THE MOMENT I stepped into the dark bar, I had to adjust my eyes. It was loud with the sounds of music playing, shot glasses hitting together, and voices coming from one side of the large room. As I inhaled the mixing smells of old wood and beer, I smiled, and the tension in my shoulders melted away. I could have gone to Sedotto. It was one of the hottest bars in Austin, and it happened to be owned by one of my best friends, Tucker. But I needed to be alone in my own thoughts. This bar was my escape—the place I could be and let go without having to explain to anyone why I needed to get shit-faced. This was the one time of year I attempted to smother the guilt, hurt, and anger. The one day I simply wanted to forget that night. When I moved from Austin to New York after college, I missed this place. After only a year, I had secretly flown back to Austin during that week, and I’d been making the annual pilgrimages to my favorite bar ever since. This was my first time in since I’d made the move back to Texas.
I missed Butch, the owner of the bar. At least that was what I told myself. Even though I only saw him once a year, he had become a friend. I guess Butch was a part of the therapy I needed to keep the demons from that night from coming back to haunt me. That and caving. I made my way to the bar once I caught sight of the old man.
“This is what I need,” I mumbled as I walked toward the bar. I needed a place where I knew no one would judge me or throw in a few jabs at my expense. Everyone thought I was someone I wasn’t. Blake the manwhore. Blake the player. Blake, the guy who only wants to have a good time. It was an easy part to play, and it kept all the questions about when was I ever going to find someone to settle down with at bay. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to settle down and get married someday, but there had only been one woman who had even come close to making me think for the briefest moment that it might be possible. And at the time, she was out of my reach. Hell, she still was, if I wanted to be honest with myself. I carried two dirty little secrets with me. One I never wanted to talk about, and the other . . . The other was another torment. I had a thing for my best friend’s sister. Ever since the first time Nash brought her around, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Now when I was near her it nearly killed me to pretend I wasn’t attracted to her.
I knocked on the bar as I sat on the old leather stool. I was positive Butch hadn’t changed them since the 1970s. The time-hardened leather barely gave way as I sat on it.
Butch made his way over. He smiled and set a glass of draft beer and a shot of whiskey in front of me. With a smile, I picked up the shot and downed it. I had found this bar when I was out walking one night and stumbled upon it. It was the anniversary of her death, and like each year when that day came around, I’d been attempting to escape the memories. That was when I found Butch’s Place.
“You read my mind, Butch.”
He let out a rumbling laugh and then coughed. The years of working in a smoke-filled bar were catching up with the old man.
“Bullshit,” he said, refilling the shot glass. "You and I both know why you come here, and it’s not for my winning personality.”
I held up the glass again and smirked. “Amen. Nothing like a good shot of whiskey to drown the problems.”
He nodded. “Good whiskey like this is scarce.”
“A lot of good things in life are hard to come by.”
Lifting a brow, he asked, “You still haven’t found you a girl to settle down with?”
This time I laughed. “No, Butch. That is the last damn thing I am looking for.”
Leaning over the bar, he stared at me like he had all the answers in the world. “Blake, one day it will hit you, and you won’t know what to fucking do when you meet the one.”
I forced a smile. I had to keep myself from telling him it had already hit me a long time ago. “Is that right? How do you mean, old wise one?”
Butch took a step back, crossed his arms over his large chest, and smirked. He was an ex-military man. His son had also been in the military and had committed suicide, nearly destroying Butch. He didn’t talk much about him at all. The only thing I knew was it had happened around the same time as my nightmare. We had both agreed a few years ago that neither nightmare was something we cared to speak about.
“I mean you’ll know when the right one comes. You’ll feel all these confusing feelings all at once, and you won’t know what to make of ’em. She’ll make you think you’re going crazy. You’ll discover that you would rather die than see her hurt. You’ll spend a small fortune to simply hear her laugh and see her smile.”
I laughed again. “Yeah, sometimes I don’t think that was ever in the cards for me, old man.”
He shrugged. “You haven’t looked into the right set of eyes.” He lifted a brow. “Or maybe you have, and she got away.”
I took a drink of my beer and decided it was time to change the subject.
“What have you been up to?”
With a shake of his head, Butch took the hint and moved on. “Running a bar. What about you, Blake? How’s life treating you now that you’ve moved back to Austin?”
“You know I only moved back so I wouldn’t have to fly here once a year to see your sorry ass.”