Page 100 of Bourbon & Blood

“This is all so crazy and exhausting,” she murmured.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “How you doing?” I asked. “Really?”

She cuddled closer. “I don’t think I would be doing half so well if it weren’t for you and the rest of the guys,” she said. “Missing Maya is going to hurt forever, though.”

“It hurts less with time,” I said, raising a shoulder and dropping it. “Or at least you get used to the pain in such a way you just don’t notice it anymore.”

She sniffed and nodded against my chest and said, “I think that second one is more accurate.”

“I’m so sorry you’re going through it, cher.” I kissed the top of her head and she hugged around me tighter.

“Me too,” she said.

“You eat anything yet today?” I asked.

“Breakfast,” she said.

“Look, I know it’s gettin’ late and all, but we need to get you somethin’ to eat an’ I’m starvin’. Let me take you out. We’ll get some food, maybe get some shit to go for tomorrow so you ain’t gotta cook.” I jiggled her a little in my arms and she sighed and nodded.

“I need to call and get the utilities back in my name, the internet hooked up and all that sort of thing,” she said.

“That’s all tomorrow,” I said. “I’m talkin’ about tonight. We ain’t even on one day at a time right now, cher. We on every minute at a time, an’ that’s okay.”

She looked up at me and said, “Okay. Take me to eat, then bring me back here,” she said. “But then, can you do me a favor?” she asked.

“Anything,” I said.

“Make me forget for a little while?” she asked.

I smiled at her and nodded. “I can try to do that,” I told her.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

CHAPTERTHIRTY-SIX

Alina…

We took a ride, my man and I, and I knew he took the long way; cruising around the city with its vivid nightlife, looking around for what looked good food-wise. We ended up at a bar and grill,shit; somewhere that was still serving – I didn’t know. The menu looked pretty okay, and we sat at a little two-person table and just sort of stared at each other while the music blared from the jukebox.

We ate in companionable if tired silence, just sort of trapped in our own little bubble, which I wasabsolutelyokay with. I didn’t want to deal with anything, anyone, or anymore. I just wanted a nice meal with La Croix, to go home, and to feel his hands on my skin. I wanted torest with him.

After all of this? I just wanted a little while to settle into this life, and for us to find our normal.

Alas, it was not to be.

A jock-looking guy was arguing with his girlfriend nearby, and he grabbed her by the arm, hard, jerking her up hard against his body as he yelled in the woman’s face. I scanned the bar, dabbing my lips with my napkin, and ah, yeah… bouncers were at the back separated by the man up here and his girlfriend by the crush of the crowd. I sighed. Just sick of all of it, I got up.

I smiled down at La Croix, who frowned and looked up at me in confusion. I walked up behind the guy, wound back, and kicked up right between his legs with everything that I had, dropping him, who in turn dropped the hold he had on the girl’s arm, and silencing the crowd in like a twelve-foot radius – or at least everyone that’d seen what’d just went down.

I turned back to La Croix, gave him a bit of an apologetic look and lifting my shoulder in a shrug, made to step back over to our table when he stood up and squared up at something behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder andah…bouncers.

“Hey, now, we don’t want any trouble,” the bouncer said, putting his hands up and stepping back from where, apparently, he’d been about to grab me by the arm.

“We don’t either,” I said in a tone that sounded bored, but I was far from it. I was just absolutely sick of everyone’s shit right now and I think it clicked with me in that moment how Maya had felt.

Why she’d had no fucks left about taking that serving tray to Larry with the hands who’d been trying to back poor Mikayla, the fifteen-year-old server, into a corner.

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