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“I was under the impression that you knew plenty about him,” I reply, thinking it odd that he would leave her the bar if they didn’t know each other.
“Not really,” she says, walking over to the bookshelf and opening a small jewelry box. Inside, there’s a stack of bills. She removes it and brings it to me, laying it down on the desk. “Here’s the money, but I’d also like you to tell me about Angus.”
I take the money off the desk, tucking it into my back pocket without counting it. If there’s anything missing, I’ll come back for it. In fact, I kind of hope there is something missing. I’d do anything for the opportunity to punish Oakley. Her ass is begging to be spanked in those jeans.
“I’m not sure what you want to know, but I’m not in the mood to tell you bedtime stories. I’m sure you could get plenty of the guys at the bar to tell you about their wild adventures,” I say.
She narrows her eyes at me, looking me over like she’s trying to figure out how hard she’d have to hit me to knock me out. “I just want to know what kind of man he was. I was told he went to prison. I assume that much is true.”
“Sure, he was in jail, but I’d estimate half of your customers have also done their time in the slammer as well. It’s not uncommon out here,” I reply.
She nods slowly. “For murder. That’s what I was told.”
I scrunch up one side of my face. “Not really murder. He went in for involuntary manslaughter after a drunken barfight with a friend of his. He always expressed regret about it, but that didn’t change the judge’s mind. He did nearly a decade in prison.”
“And then he went and started a bar?” she asks skeptically.
“That was all he knew, and I don’t blame him one bit. I’ve seen plenty of guys go to prison and go right back to what got them locked up in the first place. At least he was selling the booze instead of drinking it. Well, I take that back. He drank a lot too,” I reply, thinking back to how many nights I’d show up to Angus passed out at his desk. He always had the money out on the table for me to take, but he was a wreck often enough to mention.
“Maybe my mom was right,” she says, though she seems reluctant to admit it to herself.
“I doubt it,” I reply. “You know, he talked about you sometimes. I honestly thought you knew him.”
She jumps at my words, her pupils tripling in size. “He did? He really talked about me?”
I frown, pulling my head back. “Uh, yes. You’re his daughter.”
“And yet, I never heard a word from him. Not a call, not a text, not even a letter in the mail. My mom said he wanted nothing to do with us.”
“Honestly, that’s not the impression I got,” I reply.
“What impression did you get?” she asks, looking at me as though I’m the answer to her prayers. It’s funny how that works. Once you have something a woman wants, she won’t leave you the fuck alone, but once she gets it, she’ll act like she doesn’t know you.
I turn away from her and head toward the door. “Sorry, but I think that’s all the time I have tonight.”
“Wait!” She jumps toward me, grabbing my arm and attempting to pull me back into the office.
It’s cute, but I don’t have time for this. I continue out the door and down the hallway.
“Don’t do that. Please, I want to know more,” she says, walking so close behind me that I can feel her breath on my back.
I spin around on my heels just before reaching the bar, causing her to bounce off my chest. “If you’re going to beg, you might as well do it on your knees like a good little whore,” I growl.
Finally, I get the reaction I was looking for. She wrinkles her nose at me, pulling her head back like I just spit in her face. “You’re a fucking creep,” she says.
I smirk. “Yeah, and I like it that way.”
I turn around, walking out the door and through the bar to the exit.
10
Oakley
The only thing keeping me from taking the shotgun I bought and blowing Savva’s stupid brains out in the parking lot is the fact that he knows so much about my father. I hate him, but I need to know more about Angus. It’s not enough to accept my mother’s one-sided arguments as gospel.
I can’t just stand here in the doorway like a halfway deflated balloon until Savva graciously explains the fine details of my father’s existence to me. I need to seek out the answers, and the only way to do that is to force them out of Savva.
One last moment of hesitation befalls me before I run out after him. I can already hear the growl of his motorcycle in the parking lot, seconds away from taking him down the road and out of sight.
