Sin hugged him a little tighter and wondered how he would feel if he knew the truth about her life. “Me too,” was all she said.
They slowly became reacquainted over the next couple of hours. Thomas kept repeating how much she resembled her mother and how much he was sorry for everything.
Sin told him about seeing Carmelita and Maria, and she asked about Jeremiah Heap and his church. Thomas gazed from her to someone in the hallway. “We will talk about all that when we get home.”
Sin turned around and saw Troy walking into the room.
“I’ll be leaving,” he said. “I just wanted to stop by and say goodbye, Tom. I will stop by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, you can stop by the house. Sinclair is breaking me out of here.”
“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day. If it’s all right with Sin, I’ll do that.” He held her gaze with a tentative, almost shy smile.
“That’s fine,” she said. “If you have a few minutes, I would like to talk to you.”
Troy tipped his hat toward Thomas and led Sin into the hallway.
“Dad, I’ll let you rest. I will come by tonight and sign whatever and meet with whomever Dr. O’Rourke needs me to.”
Once outside, she looked at Troy. “It seems I’m in the mood to try to fix old relationships. How about we start over?”
“Sounds like a plan. Follow me and we can sit and have a beer.”
Sin looked around as they cleared the front doors of the building and said, “Where’s your vehicle?”
His eyes shifted to the Harley Davidson Fat Boy parked next to her bike. “I rode in style today.”
Sin walked over and checked out his bike. His bike was stripped of everything but what was needed and coated in flat black paint. She squatted down and checked out the engine.
Sin could feel him staring at her as she looked over his bike. She rose from a squat position and turned towards Troy. “I see you made some modifications.”
The left side of Troy’s mouth curled up in an Elvis sort of way as he put his sunglasses on. “Yep.”
Sin pulled a small lipstick from her pocket and moistened her dry lips making them seem fuller in the process. She noticed the effect was not lost on Troy. She traced his leather seat with a fingertip as she slid her sunglasses off the top of her head and over her eyes, and ambled past him—their bodies brushing against one another, and straddled her bike. She kick-started her panhead and gave the throttle a quick twist. “Try and keep up,” she yelled over the growl of her bike.
Troy laughed as he started his bike and pulled out behind her.
8
They sat in a small Key West bar called The Rusty Anchor. It sat off Duval Street away from the tourist traps. Sin wiped the ice off her longneck beer bottle and brought it to her lips. She took a long pull, savoring the flavor. She hadn’t tasted a cold American beer in years. The only beer she had drunk had been in the jungles of Central America and Asia, where it tasted more like warm piss than beer. She closed her eyes and took another pull from the bottle.
Sin eyed Troy as he sat back and watched her drink. He seemed mesmerized by the way she brought the bottle to her mouth and caressed it with her full lips. In return, she watched him guzzle with a seemingly unquenchable thirst. To her, the intensity in which he drank was only matched by the way he appeared to stare at her. To break the ‘spell’ she unwittingly cast, she veered her attention elsewhere, looking around the bar. “I don’t remember this place being such a shithole,” she said.
Troy lowered his bottle and shook his head. “You’re a piece of work, O’Malley.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“What did you want to talk about?” he asked.
Sin downed the last bit from her bottle and waved it at the bartender. “I have a lot of questions, but let’s start with why you were visiting my father today.”
“To say hi.”
Sin twisted her mouth and rolled her eyes. “Do you really want to start down the ‘You’re still an asshole’ road?”
“I guess not,” Troy laughed. “I came back to Tumbleboat Key three months ago to take care of my mother. Like your dad, she had cancer. She needed around the clock care, but on a trooper’s salary, I couldn’t afford it.”
“You’re a statie?” Sin interrupted.
Troy nodded.
“You weren’t in uniform when I saw you yesterday. I just assumed you worked for the locals.”
Troy started to peel the label off his bottle. “Your dad took care of my mom before I got here and stayed with her while I was working.”
“How is she?” Sin asked.
“She passed away two weeks after I got here.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sin watched as Troy’s expression changed into a sad Mona Lisa-esque smile. His vulnerability began to break through the icy feelings she had for him.
“I think she was just waiting for me to get here before she stopped fighting the inevitable,” he said.
Sin watched as he bit his lower lip. He sat back, cleared his throat, and drank the last of his beer.
“I really am sorry. I liked your mom. She was one of the only people in this town I missed after I left.”
Troy waved toward the bartender for another round. He appeared to be avoiding making eye contact with Sin.
“So,” Sin continued, “you stayed after Ruth passed away?”
“No, I went back north. I have been working out of the Miami-Dade County office since I returned to Florida. I was transferred to the Lower Keys three weeks ago. When I came back, I went to say hi to your dad and that’s when Carmelita told me he was sick.”
They both remained silent as the bartender brought them another round.
Sin tipped her bottle towards Troy. “Thank you for watching over my father.” Troy reached over and ‘clinked’ bottles.
They drank in silence for a few minutes.
Each trying to
