the long, wavy brown hair and the turquoise eyes. The way she looked at me. The way she smelled. Then I thought about the fear on her face. And that motherfucker with his hands wrapped around her neck.
“Yup.” I gave Marco a curt nod. "All day, every day, boss."
Two hours later, I'd restocked the bottles and switched out the kegs from the night before. It was late afternoon and we were already getting a few stragglers in for a Monday happy hour quickie. Spring break wasn’t a busy time for us, but with the students away, the townies came to play. Shorty’s would do a decent dinner business and I'd still be out before midnight, which was good. I’d have a chance to stop off at the corner store before they closed and pick up a newspaper to look for a job.
I'd just had the cook fix me a turkey sandwich on my break and was about to tuck into it when a soft voice stopped me.
"Sebastian?"
When I'd heard her talk the night before, the place had been mobbed and the music was playing, so if someone had asked me if I would've known her voice, I'd have said no.
I would’ve been wrong.
The husky tone flowed through me like an electrical current and settled somewhere over my chest. I turned to face her and set my sandwich back on the plate, remembering my manners. "It’s Bash," I said, wiping my fingers on my apron and holding out a hand. "Nice you meet you."
Sometimes, you see a girl and it's like, damn, she's hot. And all these dirty thoughts go through your mind, even when you don't want them to. Even if it's your buddy’s girlfriend. Even if you can't stand her. Hell, sometimes even if you haven't seen her face.
This wasn't that. When I saw her up close for the first time, I’d wanted to tuck her into my chest and hold her tight. To tell her that everything was going to be all right. To touch her skin because it looked so goddamned soft and sweet. I felt the same way this time.
Which was how I knew right off that bat that I needed to stay far, far away. I couldn’t afford to get stuck on a girl right now. Especially an uptown one like this. I wasn’t even close to good enough for her. Still, the least I could do was take a minute to try to convince her that that other asshole wasn't either.
"Bash, then. Olivia Beckett." She shook my hand and her pretty lips tipped into a sad smile. "It's nice to meet you too." She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and shifted from foot to foot, her high-heeled brown boots clicking softly against the wood floor. "Um, do you mind if I sit with you for a minute?"
I nodded and pushed the stool next to me out with my foot. She sat, slinging her purse onto the bar before taking a deep breath and facing me.
"I'm so, so sorry about last night.” The words poured from her mouth in a rush. “I appreciate what you did more than you could ever know. It was absolutely the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me. But—" She swallowed hard and met my gaze. “I guess that old saying is right. No good deed goes unpunished. See, my boyfriend, Andy, contacted his family and he—”
Hearing her call him that—her “boyfriend” and not her “ex,” or “that asshole”—sent a stab of annoyance through me and I cut her short.
“I already know. My boss just let me go. I’m out of here at the end of the week.” I’d spent less than three minutes total in this girl’s company and she’d already managed get under my skin. If she was such a mess that she would put up with a guy manhandling her, I needed to get control over my reactions to her, quick.
I faced front again, picked up my sandwich, and took a bite--because fuck manners--but the food was like a pile of rubber in my mouth.
“Oh Jesus, I’m sorry. I was hoping I’d talked him out of it.” She grabbed my forearm and squeezed it desperately. “I need to know how to make this right.”
She sounded so miserable, it was hard not to feel for her. I set down my lunch again with a sigh and spun my stool around.
"It's not your fault." For the second time in the past three hours, I was consoling somebody else over my getting fired. Something was ass-backward about that, but it also felt right. She hadn't asked for my help the night before. I'd let my temper get the better of me and gotten into her business. I knew the risks and did it anyway. There was no one to blame but myself here, and I told her so.
I should've left it at that.
"But I gotta know…what are you doing with a guy like him? You seem smart. You're attractive."
The more I looked at her, the more I real
ized that was the understatement of the millennium. She was beautiful. Like one of the women in those grainy black-and-white movies my great-grandmother used to watch when we'd visit her at the old folks’ home. Not flashy, or with a ton of makeup that had you scratching your head over why her skin looked so tan in the middle of winter. Just…right. The almond shape of her eyes emphasized by a light dusting of gold, the bow of her lips highlighted with a sheen that didn't make you wonder if your mouths would be glued together for eternity if you tried to kiss her. At the moment, though, those lips were twisted into a frown.
