What I Should’ve Said

Bennett

I pull up to the alleyway behind The Country Club, and Clay is already standing there, waiting for me with a pissed-off scowl on his face.

I’m not surprised. He’s been expecting me to deliver the three kegs in the bed of my truck, and all thanks to a chatty woman named Norah, I’m over an hour late.

“Hi, honey,” I greet with a smirk as I shut the driver’s door. “I’m home.”

“What the hell, man?” He ignores my cheeky greeting and lays right into the nuts and bolts of his irritation. “What took you so long?”

“Relax.” I open the tailgate, and Clay helps me roll out the first keg from the bed. “I had to make a few pit stops.”

“Pit stops? You said you’d be here over an hour ago,” he complains, and we each take one end of the keg and start carrying it toward the back door of his bar.

“You do realize I’m here because I’m doing you a favor, right?” I toss back, but it doesn’t deter him.

“Where were you?”

“I had to make sure Josie Ellis’s sister made it to her house and get gas.” After kicking her ass out of the truck, I drove to the gas station and then back in the direction of her sister’s house. She may be a pain in the ass, but she’s also got the street instincts of an infant. I was worried if I wasn’t watching her, she’d end up getting herself killed by a real psycho.

“What did you just say?” He stops his momentum, which means I stop my momentum, and we’re just standing there in the middle of the alleyway behind his bar. “You were at Josie’s?”

“Not really.”

“Then why did you just say Josie’s house?”

“Her sister is in town and a complete fucking toddler. I was just making sure she didn’t get herself killed.”

“Her sister is in town, and she’s a toddler?” Clay lets go of the keg completely, and a grunt escapes my lungs as I muscle the extra weight. “How the hell do you know that? Why do you know that?”

“Well, technically, she’s not a toddler,” I say through another grunt because kegs are fucking heavy. “She’s a grown-ass woman with a penchant for terrible life choices.”

Clay makes no move to grab the keg again. Instead, he just stares me down.

I’ve known Clay Harris basically my whole life. We grew up together in New York, went to prep school and college together, and our families, especially our fathers, are thicker than thieves. Which is probably why we both hated them as kids.

When Clay was in his midtwenties and showing no real direction besides partying and enjoying living off his family’s money, his successful CEO of a father told him to shit out a career path or get off the pot. So, Clay took a long drive, found this small-ass town, and decided to open a bar. Though, he told his dear old dad he was opening a Country Club, and his father invested money, thinking his son was going to run a prestigious golf course for the rich and privileged of Vermont. To this day, he still doesn’t know the truth.

But when I hit rock bottom in New York and needed a new life a few years later, Clay and Red Bridge welcomed me with open arms. We’re as close as two grown assholes can be, but since I’ve known him since we were kids, I also know when the vein in the center of his forehead starts popping out to say hello, he’s getting pissed.

“You can take a breath,” I say through a grimace because, again, kegs full of beer aren’t light. “I didn’t even see your ex.”

I adjust the keg in my arms so I don’t drop it, and when I realize he’s going to keep standing there and not help, I carry the fucker inside the back door of The Country Club myself.

Clay follows me in, probably too busy thinking about his ex-wife Josie Ellis than realizing he’s shit at sharing the load of work that shouldn’t even be mine. It’s his damn bar. I’m just helping out.

“But her sister…what happened with her, Ben?”

See what I mean?

I set the keg down behind the big mahogany bar. “On my way back into town, after picking up your kegs, she waved me down for a ride.” I don’t get into the whole “she recklessly dove in front of my truck” or “I dropped her off in the middle of the road because she’s a pain in the ass” parts because it’ll spur more questions from Clay, and well, I don’t feel like answering more questions from Clay.

I just want to drop off the kegs and head back home. I’ve got way more important shit to see to than Clay’s would-have-been love life.

“And what did Josie say about her sister being in town? Was she surprised? Angry?” he questions. “She doesn’t have the best relationship with her family.”

“I don’t know.” Sᴇaʀch Thᴇ FindNøvᴇl.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I didn’t hang around for the family reunion,” I lie on a sigh. Truthfully, I hung around long enough to see that Josie let her inside her house. “Now, are you going to help me move your last two kegs out of my truck, or should I just do it myself?”

“You’re such a dick sometimes, Ben.”

“Me?” I laugh. “The guy who drove forty minutes to pick up your kegs and is currently helping you move them into your bar?”

“The guy who doesn’t know shit about anything, even though he was all up in the shit today.”

I put both hands on my hips and stare back at him. “I take it we’re still talking about Josie right now?”

He just groans and gets to work on replacing the old keg with the new.

You’d think a relationship that ended in divorce—before I even got to Red Bridge—would be long past the point of affecting Clay, but I guess that’s not the case.

And since I’m not a nosy asshole, I leave him to stew in whatever it is he’s cooking up in his mind and head back to my truck to get another keg. I don’t know all the details of the Clay and Josie saga, but I know enough to know he’s not quite over it. Not over her.

I also know that Josie pretty much hates him.

But that’s love for you. It’s a sucker’s game, and exactly why women don’t spark anything besides apathy from me—even ones with big brown eyes, wild curls, perky tits, and no sense of self-preservation.

I had to cultivate indifference when I came to Red Bridge because my life was a dumpster fire, and I needed desperately to put out the flames.

Though, some might argue that ending up in the back of a cop car in handcuffs for arson qualifies as worse than a dumpster fire. My sister Breezy would certainly agree, but I don’t waste my time hanging around in the past.

I’ve moved on from that part of my life, and there isn’t anyone or anything that will get in the way of that.

My biggest, most important priority makes sure of that.