An Ounce of Hope(33)

"No. A shot of Jack," he said, slapping a twenty onto the bar.

Bourbon? This was new. And potentially catastrophic. Grace had no idea whether Max was a recovering alcoholic or what the hell he was, and a shot of Jack would be a colossal leap off the proverbial wagon. She didn't want to be responsible for that. Grace quickly scanned the bar for Vince, but he wasn't there. Neither was Holly, who she was filling in for, for another two hours. Apart from Max's friends and two other groups of regulars, the place was quiet.

She tapped her fingers on the bar top. "You sure?"

Max's eyes narrowed. "Yeah. Why?"

Grace nibbled her bottom lip. "I just . . . should you be drinking?" Jesus, how awkward could it get? "With you-I mean, you always drink juice."

Understanding flittered over Max's face and a bark of humorless laughter erupted from his chest. His stare was unfriendly and angry and nothing like what she'd faced in the coffee shop. "I'm not a drunk, Grace," he spat. "I'm a fucking drug addict."

"Oh." Grace swallowed that piece of information as though it were a razor blade.

She knew too well the damage drugs could do. She also knew Max really shouldn't be drinking. Substituting one addiction for another was something she knew plenty about.

"So," Max continued with a sarcastic wave toward the bottles of spirits. "Unless the bourbon around here is laced with narcotics, which, I'll be honest, would be fucking stupendous, I'd like a shot of it, if it's all the same to you."

His words weren't mean, but the tone he used was. It skittered down Grace's spine and left her cold. It wasn't as though she and Max were friends, as much as she wanted them to be, but the man sitting in front of her wasn't who she'd grown to know. He was volatile, and sharp, and unsettled Grace to her very bones. Without another word, she turned and poured the drink. She placed it on the bar and watched as he took it from her, staring at it as if it were a grenade about to detonate.

Minutes passed and still he stared at the drink. His lips moved in inaudible mutterings until with a loud "fuck it" he knocked the drink back. He hissed, cursed, and coughed, but the slam of the shot glass back on the wood bar was triumphant. "Another," he ordered.

Grace's heart clenched for him and the war blatantly raging within his head. "Max, honey, why-"

"Are you deaf?" he snapped, glaring at her. "Do your job and keep the drinks coming, okay? I don't need a friend or a chat. I need to get shitfaced. That's all."




 

 

Wounded by his sharp tongue, Grace poured the drinks and he shot them.

Time and again he sat with the drink between his hands before he'd knock it back and, time and again, Grace's urge to cry for him and the memories his actions evoked inside her intensified. His buddies from the site did nothing to help. They bought several rounds of drinks, as well as inviting a group of three girls over to join them. Although normally so indifferent to the women who approached him in Whiskey's, tonight Max eyed the girls in a way that made Grace nauseous. It was feral and hungry.

Was this the dangerous stranger Deputy Yates had warned her about?

Was this the real Max O'Hare?

She didn't know.

All she did know, when she watched Max stagger out of the bar hours later with his arm wrapped around an eager blonde thing with googly eyes and her hands on Max's ass, was that the tiny piece of hope she'd kept deep inside, waiting patiently for someone good enough to share it with, had splintered into a thousand pieces.





There was banging.

Loud fucking banging that rattled Max's already hurting brain within his very skull. He lifted his head from his pillow, and damn if it wasn't a lead weight, squinting against the sunlight pouring through the open drapes.

"Max, open the door."

Motherfucker.

Tate.

"Max." His voice was hard, angry. "I don't give a shit if I am a cripple; I will break this door down. United States Marine Corps, asshole. Let's go. Get your stupid ass up. I don't care if you're naked, either. I'll shoot whatever the fuck I've not seen before." He hammered the door further. "Now, Max. Get up! I know you're in there."

The room tilted like a freaking roller coaster when Max sat up and his stomach sloshed in a way that really didn't feel good or normal. He stood on wobbly legs, pulled a pair of jeans over his underwear, and stumbled to the door, kicking a pizza box and an empty bottle of Jack out of the way.

"All right," he croaked as he rested his forehead against the door and unlocked it. He took a deep breath and pulled the door open. When he saw Tate's expression, he really wished he hadn't.

"Morning, Starshine," Tate snapped. "What. The. Actual. Fuck?"