"Thanks?" she said with a half laugh.
I shrugged and crossed my arms over my chest. "Take it however you want, but it was meant to be a compliment. You're too good for a guy like that."
A shadow of despair crossed her face, and tears filled her eyes. Before they could spill over, she blinked them away and tipped her chin up to meet my gaze again. "I have a lot of thinking to do. I'm very aware of that. It might sound like an excuse, but my family is going through…some stuff right now, and Andy and I have been together since the end of our senior year of high school. Our parents have a lot of history together." She drummed out a nervous beat onto the bar. "This came to a head at the worst possible time, is all. I know I have to take a stand, and I will, but I have a lot to consider."
I was in no position to judge her there. My own circumstances had made me do countless things I regretted over the past five years. Better to let her rationalize her choices and make her own decisions than to get more involved in something that had nothing to do with me. Too bad my stupid mouth didn't get the memo.
"He could kill you, you know." I didn't pull any punches or try to soften the blow, and she froze at the starkness of my words.
She shook her head furiously, denials coming hard and fast. "No, no, you've got it all wrong. He's almost never like that, and if you weren't there, I think he probably would've calm—"
"Hit you," I said baldly, locking gazes with her so she could see how serious I was. "He probably would have hit you. I've been hit enough to know the look. And as big as he is and as small as you are?" I glanced at her slight frame, clocking her at around five two, one-twenty. "He could easily have broken your jaw or worse."
She stammered and then closed her mouth with a snap. Maybe I was actually getting to her. The thought gave me the push I needed to keep going. Losing my job wouldn't be for nothing if I could convince this girl that she needed to cut this asshole loose. "What's the worst thing that will happen if you dump him?" I asked softly, saying a silent prayer she wouldn't utter the four words that earned the scorn of every Maury Povich watcher in the free world.
But I LOVE him.
To her credit, she didn't. Instead, she uttered three that weren’t all that much better.
"You don't understand."
She was right about that. I took in her two-hundred-dollar purse and the slim diamond bracelet she wore so casually on her wrist. I didn't understand how someone in her situation, a college student at a fantastic school, with parents who could clearly afford to pay for it, would have a good enough reason to stay with a person like Andy whatever the fuck his last name was.
"I don't think we have anything else to talk about, Olivia. My break is over in"—I peered up at the clock hanging over the bar—"eight minutes. I've got to eat, so if you don't mind?" I gave her a tight smile and faced my food again, hoping she would take the hint and leave so I could throw it out. For some reason, just the thought of it sitting in my gut like a rock made my stomach hurt.
It took her a few seconds, and I wondered if I was going to have to be even more direct, but finally she stood.
"I hope you're able to find another position soon, Bash," she murmured, sounding miserable. I kept my eyes on my plate and didn't look up until the door jingled behind her.
It took everything I had not to watch her go.
Chapter Three
Olivia
"So this is happening, for real. Like, you seriously aren't going to meet us?"
Echo's screech was so loud it was like she was in the next room rather than thousands of miles away. I pulled the phone away from my ear until it sounded like she was finished bitching at me.
When all was quiet, I spoke into the receiver. "I’m just not feeling well at all. " Which was what I told her to get her to take me home the night before, too. It was sort of true, both then and now. I was feeling pretty shitty after what had happened last night. And even shittier after my talk with Sebastian.
Bash, I corrected myself mentally.
“Believe me, this isn't my first choice,” I added. That part was definitely true. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have almost gotten choked out by my boyfriend and my family wouldn’t be facing financial ruin. Thankfully, the ticket my parents had bought me a few months before had been refundable. Going on a lavish trip while they were struggling to figure out how they might pay the mortgage for one more month wasn’t something I could do despite their protests to the contrary, and Andy’s actions the night before had sealed the deal.
I considered calling my mom to let her know that I canceled, but decided to wait another day or two. If I told them, they’d badger me to catch a later flight. Better to wait until it was too late. I loved them, but their priorities were skewed from a lifetime of having money and taking it for granted. They never imagined it could all just vanish. I still hadn’t gotten to the bottom of exactly what had happened—Dad was too busy trying to save the sinking ship and Mom was tight-lipped as usual—and I made a vow to myself to find a way to get home for a visit as soon as possible to find out.
