Betting on You (19 page)

“I’ll have another whiskey, Buddy,” Mason said in a loud voice.

The bartender had massive, cauliflower-shaped hearing aids in both ears. Still, you had to talk loud enough for him to hear you over a train, even when you were the only person in the bar and the jukebox was quiet.

“Coming up,” Buddy grumbled in his usual tone, the one that insinuated that you were a pain in his ass, and he couldn’t care less if you lived or died, let alone continued to patronize his establishment.

“Make that two,” came a familiar voice from near the entrance.

Mason didn’t remember the door opening or closing, but it must have, because he and Buddy were no longer alone, and Mason’s day had just gotten worse.

It was his uncle. He’d recognize that smug twang anywhere.

“Thought that was your fancy new car outside,” Parker said, crossing the room to clap Mason on the back in a way that was almost friendly. “Figured I’d stop in and see if you wanted to buy your uncle a drink.”

“Sure,” Mason said, nodding to Buddy as he set Mason’s whiskey down in front of him. “Add whatever he wants to my tab.”

“Well, ain’t that generous,” Parker said, settling onto the stool beside Mason with a happy sigh. “Very generous, indeed.”

Mason glanced at Parker out of the corner of his eye to find the old man grinning like the dog that crapped in the cat’s water dish.

“You’re in a good mood. Somebody die?” Mason asked, just drunk enough not to care if he picked a fight.

But Parker only laughed, a long, high-pitched laugh that ended in a coughing spasm he quieted with his own shot of whiskey.

“Nope, nobody died,” Parker said, clearing his throat as he slammed the shot glass back on the bar. “Just glad to see people finally getting what they deserve.”

Mason turned on his stool, watching his uncle over the rim of his glass as he took a long drink of lukewarm beer. He’d never seen his uncle so goddamned happy.
Never
, with maybe the exception of Mason’s junior year, when Mason’s team had made it to the state basketball finals and Mason had missed the winning free throw, dooming Summerville High School to another year without a state championship.

Mason had come home exhausted and feeling like shit for failing his team—despite the fact that not a single one of his teammates, or his coach, had acted like they blamed him for the loss—and Parker had been sitting on the front porch with a shit-eating grin on his face, practically twitching with excitement over the chance to glory in Mason’s failure.

Just like that, Mason knew exactly who had given Aria a copy of his old lease.

“You went through my desk upstairs, didn’t you?” Mason asked, setting his beer calmly on the bar, determined not to give Parker the satisfaction of seeing him angry.

“Well now, it’s
my
desk, ain’t it? In my house, after all,” Parker drawled, smile still wide on his face. “And I figured that little girl had a right to go through your things after what you put her sister through.” His eyes narrowed as his smile grew thinner, meaner. “Guess she must have found something, or you wouldn’t be drowning your sorrows quite so early in the day, now would you?”

Mason let his eyes drift over Parker’s face, imagining what it would feel like to smash his fists into his uncle’s smug grin or blacken one of those hateful eyes, but he wasn’t drunk enough to start throwing punches.

Or maybe he was already
too
drunk, buzzed enough that it didn’t seem worth the effort. Nothing seemed worth the effort. He might as well stay right here on this stool for the rest of his life. At least he’d be sure never to see Lark again. She didn’t come to places like this. She probably didn’t even know
Buddy’s
—the cheapest, shit hole bar in Summerville—even existed.

“So what was it?” Parker smacked his lips, as if savoring the taste of Mason’s failure. “I thought those old poems were pretty embarrassing, but girls like shit like that.”

“The lease,” Mason said, unable to tear his eyes away from his uncle’s mouth as he smirked and smacked, lapping up his only nephew’s misery like he licked his fingers after fried chicken. “I signed it before I asked Lark to marry me.”

“Ah.” Parker nodded, grinning so hard his dimple popped. “Well then, that would do it all right. She must have wanted to shove a pole up your lying ass.”

Mason nodded slowly, triggering low laughter from Parker. But for the first time since he was a fifteen-year-old kid, his uncle’s obvious enjoyment of his failure didn’t make it him angry. It only made him…confused.

“Why do you hate me so damned much?” Mason asked in an even tone.

“What?” Parker asked, some of the humor going out of his eyes, though his smile stayed in place.

“Why do you hate me?” Mason asked again, genuinely curious. “I mean, I’m your only relative left in Summerville, and I was a star when I was a kid.”

Parker snorted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” Mason said, determined not to let him off the hook. “Most uncles would have been proud to have their nephew playing first string on the basketball team, and graduating the top of their class. Why not you?”

Parker’s smile curled, becoming something closer to a snarl. “You think you’re something, don’t you?”

“A lot of people thought I was something,” Mason said. “But not you, not Don Parker. So why not? You jealous?”

Parker’s eyebrows lifted. “Of you?”

“Of me,” Mason said, staring him dead in his cold, flat eyes.

“I ain’t jealous of jack shit. I
was
you, boy,” Parker said, smile returning. “I had a scholarship to play ball, but I gave it up to stay in this dead end town and keep your mama out of trouble. God knows our mama couldn’t be bothered.” He laughed a bitter laugh. “If it were up to her, we’d have lost the farm and been living on the streets by the time I was seventeen. I worked my ass off after school to get the things me and Tanya needed, while Mama sat on her ass in front of the T.V.
I
paid for.”

“Did my mom ask you to give up college?” Mason asked, trying not to seem too interested. In all the time he’d lived with his uncle, Parker had never talked this much about his childhood, or Mason’s mother.

Parker scowled. “Of course not. She didn’t have to. A real man doesn’t have to be
asked
. I gave up my chance at a better life to stay here and protect her, but she managed to get herself pregnant anyway.” Parked turned to his beer, staring down into it.

