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Tuesday inhaled deeply, and I wished I could snatch the question back if only to erase the pain in her eyes. “After I lost our baby…after he beat me so badly I miscarried for the third time in a year, I just couldn’t…I couldn’t stay anymore.” Tuesday chuckled bitterly. “The first two weren’t so bad, I guess. Can’t say the same for the last one.” She glanced at me. “I was in my third trimester.”
Oh.
“I’m sorry.” In the wake of all she had revealed, those two words seemed so inadequate but were all I could think to say.
Tuesday shrugged like it was no big deal when I could see her in sad blue eyes that it still was. “Anyway, Rex tracked me down six months later and showed up while I was working one Saturday to drag me back home.”
“What happened?”
There was an evil smirk on her face now as she accepted the bottle of wine I handed her. “Nothing. I told him I didn’t love him anymore. He accepted that it was over and returned to Oklahoma.”
I paused, and not just because Tuesday had produced a corkscrew from some hidden place, popped the top on the bottle of wine, and chugged about a fifth of it in one go. I wasn’t an expert on abusive relationships and the victims who survived them, but I smelled a big fat lie.
When she burped and passed it back to me, I hesitated since I was underage and technically still at work before taking it and doing the same—sans burp.
“Oh, that’s good stuff,” I said when I immediately felt a buzz. Just as I began to imagine Tuesday murdering her abusive baby daddy and burying the body somewhere, something she’d said tugged at my memory. “You said he showed up on a Saturday?”
Her focus was back on stocking the bar, so she hadn’t noticed my shift in mood. “Yeah, why?”
“Who was working that day? Which King?” I clarified when she looked up at me in confusion.
“Oh.” She shrugged and turned away again. “It was Rowdy, I think.”
I exhaled slowly and started stacking the glasses so that I had something to do with my hands.
Bad idea.
I must have been more upset than I realized because I dropped one and it shattered. To make my reaction even more embarrassing, I stupidly crouched to pick up the shards with my bare hands and sliced my palm open.
Blood dripped onto the floor, and I fell into a trance as I watched it puddle on the concrete. The floor up here wasn’t smooth like the lower levels, so it would probably even stain.
Troublesome blood.
Mine wasn’t even particularly special. It wasn’t worth its weight in gold, wondrously rare, giving, or receptive.
But it had led me to the truth of who I was—and who I wasn’t.
“Oh, my God! Atlas!”
Hearing Tuesday’s shout, I snapped out of my stupor and dispassionately watched as she bent, grabbed my hand, and inspected my palm before pressing the dish towel I’d been using to dry the glasses against the wound. I then let her lead me downstairs even though I didn’t know what for.
I still didn’t catch on to her intention until we entered the workshop. I opened my mouth to object, but it was too late.
“We need help,” Tuesday’s dramatic ass announced. “Atlas is hurt.”
All four heads of the Kings swiveled our way.
“It’s not that bad.” I waved her off with my free hand.
Unfortunately, she chose that moment to hold up the injured one, bringing their attention to the blood already soaking through the cloth.
To my utter horror, it was Rowdy who was first to act.
He had been sitting in the driver’s seat of the Cadillac, one foot planted on the ground and the other revving the engine, but then he was out of the car quicker than a man his size should be allowed to move. He shoved his friends aside to gently take my hand from Tuesday. “What happened, T?”
I rolled my eyes at him asking her aboutmyinjury just to avoid speaking to me. “Not sure, boss. Atlas was cleaning the glasses when she dropped one and must have cut herself cleaning it up.”
Rowdy said nothing as he pulled the towel back and revealed the jagged cut along my palm.