A shiver stole over me as a dark thought I refused to bring into the light flickered through my brain before I shut it down. Investments were a tricky business and there were always risks. This was just one of those down times that would surely turn the other way soon. It was going to be fine. A rough patch, was all.
"Well, I hope you feel better, but it’s going to suck without you."
That was the first semi-nice thing Echo had said the entire ten minutes we'd been on the phone since I told her I definitely wasn’t going to be able to join them. An all-too-familiar sense of guilt washed over me. Seemed like a permanent state of being lately.
"Is Andy with you?" The low-level nausea that had been nonstop since the night before surged with a vengeance as I thought of him and the way things had ended between us.
"Yeah, he's sitting right outside at the tiki bar. You want to talk to him?" I could hear the shuffling as she stood and I was quick to stop her.
"No! No, uh, it's cool. Tell him I'll give him a ring later."
I wasn’t ready to rehash it all again and didn’t want to mislead him. Whatever Bash thought of me, I wasn’t an idiot. When Andy had called me that morning to apologize as I knew he would once he had a chance to sober up and cool off, I let him know flat out that his behavior was unacceptable. He’d been shocked when I told him I’d canceled my flight to Cabo, though. Rather than have a wrenching, emotional discussion over the phone when he was less than an hour from leaving the country, I didn’t get into it too deeply. I’d told him that I needed time away from him to think but that I would see him when he got back. He wasn’t happy, but he was feeling badly enough not to press me.
The fact was, I had no intention of staying with him. Not as his girlfriend, at least. Still, we had three years of history together and that was just the time we dated. We'd been friends since the eighth grade. That counted for something. He was sick. Not right in the head. That much I knew for sure. Whether it was from the alcohol, which I had a sneaking suspicion had ramped up to full-blown addiction, or because he had something going on internally that he hadn't talked to me about, as a friend, I felt obligated to be there for him and at least hear him out. Who knew? Maybe he was having a hard time emotionally and really needed someone to talk to. I could totally relate.
As far as the idea of continuing on as we had and getting engaged, though? That so
wasn't going to happen. Not anymore.
I pushed aside the memory of him screaming in my face and instead closed my eyes to focus on happier times. I remembered his boyish smile the night we'd gone on a hayride at Jensen's Farm and then to the haunted house afterward. He'd held my hand so tightly and made sure I didn't run into any fake spider webs, knowing how much I hated them. He wasn’t a bad person. If I walked away from him now without giving him a chance to open up to me about whatever demons he was wrestling, what kind of person would that make me? What if he then turned around and hurt himself, or someone else?
Yeah, a long talk was in order. About us but also about getting Bash his job back. Once Andy got some space from it, surely he’d be reasonable.
I switched the phone to the other ear and peered around my empty dorm. I had the top end single with good amount of space. Enough for a double bed and a giant wardrobe, and even a vanity. I usually appreciated how big the room was in comparison to some of the others, but when the entire rest of the hall was empty and silent, it was kind of eerie.
I’d just vowed not to watch any scary movies for the rest of the week when Echo’s voice sounded over the line again.
"You're not still mad at him, are you?" she asked. "He told me what happened in the bathroom, and it seems to me like your little boyfriend at Shorty's overstepped his place."
A hot bolt of anger coursed through me, and the guilt for blowing her off sizzled away like drops of dew in the sun. Clearly Echo had heard a watered-down version of the story and figured that was enough to form an opinion on. That was fine with me. We’d been growing apart for months now. Not that we’d ever truly been close.
We’d met last year in an anatomy class, and had only become friends because she wanted to secure me as her lab partner. I wasn’t exactly a social butterfly, and was glad to have someone to grab coffee or hit the mall with, but it was becoming more and more obvious that she and I were destined to be the kind of friends that stuck with each other through thick only. The second she got wind of how serious my family’s financial situation was and how much it would affect my lifestyle, she'd drop me like a knockoff purse.
Fix You, Bash and Olivia Book One Page 2
