Page 35 of The Fall Back Plan
I’m not letting anything happen to Jolie on my watch.
Chapter Seventeen
Jolie
“Whatdoyouneed,Shane?” I keep my voice low so Mary Louise and Lucas can’t hear since neither of them is about to take their eyes off us.
“I won’t do nothing to you,” he says, looking over at them.
“I believe you, but can you blame them if they don’t trust you?”
“Guess not.” He turns back to me. “Sullivan’s is the reason I quit carrying this.” He hands the flask to me. “Give it a shake.”
I do. There’s a slosh.
“Used to be that I’d stop by Sullivan’s every day after work. I’d drink one whiskey. Had a deal with Janice. If I quit carrying my flask and kept it to one drink a day, on Fridays she’d pour me two with the second one free for good behavior. Sounds stupid, but it worked. A week after she shut the bar, I took my flask out again. It’s such a habit that when Mary Louise tackled me, I was reaching back to touch it like it’s a security blanket. Had to know it was there to help with the stress.” He sits back, finished with his story, like he expects me to fill in the blanks.
And I do. He’s got a drinking problem, but unlike my dad, he’s tried to handle it. Janice tried to help him in her own misguided way. He’s lost that support, and now he’s drinking too much again.
I hear we’re supposed to be understanding of alcoholism. That addiction isn’t a person’s fault. That there’s science or genes or something behind it. We’re supposed to have compassion and treat it like an illness.
That’s not me. Maybe one day I will not feel an icy rage every time I think about how my dad chose liquor over me for every single day of my childhood. But that compassion? I have only enough for my kid self. That scared little girl who got me to here. My dad? No. None for him.
“Why are you telling me this?” My dad would never admit to a problem, even when he couldn’t stand up straight. Even when my shoulders and spine ached from trying to get him home from Sullivan’s, all his weight on me as I held him up and tried to guide him down the sidewalk.
“Having the sheriff show up at your workplace is something of a wakeup call,” he says. “He can’t do that again. I can’t get fired.”
“I told you I didn’t send him.”
“I know.” He looks at me from tired eyes, like he’s weighing out a decision. He’s not that much older than me, I realize. He’s probably not even forty yet. Physical labor has got him moving like an older man. “Me and my lady have been good for a couple of years, but we’re starting to fight again. That’s mostly on me, and if I lose my job, she won’t tolerate it.”
It’s his fault, and I can see in the defeat on his face that he knows it. “Not sure what I can do about that if I keep getting graffiti or disruptive visits, Shane. Help me set those worries aside.”
“I knew when I dug that flask out of my shed that I was messing up. I know it sounds stupid that a bar was all that stood between me and trouble, but that’s how it was. Coming here, I always knew I could have one drink. But I also knew I couldn’t have more than one drink. And that was enough to keep me from buying a bottle of Jack and bringing it home.”
I study Shane. I may not understand his need to drink, but I can respect his effort not to. “I’d cut you the same deal,” I tell him. His eyebrows go up. “One drink a day and a free one on Fridays, but I have two conditions. One, you never make me regret it.”
He nods. “Okay.”
“Follow me for the second condition.” We slide out, and I call, “We’re fine,” to my bodyguards. “Just getting him something.” I lead him down the hall to the restrooms. I reach inside the door of the ladies’ room and pluck a pamphlet from the holder on the wall to hand to him. “If you decide you want more help, that’s a good place to start.”
He takes it and reads the title aloud. “‘The Mountain Man’s Guide to Curbing Your Drinking.’ Is this for real?”
“As real as Mary Louise’s tackling skills.” I give a small laugh when he winces. “I don’t want to profit off anyone’s misery. We don’t overserve, and we’d be glad to lose a customer if it meant they’re getting help for a problem. I looked at a bunch of different materials, but this seems the most common sense, and the title most likely to interest people.”
“It’s a weird thing to put in a bar.” He turns it over, skimming the back. “All right. Can’t promise I’ll do anything but read it.”
“Good enough for now. There’s a regular meeting for people trying to quit in the St. John’s Episcopal rec room a block over. Every so often, I’m going to ask you if you’re ready to get some help. Keep that pamphlet and answer me without starting anything when I ask. I’ll accept a no until you’re ready to say yes. That’s the second condition. Can you live with that?”
He tucks the pamphlet into his back pocket. “I can.”
“Then we have a deal.” I walk him back to the main floor where Ry, Mary Louise, and Lucas are waiting. “Shane, will you solemnly swear in front of the witnesses most likely to lay you out if you don’t, that you and I are done with mutually assured destruction?”
He shakes his head. “You are one odd chick, but yeah. I swear.”
“I’ll tell Ry about our deal. Mary Louise will see you out.”
“I can do it,” Lucas says.
