Crossing Lines (Roughshod Rollers MC 1)

I stand again, restless, and my wallet clatters to the floor, snapping open on impact. I pause and look down at it. There isn’t any money in the wallet, and only a handful

of cards tucked hastily into the slots. A single picture was slid into a windowed pouch, and I slowly pick my wallet up, staring at it.

Three years later and you still have her damn photo, I mock myself. No wonder you see her everywhere…

The woman in the picture is smiling softly at me, her eyes sparkling with joy and love. I try to remember when it was taken. Maybe sometime around the start of our relationship, when she could still look at me like that. It certainly hadn’t been toward the end, when…

I close the wallet and tuck it back in my wallet. I have no desire to go on a trip down memory lane.

Before I know it, fifteen minutes pass in the blink of an eye, and Fiona wanders into the room, yawning widely.

“Any problems?” I ask.

“Nah, it was a slow afternoon,” she comments.

“It’s Wednesday, it’ll likely be a slow night,” I return. “It’s always the way. Only a couple of regulars come in, play some pool or darts, and go home. I usually close up before midnight, after they’re all gone.”

“Yeah,” Fiona snorts. “Well, I’m shooting off. See you tomorrow, Grant.”

She waves jauntily to me and heads off. I remember, earlier in the week, her gushing about her new boyfriend, and I scoff as I wonder how long this one will last. Fiona is a tough cookie, and more than capable of dealing with some of the bar’s rougher clients, but she can be a ditz, too, and something of a fool to boot.

I wander out into the bar. There’s only two men in the corner, huddled over a little table with mugs of beer, and I leave them be. All the glasses have been washed, so I start putting them away, taking note of how few of them there are. Fiona wasn’t been kidding when she said it was a quiet afternoon.

As night begins falling, however, a slow trickle of clients come in. Some are regulars that I recognize by name, and many of them give me a chipper greeting before looking to find their usual spots. A handful of unfamiliar faces come in; two college-age students giving each other high fives raucously demand that I give them their drinks straight away, making me hope they won’t be trouble, and a man in a business suit slumps in before finding a seat in the furthest corner from the bar.

When nine o’clock winds around, I find myself just busy enough to not be troubled with any thoughts of Jessica or the house. The college students had gotten quite drunk very quickly, and are now sloppily attempting to play pool. I debate the merits of kicking them out, but they haven’t caused any problems (yet), so I leave them be, resolving to keep an eye on them for a little while. The other clients have come in and out steadily.

Eventually, a familiar face comes through the door. Ethan Martin beams at me when he sees me looking his way, and he ducks under a flailing pool cue without batting an eye in order to sit at the bar.

“Grant!” he says loudly when I get closer, reaching over the bar to clap me on the shoulder. “How are you doing, man?”

Ethan is a man who is very careful to put on a carefree mask when he’s out and about, belying the tiredness that hides beneath.

“Ethan,” I say with a nod. “How’s Lily?”

Ethan beams, the smile more genuine this time.

“She’s been doing pottery in class,” he laughs. “She brought home this horribly misshapen bowl and tried to make me eat out of it for dinner.”

I snort at the image.

“Anyway, Georgia is looking after her for me tonight, to give me a little break,” Ethan continues. “I love Lily to death, but it can be exhausting to be a single parent, sometimes.”

“I…can’t imagine,” I admit.

My mind wanders briefly. What would one of my kids look like? Would they be as tall as me? Would their hair be as black as mine, or blonde, like…

My head is fucking with me tonight, it seems. I ruthlessly squash down the thought.

“You good?” Ethan asks me, peering closely at me.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say with a shrug. “Went to the house today to look at it, and my head’s been rushing me down memory lane ever since.”

“Sorry to hear it, man,” Ethan says genuinely. “Speaking of the house, any news on that front, yet?”

“It’s looking like we’re going to lose it,” I say with a noncommittal shrug, trying to pretend that the thought isn’t as awful as it is. “Liam and I were talking about looking into other places… We’ve raised a lot, just not enough.”

“Other places?” Ethan wrinkles his nose in distaste. “I understand maybe needing to start thinking about that, but…”