“Nope, could tell in the first five seconds of meeting you that you’re a rich prude who cringes at a little ink or grease. Or anyone beneath your station in life, for that matter.”
She shook her head. “I—no—I…”
Christ, was it his imagination, or were her eyes fucking welling? Goddammit, this woman could put on a show. “Look,” he said as he ran a grubby hand through his hair. “I’m as eager to get out of your company as you are of mine, so get in your fucking car. I may be an asshole, but I’m not enough of one to leave a woman on the side of the road by herself while it’s getting dark.”
Her face fell, and he had the flash of a puppy who’d been scolded for chewing a shoe.
Whatever. This woman would forget him two minutes after she got in her Audi and headed to her house, which was probably one of the fancy mansions at the base of the mountain. Worse, she’d most likely end up taking her car to the dealership, stiffing him on his fee.
“I’ll call the shop tomorrow,” she muttered before scurrying to her car. When he heard the click of the locks engaging, he climbed into the truck, fired it up, and drove off. A glance in his mirror showed her pulling that wealth-mobile onto the road behind him.
About a mile down the road, she turned left, and he frowned into the mirror. The house he shared with his siblings was on that very road. The only reason he’d been able to afford the modest home on the quiet street was that it’d been a fucking disaster when he’d purchased it. A fire had ripped through it coming up on ten years ago. Keith was able to grab it up for next to nothing and, with the help of his contractor brother, did all the repair work himself.
He loved the place, loved the entire neighborhood, but it certainly wasn’t opulent.
As he turned right onto the road to make his way toward the bar his sister worked at, his cell rang. Without checking the screen, he lifted it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Keith?” a familiar woman’s voice asked. It had the rasp of a life-long smoker.
Fuck.
His night just got about a hundred times shittier. “Hey, Brenda,” he said, as the weight of the world settled on his chest. “I’m on my way.”
She sighed. “I’m so sorry to call you again, honey, but it’s this or I have to call the cops.”
He blew out a breath as he swung a left instead of the right that would have taken him where he wanted to go. “It’s not a problem,” he lied. “Be there in five.”
“You’re a good son, Keith,” she said before disconnecting the call.
He grunted into the quiet phone. A good son.
Right.
As promised, five minutes later, he stepped out of his truck and made his way into the run-down bar outside of town that his father preferred. Probably because it was one of the few that still allowed him through the doors. Brenda had known the old man since they were kids, which was why she had a soft spot for him. However, it was more pity than a friendship.
When he stepped into the building, Keith sure as hell didn’t need anyone to point him in the direction of his father. Drunk off his ass, as was his typical state, the old man was stumbling from table to table, making Brenda’s patrons as uncomfortable as possible. He looked like he hadn’t bothered to run a brush through his short gray hair in weeks, and his tattered clothes hung off his body.
Keith caught Brenda’s eye, giving her a lifted hand in greeting. He swore the woman’s entire body sagged in relief at the sight of him. With a large inhale, he steeled himself for the unpleasantness to come.
He strode over to his father. “Come on, Pop,” he said, clapping a hand on his father’s shoulder. They were similar in height, but the once-strong man had wasted away to practically nothing after subsisting on a diet of alcohol and pills for so many years. “Sorry for the trouble, ladies,” he said with a nod to the table of frowning women. “Next round’s on me.”
“Get your fucking hands off me, boy,” his father spat out, wrenching out of Keith’s grip.
The burn of shame and humiliation accompanying these public displays had long since faded. In its place, a hatred so deep it stemmed from his core was the only emotion Keith felt toward his father.
“Time to go, old man,” he said, somehow keeping that hatred from bleeding into his words. The women sitting at the table didn’t bother to hide their curiosity or pity as they openly observed the scene.
“Not going anywhere with you. Fucking loser,” his father said as he faced the women at the table. “Calls himself my son but he ain’t done shit to take care of me.”