I sighed and took another slug of beer. “Well, shit. I stopped by hoping you were going to put me in a better mood.”
He pushed off the bar as glass broke in the back and he scowled as Dixie moved over in the direction to help clean it up only to be subjected to a series of derogatory catcalls.
“You did look a little riled up when you walked in. What’s up?”
And that was why Asa was so freaking good behind a bar. He could talk about anything. He was brutally honest about who he was and what he had done, which often made the guys that frequented this place feel way better about the things they were battling themselves, and he always seemed like he had an answer for whatever burden was laid on the bar in front of him. Even if most of the advice he doled out was bullshit, it still sounded good when it came with a cocksure smile and was laced with a southern twang.
“Salem’s sister showed up unannounced.” It was like being shot back in time seeing Poppy all black and blue like that. “I wasn’t ready for it. I’ll never be ready for it.”
I took the straw hat off and plowed my fingers through my sweat-matted hair.
“You had to know that was inevitable. You’re sleeping with one sister, at some point the other was bound to make an appearance.”
I laughed drily. “Honestly I thought Salem would’ve gotten bored by now and moved on like she does. I never thought it was going to get this serious.”
“You’re kidding yourself, Rowdy. It’s been serious since the first minute she hit the Mile High.”
“You’re telling me.”
“So the sister?”
“Poppy. She’s a sweet girl. The type that is steady, kind of old-fashioned, and real family oriented. She’s married now. I always thought she would be the perfect girl for me but now I’m seeing I might have been trying to protect myself from the fact I knew—even then—that Salem was going to leave me.” There was more hollering from the back and another shattering sound as more glass hit the ground. I saw Asa’s jaw flex and he started to move toward the end of the bar where it was open to get to the other side.
“What brought the sister here if she has a man back home?”
Dixie came scurrying by as I turned around on my stool and leaned my elbows on the bar as Asa stopped by my side. Her eyes were big and she sounded rattled.
“Those guys are out of control. They had one pitcher of beer and they’re acting like it was twenty. They threw two of their pint glasses on the floor and one of them tried to grab me when I told them I wasn’t bringing them any more. I’m not serving them anything else.”
Asa reached out and patted her on her arm. “You don’t have to. They aren’t going to be here for much longer.”
Asa had always come across as mellow and sort of unhurried, so it was slightly alarming to see a tic working in his jaw and his normally calm gaze glinting with molten sparks of anger.
“Do you need me to do anything?”
I wasn’t just going to sit there while he tried to tangle with an out-of-control group of drunken kids that outnumbered him.
“No. I got this.” He laughed a little and copied my pose. “I used to be them.”
I made a face. “That bad?”
“Way worse, actually.”
“I don’t think I would’ve liked you very much before those bikers beat your ass, Asa.”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Not too many people did. Anyway, finish telling me about the sister?”
“She always had a knack for finding the worst kind of guy to spend time with. From the looks of her, this one took it too far. There is no way her father could’ve missed it and I think she might’ve finally had enough. What’s the use in being loyal to a family that’s going to stand by and watch you be hurt and not do anything about it?”
“That’s too bad.”
“Yeah, and the fact I may or may not have acted like I was smacked in the face with a bag of bricks when I saw her sure as shit didn’t sit well with Salem.”
“Gotta be hard for Salem. She has you now but she thinks your sister still has a piece of you from back then. That’s a pretty twisted tapestry of history, present and future, she’s looking at.”
“Poppy doesn’t have any piece of me other than sympathy and maybe a big chunk of regret. Seeing her today made that really clear. I was shocked to see her and worried that she was all black and blue, but that was it. The way Salem works me up, the way she just understands me . . . I never had any of that with Poppy. Salem was always the one that I gravitated to, I was just too young and too scared to understand what it meant back then.”