Hey all! This has been sitting in my files for a while. I have the first 5 chapters done and ready to be posted. It's the last 5 chapters that I am struggling with, and I hope that the feedback will help me get them finished for you all.
For those of you that read my other stories that I have in progress, don't fret, as I will finish them. It's just that when I sit to write it's like I am forcing myself to, and I really want it to come freely.
Disclaimer: I do not own or have the rights to the characters of Hart of Dixie. They belong to their rightful owner.
Enjoy!
Wade sighed looking at the glass of rum sitting on the bar top, half empty. Funny as that's the way his life feels right now. Why he thought it was a good idea to leave his life behind for an extended vacation in hell he wasn't sure. Not until the pretty brunette made her appearance in a skin tight dress showing off her sexy figure. One he's been drooling and fantasizing about for the better part of a week.
"Why so glum?" A flirty bartender asked, fluttering her eyes at him, refilling his glass of rum. He said nothing, downing the glass of rum, asking for more. "One of those days?" She asked, adding more to his glass and some.
"You could say that," he nodded, his voice taking on a rougher tone. So maybe his vacation wasn't so much a vacation as it is an escape from his life. Understanding his father's decision.
"Trouble in paradise?" She asked, nodding to his ring finger. He glanced down at the gold band, sighing. "Anything I can do to take the pain away?" She asked, trailing her hand over his arm.
Before he could snap at her and tell her off for thinking that there was any sort of trouble, at least not like that. Because he wouldn't be sitting in a bar over a thousand miles away from his home if it were over some stupid fight. Because really all their fights and the one fight to end it all had been over something as equally as stupid. Socks.
"Nadine, go help the customers at the other end of the bar," her smooth velvety voice commanded, breaking Wade from his thoughts. He flashed her a soft smile, sulking back into his glass of rum. Not even sure why he picked rum tonight to drink, he wasn't exactly a fan of the alcohol. The burn of it going down helped him forget for a fraction of a second, and now his throat was numb like the rest of him.
"Thanks for that," he said, clearing his throat to make him sound somewhat normal and not like he hasn't talked in the last two months.
"I can't have my favorite customer start a fight with one of my bartenders, now can I?" She asked with a wink. Wade laughed at that, thankful for the small distraction she gave him to forget.
"I suppose not," he nodded, finishing off the rum. Counting his blessings when she took the empty glass and replaced it with a bottle of beer. The kind he only ordered once on his first day in the bar over a week and a half ago.
"If you need anything," she said, taking a step back. "And I do mean anything, you know where to find me," she smiled, walking off to help someone else. He watched her go, the soft sigh slipping from his lips.
It wouldn't be the first time she's offered to hear him and his sob story out. He wasn't ready to open up about what happened that night. He wasn't sure if he would ever be ready to talk about that horrible, fateful night, that turned his life upside down, in the worst imaginable way possible. When he was ready, which really was more of an if at this point in his life, he wasn't sure if he wanted to tell a random bartender his problems or seek out a professional. Right now it didn't matter. All he wanted to do is get drunk and forget about his responsibilities back home.
That one bottle of beer turned into two which turned into four, and before he knew it, he'd lost count of the number of beers he had drank when last call had been shouted. He should have stopped drinking hours ago after the first beer, but he couldn't help himself.
"Alright cowboy, let's get you home," the sweet voice told him. One look around the bar told him he was the last one. What happened to last call?
"Can't," he replied with, surprising himself when he didn't slur the word.
"And why's that?" She asked him, cleaning around him at the bar.
Even drunk, he knew not to talk about his life and he shrugged his shoulders. Opening up to a stranger sober or drunk wasn't appealing to him. Who would still want to talk to him once he told them that he had killed his wife? Not in the way one would think. But he did drive a wedge between them, and sent her from their home at such an ungodly hour of the night.
"You have to be staying somewhere," she said. "Care telling me where, so I can get you a cab?" She asked him.
Wade frowned. He couldn't recall the name of the hotel he's staying at. And he highly doubted that he had anything of the sort to tell him where the hotel is located on his person. Sober him has gotten lost finding the hotel, drunk him found it near impossible to find his way back. With spending the last two weeks in the same hotel in the same room, he should know his way, but he was finding it hard to recall while drunk. His room number was 2278, he could tell you that.
"Shit!" He muttered, not seeing his room key in his wallet. He really is screwed.
