Devil You Know(23)

“I’m thinking it’s a vodka kind of night.”

He smiles lazily, and quirks an eyebrow. “Kinda girly, isn’t it?” I punch him on the arm, causing him to slosh his drink. “Not fair, asshole.”

“Don’t call me a girl, then.”

I normally drink whiskey, neat. Tonight, though, I don’t plan on sticking around long. All I need is a quick drink to give me the right amount of warmth to part the fog that clouds my ability to make a clear decision, and I’ll be gone.

Ty throws back what’s left of his spilt drink, and pours another.

“You’re hitting it hard,” I comment, lining up a shot glass for myself.

“Rough week.”

“Work?”

He shakes his head.

“Women?”

He nods slowly. “Isn’t it always?”

Yeah, it kind of is. My thoughts drift to Jane, alone in that house. I should have stayed—even if it’s impossible to think straight when she’s around. The woman is probably going out of her mind.

I pull my phone out, and check the display. Nothing.

“Expecting something?” Ty asks.

I shake my head. “No.” She’s not my woman, so why would she ring me if she felt unsafe, scared, or simply alone?

Because she needs you.

I want to believe my head isn’t making a mountain out of a molehill, but the buzz was there. I felt it. The times she’s shown me trust, I’ve felt that need to protect, to help, to show her the world isn’t so bad.

Only, I’m the wrong guy to do that.

Ty’s disappeared back to the living room to join the others. I throw back the shot of vodka, and stand for a minute to get my shit together. Feeling the need for fresh air, for a clear thinking space, I slip out the back. The night sky is calm, and the stars twinkle merrily down at me. Right now I feel anything but merry. Fucking stars.

Movement to my right catches my peripheral.

“Hey, Tigger.”

The jovial redhead grins up at me from his seat on the decking, and offers me a hit of the pipe he’s smoking.

I wave my hand, dismissing it. “No thanks, mate. I’ve gotta drive for a bit yet.”

He nods knowingly, and pats the deck beside him while he releases the smoke he had stashed in his lungs. “Sit.”

I bend my legs under myself and squat down beside him, leaning my back against the house. As nice as it is to get together with the guys, we’ve been doing it the same way since the tradition began. Bronx drinks, Ty tries to keep up, and Tigger smokes. Same shit, different night. A part of me wonders if this is it; if in forty years time we’ll be a bunch of cranky old men, doing exactly the same thing.

I glance down at Tigger as he releases another stash from his lungs. “Do you ever get the feeling you’re just drifting?”

He stares into the plain backyard: lawn, upon lawn, upon lawn. “We’re always drifting, man. Question is, are you drifting toward the right shore?”

I forget how philosophical Tigger can get when he’s wasted. Smoking pot is the only thing that can slow him down. He didn’t get his nickname because he knows how to sit still.

“That’s the part I’m having trouble working out.”

For five years I’ve held down the same job. Nine I’ve spent in the same occupation. And how much further ahead am I from where I started? Okay, so I have my own place, and I don’t have to share with this scraggly bunch anymore. And I have my own car. But aside from that, what is there? What’s going to keep me happy when possessions no longer matter?

Or should I say, who?

Relationships aren’t my forte. There’s a reason I’ve been single for the past two years, and it isn’t from lack of female interest. It’s from lack of need on my part. I’m at a point in my life where I can’t be assed with the drama that comes with trying to hold down anything meaningful anymore.

Until her.

Until Jane crashed into my life with a blood-curdling scream.

I glance over to find Tigger with his eyes shut. True to form, he’s asleep before he’s finished the pipe. I take it from his hand, and lay it gently on the ashtray to his right. His snoring starts as I relax further into my position against the wall.

What can I offer Jane? She deserves the world after what that fucker’s put her through, but what have I got? A shady history, and a bunch of lonely guys who get together every month, all so they don’t feel so isolated in the world. Not to mention a ‘job’ that would send people running a mile in the opposite direction once they knew what I was capable of.

How the fuck am I meant to explain that to her? What the fuck is a woman who has been beaten, and abused by her husband for the past however many years going to think of a guy who’s as violent as I am when provoked?