“Exactly.”
Jack glanced at me and said, “Look at us, actually having some stuff in common.”
“I’m not surprised. In fact, we probably would have been great together.”
That seemed to throw him off. He looked away again and stayed quiet for so long that I ended up starting the engine, leaving the gas station, and merging onto the highway.
After a while, he turned back to me and said, “We could still fuck, even if you despise me. Hate sex might actually be fun.”
“I don’t despise you. Sex takes trust, though.”
“How much trust did it take to get your dick sucked in that Starbucks parking lot?”
For a moment, I had no idea what he was talking about. But then I remembered the lie I’d told him the night we slept together and admitted, “That never happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“I lied about some random encounter to make it seem like casual sex was no big deal to me. I didn’t want to admit you were the first guy I’d hooked up with since my four-year relationship ended.”
He shifted around so he was facing me and asked, “How long ago did it end?”
“It’s been about six months.”
“And I was the first guy you slept with? What were you waiting for?” When I shrugged, he asked, “Are you still in love with him?”
“No.”
“You sound really certain.”
“I am.”
“So, who did the dumping?”
“It was a mutual decision,” I said. “We fought all the time and made each other miserable. It was painful when it ended, but in a lot of ways it was also a relief.”
“But then, why did it take you six months to get back out there?”
“I’d been out of the game for several years, so at first, getting back into it felt awkward. Later on, I was dealing with Greco and the threat to my business, so my sex life got pushed to the back burner.”
“For the record,” he said, “I wasn’t being truthful either when I told you I’d had sex with someone the day before you and I hooked up. It had actually been a few weeks. But I didn’t want to tell you that, not after you mentioned you’d gotten a BJ six hours earlier.”
I shook my head and muttered, “You’re as ridiculous as I am.”
* * *
We finally reached Las Vegas around five a.m.
My brother had texted me a couple of hours earlier to let me know our mom had finally fallen asleep at about three in the morning. I wanted to let her get some rest, so instead of going to see my family as soon as I got into town, I drove to Mom’s bar.
It took up the ground floor of a simple, light blue building in an older part of town. Planters full of colorful flowers framed the entrance, and the sign above the door read Mandy’s Place. It simultaneously broke my heart and filled me with rage to see sheets of plywood where the big plate glass window used to be.
Jack had dozed off again, but he woke up when I cut the engine, and we both got out of the car. Two of my men were parked out front in a black sedan, and after they checked in with me and reported nothing else had happened during the night, I sent them home.
Then I used my key to unlock the front door, and when I stepped inside I told Jack, “Be careful. There’s glass all over the floor.”
He followed me into the bar, and after I locked up behind us, we carefully picked our way across the debris. “We should have come in through the back,” I muttered. “I didn’t realize it was this bad.”
Finally, I reached the switch and turned on the lights. That was when I saw the full extent of the damage. In addition to breaking the front window, they’d used their bats on some of the tables and chairs, and then they’d gone behind the bar and smashed up the bottles of alcohol.