While Knights had charters in multiple locations, the bar always looked the same. Deep mahogany woods, crystal glassware, top-notch spirits, and never a crowd.
We sat at the bar side by side. I ordered something fizzy, and he ordered something hard.
Same, same, same. It was crazy how familiar this all felt. Crazier that I’d run into him, forgetting entirely that this was his hometown and not some place where he took vacations or used as a getaway. It had always perplexed me that a family so affluent had chosen such a small place to settle down. But now that I thought about it, I remembered him mentioning that there were actually two affluent families who originated here.
“So how’ve you been, man?” Clay asked over a sip of his dark liquid. “Still drinking that fizzy shit, I see.”
I smiled. I guess the shit talking was starting already. “I like it, okay? A little bit of lime and some bubbles never hurt anybody.”
“Yeah, says my sister,” he huffed. His shoulders went rigid after a second of realization. Looking over at me he gave me a sad observation. “But really, how’ve you been?”
This time I sighed, I guess the pity was starting too. “As good as I can be, considering.”
“Considering you went off the grid after everything went down?” he asked slowly.
Fair enough, although that wasn’t really the whole story. I just nodded. “Considering that, yeah.”
“Is she…” he trailed off and I didn’t help him along.
By now it was common knowledge that my younger sister had disappeared when she was eighteen, but the full story was not so privy to the outside world. Everyone seemed to think it was some freak accident or an elaborate kidnapping. It wasn’t their fault. When you saw search dogs and police parties and personal investigators suddenly working together to find one missing girl, you thought that she was probably taken. Especially if it was from a life like ours. No one once stopped to think that maybe it was her who did the disappearing on her own.
My family and I knew better. Aside from the disappearance of a large sum of money hacked out of a trust fund she wasn’t supposed to have access to until she was twenty-one, she left so abruptly it was clear that something pushed her into her decision to leave. We’d just hoped that by now we either found her or she’d come back, but it didn't look like either of those things were ever happening.
Gulping a large swig of bubbles, I let the sting touch all the way to my ears before I cleared my throat. “We like to believe she’sokay. We don’t know for sure, but she left. She wasn’t taken, so… We can only hope.”
“And you haven’t been in contact with her since?”
“Obviously not.”
“How’s that obvious to me? I haven't seen your ass in years. Or did you forget you ghosted me too?” he grumbled.
I sighed. “I’m sorry. I had to. I just couldn’t take all this shit without her, you know. I grew up with her. We had each other for so long and then we just didn’t. I don’t know, it’s whatever now.”
Quiet slipped over us for a long moment. I felt his eyes on me, heavy with something contemplative that made me wonder what he was thinking. Was he pitying me? Was he trying to find out what to say?
Finally, he slapped a hand down on the table and sucked in a long breath. Steeling himself forsomething. What, I didn’t know.
“You remember my sister?” he suddenly asked.
“Yeah,” I replied slowly, though I didn’t remember much. From what I could recall, back then she was a quiet girl who Clay lamented would never stop following him around. Then she grew into the quiet girl Clay complained he always had to look out for because she wouldn’t stand up for herself. Then she was soon not talked about at all.
“Remember how I used to talk about her and then I stopped?” he continued. I nodded. He let out a long, long breath. “Yeah well, I stopped because for a long time we lost contact. She married into this contract with a family here and went dark. We thought she hated us because my brothers and I didn’t really stand up for her with our parents and basically let her get sold away to some guy way older than her. But it turns out she was being…” he cleared his throat, his eyes falling, his fist clenching along the table. “Turns out it wasn’t her shutting us out. She was just married to a really bad guy.”
My mind reeled as I took him in. Looking at the rigid anger thatwas coursing through his body, I felt a familiarity toward it. Because it was the same hateful helplessness I felt whenever I thought about my own circumstances.
“How long?” I asked. “How long did you not hear from her?”
“Five years,” he said. “We were lucky. The old bastard died and we got her back.”
“Isn’t she married now, though?” I asked, remembering Alta’s whole explanation of how she knew Clay.
“Yeah. Another whole mess, but Ox is a much better guy. He loves her more than anything. It wasn’t easy, but it all worked out.”
“Damn,” I breathed.
“Yeah,” he mimicked. He looked at me. “I’m not telling you this to compare sob stories. I’m just letting you know, I understand. The guilt, the shame, the anger, and the not knowing most of all. You don’t seem like you want to talk about it, but if you ever do…”
“Yeah, I got you,” I said. “Thanks.”
