Autumn Night Whiskey (Tequila Rose 2)

In my absence of a response, Renee says, “You don’t deserve her.”

She’s right. Renee is right. I don’t deserve Magnolia. Here I am fantasizing about lying to her. To starting a life together built on lies. I don’t know what’s wrong with me or how I came to be the way I am. So much is wrong and I can’t fix any of it.

It’s so deceitful that everything Renee says makes me feel like this pain is deserved, even if she doesn’t know the truth.

My phone chimes in the silence and as I shift Bridget to reach into my back pocket, Renee stands and takes her from me. “There, there, baby girl,” she coos, cradling the little girl.

Her warmth is gone in an instant.

The text is from my father. “I have to go,” I tell Renee, who doesn’t respond. When my gaze moves from the message to her, I catch sight of her wiping tears from her face.

A vise tightens inside of me, making everything that’s hurt violently scream in pain.

As I prepare to confess, she tells me, “Just go.”

My throat is tight and it’s all unforgiving as I quietly leave, hating that I can’t face the truth, let alone share it with the people I care about. The door closes softly behind me and I breathe out a heavy exhale.

So?

So what? I respond. My father is the only one who knows. He pulled the strings to have the paternity test done.

About Magnolia’s lawsuit.

What about it?

He questions, Is she going to be able to come up with the money?

I’m paying for it. Before my father can object, I add, I’m not taking advice from you on this. She needs a good lawyer and we’re going to make sure she has the best. Tell him I’ll pay for it.

She may never forgive me. I might never be able to make the last year we spent together as a couple right. But I can help her. I can fix the hell her father put her through. I can do the little things and be there. One day she might love me again.

The more whiskey I drink, the farther back the memories go. There are so many little details I missed, but somehow the bottle remembers.

The bark against the oak tree at my back seems to soften. The breeze turns colder as the night sets. If I wasn’t so stiff, I’d get my ass up and find somewhere else to spend my evening.

But I don’t want to go home and see my mother.

I don’t want to go to my apartment that’s cold and empty.

I don’t want to go anywhere but backward in time.

The taste of the whiskey reminds me of one of our first kisses after Bridget was born, on the back porch of my parents’ house. She came by to drop something off. I was half a glass in and offered her the remainder.

Whiskey never tasted so good as it did lingering on her lips, her hands resting on my shoulders. As I deepened our kiss, her nails scratched their way down my back and she straddled me.

If I could go back, I don’t know which time I would pick. I love her, but Bridget … the world wouldn’t be right without her little girl.

Footsteps alert me to the fact that someone’s coming and through gritted teeth I suck in a breath, wiping under my eyes and pulling myself together. My back aches as I try to stand and the world tilts slightly, the bottle sloshing in my hand.

“Don’t get up,” a voice says, firm but not confrontational.

I still where I am, a prick traveling down my neck.

“Brody.” I deserve a fucking award for not saying his name like the curse it is. It took me a long time to not blame him for everything. I know it was my fault, I started it all, but if he hadn’t been there …

“Robert.” Brody mocks the way I say his name, but there’s a friendly grin on his face and he’s quick to take a seat next to me, facing the same dimming sunset sinking into the sea on the horizon.

“What are you doing here?” I question him.

“I was asking for you at your office, and the girl at the front said sometimes you take your lunch down here.

“It’s quiet,” Brody comments and then his gaze falls to the bottle in my hand. He rights himself, staring at the water. “So I can see why you like it.”

“Yeah … the quiet is good sometimes,” I say, just now realizing I’m more drunk than I’d like to be. In the far distance, kids can be heard playing sometimes. There’s a park behind a row of trees to the right. But other than that, it’s just the sound of the ocean and the kiss of the autumn breeze.