We finish up on the bar then brew a pot of super-strong coffee. It gurgles as it fills the pot. Still the same coffee pot Dad used back in the day.
“How many fucking pots of coffee did Dad go through during the course of a day?” Asher asks as he pours himself a mug. He fills up two more and slides them across the bar’s surface toward us. “Seemed like he always either had a beer or a coffee in his hand.”
“That’s about right,” I say with a half smile. “I think he had coffee running through his veins.”
We remain silent and drink our coffee. I’m flooded with thoughts of Dad. Funny how he’s been on my mind a lot lately. Why is that?
“You know he’d be proud of you,” Jax says. I turn to see he’s looking at me over the top of his mug. “For how hard you’ve worked to keep this place floating. And for all the shit you dealt with otherwise.” He’s referring to himself and Asher, of course. “We’ll do the best we can to keep the bar running, but Dad never expected us to be superhuman.”
His praise is out of character, but it means a lot for just that reason. I find the usual tension I have when thinking about the bar fades a bit. We’ll sort it out somehow. I have to trust in that.
Trust. Funny how that word keeps cropping up a lot lately, too. I need to trust my brothers more, depend on them. Let them help me. I can’t carry this all on my own—they’re right about that.
And trust in Aubrey too. The way she’s trusted me. She deserves it given right back to her. Trust means not trying to control her, the way her ex did. Yes, I want her, in every fucking way I can have her, but I never want to smother her spirit or make her afraid.
Jax glances at his watch. “We have some time to kill. You assholes wanna lose a little money before we go take care of some unfinished business for Smith’s girl?”
I smirk at him. It’s been a while since I’ve raked him over the coals in poker. I move around the bar, lower three chairs at a table, and wave them over. Something about the camaraderie of us doing as regular a thing as playing cards makes me feel less alone. “Let’s do this.”
Just before six, we’re sitting in Jax’s car, staring at the coffee shop. It’s still a bit on the dark side out, and the glow of the shop is the only real sign of life so far on the street. I told him to meet there because I figured Aubrey would consider it a safe and public location, and her ex would think that as well.
Now to wait.
“What does he look like?” Asher asks from the back seat.
“Like a psycho,” Jax says. Asher slugs him on the arm, and he grunts. “Stop fucking punching me. You suck.”
I laugh. “Knock the shit off, boys. We have a job to do.”
“He’s the one who started it,” Jax murmurs, but I hear the amusement in his voice. “Oh, look. Someone’s coming now.”
I see a man in his late twenties, clean-cut and wearing a suit, walk hesitantly toward the café door. He steps inside and moves to a table. Gotta be him.
The three of us exit the car and follow him in. No one else is in the café—Jax has had “relations” with the manager and asked her to open up the shop an hour early so we could have a business meeting there.
She didn’t ask too many questions—Jax’s girls never do.
We walk inside, and when the door dings behind us, Aubrey’s ex spins around. Sees us and his brow furrows. He gives a haughty look and offers us his back, peering over the counter. “Excuse me,” he says loudly, calling out to the empty café, peering to see where the employees are.
“Are you Roger?” I ask.
His back stiffens. I can see his gaze darting around. He’s evaluating the situation. My brothers move to either side of him.
“How about we move to the back,” I tell him in a quiet voice. “We need to talk.”
Roger’s entire body is rigid. He wants to run so badly, but we have him surrounded. He lifts his chin. “I’m not bothering anyone. Just getting coffee and waiting for a friend. You folks should be on your way back to whatever hillbilly hole you crawled out of.”
Jax gives a loud, barking laugh. “That’s fucking hilarious. Hillbilly hole. This guy’s witty! I can definitely tell what Aubrey saw in him.”
At the mention of her name, her visibly startles. Studies us closer. When his gaze locks on me, I see fury unleashed in his eyes. He recognizes me.
“Oh, good. You know who I am. That saves me the trouble of having to introduce myself.” My voice is ice. My fists are clenched at my side. “Get your fucking ass in the back room or I’ll pick you up and carry you there myself.”
“And why would I want to go back there with you?” He’s trying to sound brave, but I hear a thin hint of fear in his voice.
I step closer to him, look at the face of the man who’s petrified the woman I’ve fallen for. Who’s made her life hell to the point where she had to move away from him to escape his abuse. All the rage I feel rushes to the surface. “Because we’re going to talk.”