Fucking Wayne.
A week without my father stumbling in looking for handouts was the longest he’d ever gone. I’d hoped he died, but he was leaning against the yoga studio wall across the street, so I guessed not.
With a sigh, I went back to the order window and saw Millie practically dead on her feet. Something told me she wasn’t used to these hours. “Hey, can you put together a plate of whatever scraps we have,” I hollered through the open window. “Then you can shut the kitchen down.”
She obliged, throwing a few dry chicken tenders and leftover chips on a plate and shut everything down. She placed a lid over the frying pan that held oil while I wiped down the pass-through counter.
Walking out into the empty bar, she handed me the plate.
“Over there on that table, please,” I told her. The fight had gone out of me at the sight of my old man. Just looking at him brought everything back. One look at his face and I was back to a year ago, lying at the scene of the accident with Jenna’s dead body draped over me. My fucking father walked away without a scratch while my sister and I were catapulted ten feet out the front window.
Even now I remembered the slightest details like the smell of the airbag smoke, the way the glass sounded when the EMTs stepped over it with their boots to reach us.
“What’s with the pillow?” Millie’s voice snapped me from my thoughts, and I followed her line of sight to table number seven. I kept a pillow and blanket behind the bar for nights he came in and needed a place to sleep. I was filled with so much anger for that man that sometimes I thought I was capable of actually killing him, but at the end of the day he was my father. A lost old man with a disease and a broken soul.
So I left food and a pillow and blanket, because it’s what Jenna used to do and I was trying to live a life she might approve of. Although I was far from it, if she was looking down on me, then she was doing so while cursing under her breath.
I lit a cigarette. “A homeless guy sleeps here at night, okay, Mom?” My anger at her personal questions was back. I regretted the sharpness in my tone when I saw how much my comment stung her. Why did I do that? Why was I such a dick? It was like this automatic response and I couldn’t control it. Ever since the accident I was so angry that I could barely breathe.
“Okay,” she said meekly and walked over to set the plate down on the table.
Shit, now I felt bad. She’d sweated her ass off in that kitchen tonight and did way above and beyond what I expected.
“I’m … sorry. Uh, thanks for your help tonight.” That was painful, physically; it gave me a tightness in my chest to apologize to that woman, but my grandma didn’t raise an asshole.
She spun from the table, hand clutched to her chest in a dramatic display.
“Ashton Knight … did you just—”
I grinned. “Okay calm down.”
She smiled back and I couldn’t help but admire her beauty. She was one of those naturally beautiful chicks, no makeup and she was still banging.
The front door slammed and my old man stumbled into the bar and headed for the table I stood at.
Damn it.
His clothes were filthy; he had holes in his shoes, and his beard was long and unkempt. He looked like a fucking homeless, drunk Santa Claus. I didn’t know where he slept other nights. On the street? At a buddy’s? In a shelter? I didn’t know, and honestly I didn’t care. I had ninety-nine percent hatred for that man and only one percent love. The one percent was because Jenna would want me to.
Embarrassment burned my cheeks and I wished that Millie would leave quickly.
“Howdyyyy, ma’am. Yur new,” Wayne slurred, looking at Millie with a grin.
I bolted from the table and stood in front of Millie, glaring at my old man.
“Eat your dinner and be gone by morning. You know the rules,” I growled.
I didn’t want him talking to her, or worse, hitting on her. I’d had enough mortification for one night.
“Ashton!” Millie hissed from behind me and stepped out to greet him. “What’s the matter with you?” She looked at me like I was the problem, like Wayne was some sweet old homeless man. She had no idea.
I spun on her, stepping inches from her face, all of my anger back. “Everything. Everything is the matter with me. You’re cut. Go home.”
She recoiled as if I’d slapped her. I didn’t want her to see this, I couldn’t handle it. It was too much. Not tonight.
Chapter 7
Millie
The second I got up to my new “apartment,” I looked at the bare bed with no blanket or sheets and burst into tears.
What the fuck was I doing? Seeing Ashton be so rude about that homeless man made me think he was evil incarnate … but there was something else there. I could feel it. He’d softened for a split second when thanking me for helping him tonight, and I knew in that moment he might still be salvageable. And so was his bar.
With a groan, I put my hands on my head and sighed. I’d completely lost it. My therapist would probably commit me if I told her what I was doing, but I was too deep now to turn back. I was about to curl up into a ball and cry myself to sleep when my phone rang.
Julie.
Fuck, I’d forgotten all about her big night. Clearing my throat so that she wouldn’t know I had been crying, I answered.
“Hey!” I kept the pep in my voice.
“I’m engaged, bitch!” she shouted, and