“I saved up the money to help her get rid of it, but she said she was in
love
,” he continued with a sneer. “She and Mike Stewart convinced Mama to sign the papers they needed and got married. That lasted six months before your daddy ran off and Tanya moved back in with us, bringing you with her. And then I had two more mouths to feed and one ass to keep in diapers.”

His hands tightened around his glass as he looked back at Mason. “I could have been something. I could have played professional ball or been a doctor or a lawyer or whatever I wanted to be. Instead I got you, and your little nose in the air and that look in your eye that always showed how much better you thought you were than the rest of us. Truth told, I think that’s why your mama ran off. She couldn’t stand to stay here and be looked down on by her own damn kid anymore.”

Mason blinked. That should hurt. All of it. Everything Parker had said.

But it didn’t. Not a word. Mason didn’t feel hurt or angry, only numb and sad and, surprisingly, a little sorry for Parker.

“I’m sorry,” Mason said, taking another long drink of beer.

“What?” Parker asked, face pinching.

“I’m sorry I fucked up your life,” Mason repeated. “Wasn’t my intention. Doubt it was my mom’s, either. She was only fifteen.”

Parker scowled. “I don’t want your apology.”

“Then what do you want?” Mason asked.

“I don’t want shit from you. Never have, never will.”

Mason smiled and leaned in closer to his uncle. “Now you’re lying, Parker. You’ve been wanting to stick it to me, and watch me fail the way you did ever since I was a kid. But guess what? I’m not going to roll over and play dead. Never. No matter what you do to me, no matter how you gloat when I fall short of what I reach for. Never. You get that?”

Never
, he thought again to himself, resolve banishing the whiskey haze. He was never going to be like his uncle.

And he didn’t belong in this bar.

Parker started cussing, but Mason barely heard him. He reached in his wallet and tossed a twenty on the bar for the drinks, then stepped off his stool.

“Thank you,” Mason said, interrupting the stream of obscenity. “If you hadn’t come in here, I would have spent a lot more time feeling sorry for myself.”

“Go fuck yourself,” Parker snapped.

“I don’t think so. And I think you’re going to need a new hobby,” Mason said, clapping his uncle on the back in the same chummy way Parker had greeted him on the way in. “It’s not going to be nearly as much fun messing with me from here on out.”

Parker had a few more choice words to say to that, but they drifted in one of Mason’s ears and out the other, become a nonsensical hum that buzzed harmlessly around his head as he headed to the door and pushed out into the sunshine.

Outside, it was quiet except for the soft rush of traffic a few streets over and the chitter of birds nesting in the ruins of the old train station a hundred yards away.

It was a beautiful day and he was alive to walk around in it. No matter how foul he felt, no matter how miserable he was over what had happened with Lark, he was alive when so many weren’t.

It seemed like a simple thing to be grateful for, but it wasn’t simple, not really. There were so many people in the world who wasted their aliveness, who hung back when they should reach out, who sat out when they should join in, who hung on when they should let go, and he didn’t want to be one of them.

It had taken years of hard work on himself for Mason to feel like he was living his life right, and he wasn’t going to give up on that because a dream had died. Even if it was the brightest dream, the best dream, the one thing he most wanted in the world.

No. He wasn’t going to waste the gift of being alive. He was going to get up, brush himself off, and move on.

Even if he had to do it all with a broken heart.

Chapter Seventeen

Two months later

There is nothing more miserable than a sunny Georgia afternoon in July.

All day it had been hot as Satan’s kitchen, the bugs had waged war against the appetizers (and very nearly won), and the humidity had to be close to three hundred percent.

The bride spent half the reception rushing to the bathroom to spray more hairspray on her up-do in a vain attempt to maintain control of her naturally curly hair, and the guests consumed twice as much water as wine to keep from passing out on the dance floor.

“Thank goodness that’s over,” Melody said, dumping a load of empty serving trays in the back of their new
Ever After Catering
van, the one they’d bought after booking four more mega weddings in August, and two in September.

Business was good. Very good. Lark couldn’t complain, even when grilling T-Bones in hundred-degree heat.

“Why any woman would plan an outdoor reception in
July
is beyond me,” Aria agreed, collapsing onto the grass by the truck and shrugging out of her tuxedo vest.

They’d been one server short tonight—Natalie called in sick with a case of the summer flu—so Aria had suited up to fill in. She had finished the last minute touches on the wedding cake, and spent the rest of the night circling with drink and hors d’oeuvre trays. Lark had offered to take over after the meal was served, but Melody had insisted that Aria should stay on duty. She said something about Aria having a sunnier smile or something that Lark hadn’t paid much attention to.

She had a hard time paying attention to anything these days. It felt like she was drifting through her life, going through the motions, but not plugging in the way she used to. She didn’t get a rush when she walked into the kitchen to start a job anymore. She didn’t get nervous around fussy brides; she didn’t even care when the old people complained about the gourmet salad dressing and asked for a bottle of Ranch, instead. The job just didn’t seem to matter as much as it used to.

Nothing did.

“I’ll tell you what kind of bride,” Melody said in a conspiratorial whisper, glancing over her shoulder, though the bridal party had left an hour ago and the last of the guests were drifting out to their cars in the front parking lot. “A bride with a bun in the oven!”

“No,” Aria said, wrinkling her nose. “No way.”

“Yes, way,” Melody said, plopping down on the grass beside her sister. “I heard her mom talking after she’d had a few too many glasses of champagne. The bride was four months pregnant. They had to move the wedding up from the original date in November so she’d still be able to fit into her dress.”