Maverick
Twenty-five minutes later, I’m still holding the same drink. It’s fuller than it was before, the ice having melted into the amber liquid.
I’ve spent most of the time thinking about my last visit here. It was the day I met Jackson. Sitting in this exact same spot, clutching the exact same drink, and not feelinganything.
I was lost and ambling through life with no real sense of direction, glad to have left my old life in the city behind, along with all the toxic people who betrayed me with it, but I wasn’t feeling excited about the future. Even Ollie calling to say I’d secured the rescue center didn’t light me up inside. I was following the same pattern I had been my whole life, going through the motions, doing something for the sake of doing it.
Until a certain black-haired, freckle-cheeked spitfire tore through this place and messed up Ridge Duporth’s face, and my life hasn’t been the same since. From the moment I chased after him and he flipped me off—multiple times—I felt a spark.
And that spark has ignited a fire in other areas of my life, too.
I’m excited and passionate about turning the sanctuary around. When I’m with Sammy, I’m really with him, present and paying attention to all the crazy shit he does, relishing this precious time I have with him before he grows up and becomes too cool to call me Uncle Kick. I do wish that Wagner and I were closer, but I still enjoy having him in my life on terms that work for him.
And then there’s Jackson.
The most intriguing, confusing, beautiful, frustrating, sensitive person I’ve ever met. He’s got a temper. He’s as stubborn as a mule. He’s tested me and pushed buttons I didn’t even know I had…but despite all that, I love him anyway.
I can’t help it. I do.
That’s why I’m so hurt and confused by him not being honest with me.
This whole situation has brought up my trust issues, big-time. But I don’t want to let what happened with my ex and my former-life friends bleed into what’s happening with Jackson. This whole situation might be triggering me, but he isn’t Luca. He isn’t being deceptive to feed his overinflated sense of ego. He’s not going behind my back and deliberately trying to hurt me.
Deep down, Jackson is a good person. There has to be a reasonable explanation for all of this. Clancy and his family are decent, caring people. No way would he let Jackson fuck me over. It’s not who any of them are.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
I glance up to see the owner, Bunny, greeting me with a soft, welcoming smile.
“Oh, I was just—it’s nothing.”
Nothing I want to get into with a stranger, at any rate.
Her gaze shifts to the drink I haven’t touched. She plucks something out of her back pocket and lays a gold-plated medallion stamped with “10” on the counter in front of me.
“Ten years,” I say, admiring her sobriety coin. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks. Are you in recovery, too?”
“That obvious?”
She offers a sympathetic smile. “No, hon. Only to me. Work in a bar all your life, you learn to read people.”
“It hasn’t even been a year yet.”
“The beginning is often the hardest part.”
I slide the lowball glass away from me. “Not for me. I’m perfectly happy to never touch alcohol ever again.”
“So you’re testing yourself?”
“Something like that.”
Part of me wishes she’d go away and leave me alone, but she’s one of those people who exudes such a caring, almost motherly energy, I don’t have it in me to ask her to leave.
“So if it’s not the booze, it’s usually one other thing. Love?”
I nod slowly. “Bingo.”
