“Austin.” I grabbed the railing to help myself kneel down in front of him. He’d just turned eighteen—was all legs and lanky body—had the same greyish-green eyes as mine, and his hair was shaggy and just as messy as the warped emotions that skewed his enigmatic thoughts. He was good, through and through, but held a heart so full of self-hatred he could see none of it.
He’d taken the blame that was mine and I’d spend the rest of my life erasing it from him.
“Austin,” I called again, quieter this time, tugging at one of his hands that ripped at his hair. “Stop.”
He shook his head almost violently. “It’s my fault.”
I grabbed him by the outside of his head, forcing him to look at me. “No. It’s not. It’s not.” I dropped my forehead to his, pleading with him to believe it for once, my voice rough and shallow. “Not your fault.”
DIM LIGHTS FILTERED DOWN FROM THE HIGH, exposed rafters of the old historic building, and flameless tabletop lamps flickered from the tall round tables and secluded high-backed booths. The yellowy glow clung to the dingy air, casting everything in a dusky fog. Still, it felt almost as if the night was set on fast motion, a projector beaming blips of indistinct faces and muffled voices through the packed bar, these stolen moments spinning by so quickly as people sought the reprieve found in this special place.
The cavernous room was always dark and seemed to hold a mystery, like a million secrets had been told here and the walls protected them in the safety of their arms.
Never had I imagined I’d come to make this place a piece of my own. The many grueling years spent priming and molding and shaping me for one singular goal, and yet my path had led me straight back here. Irony.
But I learned early on some things are much more important than any ambition.
I wound around the tables set up on the hardwood floor and made my way back to the gorgeous antique bar that sat like an island adrift in this sea of revelry. The massive oblong made a full circle, and besides the times when the stage was serving its purpose where it was positioned at the very far end of the colossal building, the bar commanded the focus of Charlie’s.
I leaned my elbows on top of the dark polished wood. Even though I was tall, I always felt inclined to lift up on my toes, as if to match the lift of my voice. “Hey, Charlie,” I shouted over the din of the noisy room, “I need a gin and tonic and two amber ales.”
Charlie’s back was to me as he hustled behind the bar. He reached up to grab several hurricane glasses from the bar racks suspended on chains from the high ceiling.
Over his shoulder, he shot me a crooked, bearded grin. “You got it, darlin’. Give me a sec to fill your last order. You’ve been firing ’em at me faster than I can fill ’em.”
“That’s because the place is packed tonight. I can’t keep up, either.”
With a short shake of his head, he spun around and began mixing drinks in front of me. “You keep up just fine. This place hasn’t run so smooth in years…not until you came back to me.” He sent me a wink and slid two drinks my direction, which I quickly arranged on my tray. “I was five minutes from shuttin’ this place down until you came and rescued it.”
I rolled my eyes at him affectionately.
“Oh, aren’t you the charmer.”
Always the charmer and always completely full of it. Charlie’s had been a staple in Savannah for years, and he’d never been anywhere close to shutting it down.
Really, it was Charlie who had done the rescuing.
That charmer who scrambled around the gorgeous antique bar? He was also my uncle, my mother’s brother. He was the only one who had been there for me when I didn’t have anyone else to turn to, because everyone else had turned me away. He never once told me it was a waste or called it a mistake. He just encouraged me to live my life…on my own terms…terms that everyone else had previously tried to set for me.
Charlie stepped back and wiped his hands on a towel before he ran it over the bar top, eyebrow quirked as he cast me a teasing smile. “That’s why you love me, Shea Bear.”
The soft spot I’d always held for him glowed with the pet name he’d used for me since I was a little girl.
I balanced my tray in my hands and eyed him over the top of the bar. “I love you because you’re the best, Charlie.”
It was just a flash, but I saw it there in brown eyes the same as mine, that he cared for me just as much as I cared for him.
In my twenty-three years, I’d come to recognize there were three types of guys.
Maybe it was wrong of me to lump them into categories, but I’d learned to do it for my own self-preservation. As a way to survive in a world that wanted to use me up before it hung me out to dry.