Free Roxy (Pandemic Sorrow #3) by Stevie J. Cole

on his knees as he leaned toward me. “So. Besides despising my music, what are you about? And why the hell are you here? This place is like something that you’d find outside the Bates Motel. Not exactly the place you go to meet people.”
    Meet people? Oh, you couldn’t be more wrong!
    “I don’t like people,” I groaned.
    I stared down at my lap, realizing how dumb that sounded, but it was the truth. I couldn’t like people. I was too bitter, too angry, and too scared that I’d get hurt to like anyone. I didn’t even really like myself, how could I like anyone else?
    Shrugging, I said, “My brother came here all the time. He liked that it was always empty. He said he could think in here.”
    “I get that.” He nodded. His fingers tapped over his leg, then he blurted, “So, I think it’s pretty obvious why I’m a mess. Losing your brother, that’s what broke you?”
    As soon as the words had come out of his mouth his eyes widened. I think he was afraid he’d just gone too personal, and was attempting to think of a way to backpedal out of that question.
    I swallowed. Questions like that were where I would wall people off. I didn’t want anyone to pity me, and I didn’t want anyone to make a connection with me, but, for some reason, instead of hopping up and darting out of that bar, I sucked in a deep breath. “Yeah. He pretty much raised me.” I paused. I couldn’t look at him while I purged myself, so I stared at my hands while picking furiously at my torn cuticles. “My mom died in a car wreck when I was five. Layla was just a baby. My dad was driving, and he always blamed himself. All he did was drink, and then he lost his job when I was six. So Sean had to help make sure me and Layla were taken care of when Dad was passed out.”
    “Damn,” Jag muttered, stunned. After a few moments of awkward silence he said, “Having a dad that’s a drunk sucks.”
    “Yeah. If only he’d stayed just a drunk.”
    I sat there swallowing down the knots that kept rising in my throat. For some reason he made me feel comfortable. In a matter of fifteen minutes I had told him more than I had told anyone, ever.
    It was like all the things I’d kept bottled up inside gushed to the surface, and I couldn’t stop it.
    “When I was fourteen, my dad got put in jail for selling meth. He was in and out the entire time I was growing up. He supposedly last got out a few years ago, but I haven’t heard from him.” I paused, fidgeting with my hands, then blurted out, “He used to get me and my brother to help him make it.”
    Sweat pricked its way over my forehead and I waited for that judgmental glare that people couldn’t help but give me when they found out my dad had been a meth dealer, but Jag seemed unfazed by it. His face softened, and it almost looked like he was relieved that I was fucked up too.
    Jag sighed and tipped his beer back. “My dad was a drunk too. Left when I was ten. Watched him beat the shit out of my mom a few times.” His eyes shot down to the bottle in his hands and he picked at the label, avoiding eye contact, then without warning, he grabbed my hand. His finger stroked along the inside of my palm, slowly, reassuringly.
    I was in shock. I’d never heard about this part of his life, not even in the five-hundred interviews I’d skimmed over throughout the years. When he looked back up at me, I saw how hurt he was, that deep down inside he was uncertain. Deep down, we were much the same person. And that floored me. He wasn’t what I’d thought.
    I let my guard down, I let myself soften. “Is it wrong that I’m relieved someone like you had a shitty start to life too?”
    He squeezed my hand and shook his head. “Nah, not at all.” His gaze grew more sincere, deeper, and way more real than I could comfortably handle at the moment.
    “Not at all, princess,” he said softly.
    The way he just whispered “princess” when looking at me seemed so sweet, so tender, not at all like the other