Page 1 of Gotta Dig Deep
Chapter One
Shoulders propped against the wall opposite the door, Graeme Nass watched the antics of the other men in the bar with a cultivated tolerance. Most of them were just out for a good time, and as long as they kept it on the decent side of good, all would be well. Those were his expectations from years of doing this job night after night.
All was well, at least until the first glass bottle sailed over the pool table to slam against the boards not too far from his head. Way too close for comfort. Fortunately for the man who’d tossed the missile, the container didn’t shatter, but the sound of the impact was loud enough to kill nearby conversations.
“Aww, shit.” One of the offender’s three companions offered an expression more snarl than smile. “Oops. Billy needs better aim.” They were all dressed similarly in blue-collar shirts and jeans, and had gathered around the bottle-tosser like a pack. The rest of the men snickered at the comment, concreting their association in Graeme’s mind.
Don’t fuckin’ matter much.
Scooping the bottle up from where it still spun on the floor, Graeme stalked across the room. As he angled around the pool table, the players vacated a path for him without requiring a single word, leaving a wide corridor through their midst. Ignoring the social aspects that separated the customers from himself, namely them a group and him alone, he slammed the bottom of the bottle against the high table surrounded by big men each with about two decades of age on him. He addressed the bottle-tosser identified as Billy. “Pretty sure you dropped something.”
The man opposite where Graeme stood rose slowly to his feet, towering over the other men still on their stools. “Who do you think you are?”
Squaring up to the table, Graeme lifted his chin. “I expect I should introduce myself as the man who’s gonna toss you out on your collective asses if you don’t respect the other customers.”
“He’s Dorothy’s boy.” One of the seated men nudged the standing one with a firm elbow. “Drag your ego down a notch, dickwad.”
“Dot’s your momma?” Shoulders gradually relaxing, the posturing man slowly settled back onto his stool. “I didn’t know she had any kids she claimed. Sure thing, boy. We’ll keep it down.”
Graeme didn’t miss the fact these men were more afraid of his mother than of him standing right here in their faces. Still, he knew he could easily ignore their immature swipes at him personally, as long as they toed the line of no-violence in the bar.
Been doin’ that same ignoring thing all my life.
“Sounds good.” He glanced over his shoulder and caught the attention of one of the three waitresses working this busy Saturday night crowd. Lifting a finger, he called her over, turning back to the men when she gave him a nod. “Dorcas will take any replacement orders you need, but there ain’t gonna be a damn thing on the house. You need to keep your own asses in check, yeah?”
“Yeah, no worries.” The seated man who’d recognized Graeme offered a short-lived smile. “We’ll keep it down.”
Resuming his position against the back wall of the bar, Graeme scanned the crowd, gaze pausing longest on the end of the bar where his mother held court.
Dorothy Malcomb was beautiful, her smooth face appearing far younger than the decades she owned. Tall and olive-skinned, she looked nothing like Graeme, which made it easy for her to blatantly ignore their familial relationship. She’d always liked to play at being a worldly woman without baggage, and a kid—regardless of their age—was definitely considered baggage. The asshole at the table not knowing Dot had a boy old enough to work in the same bar she’d owned since before Graeme was born couldn’t hurt him at all.
Their feeble attempts at cuts were small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.
He’d heard enough stories from his mother’s lips to know few things she said was weighted down with the reality of fact. Lies and half-truths were his reality for a long time. The one thing she didn’t pretend was having any kind of attachment to him.Completely and totally reciprocated. That lack of connection meant that regardless of what she had to say about whoever his sperm donor might be, he didn’t take anything to heart.
“Tall, blond, and handsome, he swept me off my feet for a weekend.”
That was a favorite of hers, and one he’d easily heard a hundred times.
But it wasn’t the only tale she had to explain him away.
“Russian sailor, poor guy was stuck in port for a month. Man needed somewhere to stay. What was I supposed to do? It was only Christian, after all.”
His least favorite was likely closest to reality. She only trotted out this particular story when she’d had entirely too much to drink.
“I never saw his face. Never knew who it was. Tore up his arms with my nails, trying to get away. Strong and brutal, he didn’t say anything, just grunted his way through my body. I lay in a pool of my own blood for half a day before I could call for help.”
The name Nass didn’t even tie him to his mother. She’d pulled the moniker from her paternal grandmother’s maiden name, slapping it on his birth certificate and using it to set him up in a way certain to be isolating. Every school function, Dot would float in, dripping with platitudes and sweetness, introducing herself with emphasis on her last name and then flipping her wrist to indicate Graeme with an “I’m with him,” not even personally claiming the child she’d birthed.
He’d grown accustomed to her lack of maternal instincts, but that slow recognition had not been without wounds.
Her chin lifted as she swiped around the bar with a calculating gaze, eyes pausing when they encountered Graeme where he stood at the back wall. Coldly assessing him, she blinked slowly, then with a tiny eye roll, dismissed him to spin on her stool and laugh loudly at something one of the men said.
“Why am I still here?” A waitress pausing in front of Graeme was an indicator he’d spoken aloud.Might as well go with it.“No, seriously. Why am I still here? Not like she gives a shit, right?” That earned him a side-eye and quick retreat from the waitress. “But seriously, why?”
Rolling his shoulders against the wall, he pressed harder against the ungiving surface, forcing his muscles into stress-relieving stretches.
That night, the seed was planted.