Not wanting to kick him out to sleep on the streets or end up in a holding cell, she took pity on him. Really it's what she's been doing since he first showed up at the bar. That first night and every night to follow, she could see something broken inside him. She didn't know what, but with a little time she thought she could find out, if he didn't pack up and leave that is. She did the only thing she could think of doing.
"I've got a spare bed upstairs, you can have for the night," she told him, locking up the place, moving to help him stand and walk up the two flights of stairs to her apartment.
She knew very little about him. She didn't even know his name. All she did know is that he's a broken man with demons, some very recent demons in his life. She couldn't judge since she has her own demons to face along with a broken heart to mend. She knew all about giving a person a chance and that's what she's doing. Not only that, but she hoped that the guy wasn't some murderer out to kill her while she slept. Furthermore, she thought she was a good judge of character, but she would see come morning. She's seen the guy drunk more than she has sober. The one perk of working in a bar.
A bar she didn't want to be working in, let alone running the place. But she didn't have many options 6 months ago, and she needed a job, and she took what she could get. She went to school to become a doctor, wanting to follow in her father's footsteps. That came to a halt within a year, learning that her father was actually her stepfather and that her real father owned half of a practice in a small southern town. She no longer wanted to follow in either one of her father's footsteps. She did however want to be a doctor and after some debate she settled on being a therapist. She could still help people while being a doctor, and it was her own path she was going down.
How she ended up going from being a therapist to a bartender, was a long, or maybe it wasn't such a long story, but it was filled with heartbreak. And one she didn't want to walk down any time soon. The past was best left in the past for now. After all she wasn't having a midlife crisis. That was the guy half asleep leaning on her as she struggled to get him up the two flights of stairs.
His looks pulled her in, with that ruggedly handsome look. It was his green eyes that held her captive. They may be dull with very little life now, but she could almost picture them vibrant and full of life before whatever broke him happened. She felt protective over him, in a way she hasn't been with any of her customers. They all flirted, they needed the tips, but there was just something about the way he waited for his drinks to have the answers he sought out, that made him so vulnerable. Others came in looking to have a good time, not him, he came in solely for the alcohol, blocking the rest of it out. She respected that, because it's what she wishes she could do.
Half dragging him to the spare bed, which really only consisted of a mattress on the floor in what should have been her study, she placed him on the bed, even if he had pretty much fallen face first on the mattress. She got him a blanket and tossed it over him, shutting the door as she walked to the kitchen pouring herself a glass of wine, ready to relax for an hour before calling it night herself. There were days when she just couldn't sleep and she'd watch the New York skyline come alive at sunrise, watching the once night sky turn into pinks and purples as the sun slowly started to ascend over the city. You couldn't find a better show than that. Finishing her wine, she headed to bed, not wanting to be awake when the sun rose, her lack of sleep, catching up to her.
She woke earlier than she would have liked seeing its mid-afternoon. She wondered for a brief second if her unexpected company was still passed out. Or if he might have already left. She wasn't sure what she would say if he was still there, but one thing was for sure, she couldn't hide in her room all day waiting him out. With a little stretch she tossed the blankets off and padded into the main part of her apartment. To find it empty.
She checked the spare room to see the mattress empty. The blanket folded up. She took the blanket and tossed it in her dirty laundry, figuring it best to wash it before putting it away. With her place empty she headed to the kitchen for some coffee and something to eat, while she figured her day out, before she needed to be back at work, curious to see if he would show up tonight, or if it would be the night he headed back home, wherever that may be.
Shaking any thoughts of the stranger taking up way too much space in her head, instead of making coffee for herself, she turned around and got ready to go for an afternoon run. Planning on making a stop for food along the way. Running had the best way to keep her thoughts from running away from her, unlike if she sat in her apartment the rest of the day. She needed to stay active. She wasn't looking for love or anything else that could be just as messy.
All she wanted was to work and be left alone. From all parties. She didn't trust easily these days and that came back to her mom and to her more recently ex-boyfriend. She could even add in her supposedly best friend in that growing list of hers. They all lied and hurt her, not only breaking her but the trust she held in them and most people in general. Sure she gave the random guy from last night a chance, that didn't mean she trusted him, and she was certain that once he went home, she'd never see him again.
After her run, she did a bit of shopping before she needed to open the bar for the day. Her regulars didn't surprise her when they showed up. The only thing that surprised her, was when the guy showed up and didn't order a drink.
"Thank you, for last night," he told her, walking right back out of her life, like he hadn't taken a part of her life, because he had, in some odd sort of way.