Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 114(@200wpm)___ 91(@250wpm)___ 76(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 114(@200wpm)___ 91(@250wpm)___ 76(@300wpm)
Rebel surprised her with how easy he handled the customers. The bar got busy at around twelve. The first ten customers were desperate for a drink. Rebel opened the bar and gave all the men a warning to keep it good, to keep it clean.
Everyone had a complaint to make about Christmas. They were all grumbling about her keeping it closed, but Rebel cut them off, telling them they should stay home with their families.
Of course, none of them complained with Rebel. He was in his element and it felt good to have him by her side. And even as she allowed herself to feel how good it was to have him, she had to try and nip it in the bud. She and Rebel were a short-term thing.
Enjoy it while you can.
He is going to leave.
He has a club to go back to.
You have the bar.
This is all you and him will ever have.
Willow glanced over at him and as she did, she couldn’t help but put her hand on her stomach. He’d been the one to mention a potential baby. She wasn’t an idiot. She knew there was a high risk of her getting pregnant. She wasn’t taking any contraceptives to stop the chance of pregnancy. They hadn’t used any condoms.
She had no choice but to pull out of her own thoughts and focus on the customers.
Men and woman came and went, having a drink, wishing her a belated Merry Christmas. All of them asked her to open on the big day next year, and even to offer the food, so none of them had to suffer their own cooking. By the end of the day, she was exhausted.
Rebel did surprise her. She had intended to open until late but at seven in the evening, he called time. He stopped anyone else from arriving, told the others to enjoy their drinks, pay their bills, and then leave.
Willow expected a fight, but they all politely did as he asked, and at exactly seven-thirty, the bar was empty and all they had to do was clean the glasses and bottles away. She grabbed the trash bin and moved from table to table.
“Did you help my father a lot?” Willow asked.
“Nah, I’ve spent a lot of time at bars. Before the club, I helped a lot. I’ve done a lot of different jobs.”
“Yeah, what kind?” she asked, curious about him.
“Bar work. I was a bouncer at a few places. Done the whole butchery thing. Worked with fish, and then a few odd jobs as a delivery driver and shit like that. A lot of stuff. What about you? What did you do in the big city?”
Willow laughed. “I worked at several bars. None of the other jobs worked out for me. I didn’t do well with reception work or office work. It just wasn’t for me.” She sighed. “I guess I inherited more from my dad than I thought.”
“You know, if you take the drinking out of the equation and it sounds to me, a broken heart, your dad wasn’t all that bad.”
“A broken heart?” Willow asked.
“You said last night that your dad never had another girlfriend. You don’t even know if he had anyone or anything away from you. I never saw him with anyone, so it suggests to me that your dad was heartbroken.”
“I never even thought of it like that,” she said.
Had Bill Storm been so heartbroken when his wife left? She knew it had hurt him when the divorce papers showed up. Willow had gone to see her mother before she had even turned sixteen. She had found her, but the woman wanted nothing to do with her or the old life. She had found her rich man, settled down in a big house, and wanted nothing else.
To Willow, that had been the end of it. She didn’t give a shit about her mother, and she had cut off all ties and all desire to spend any time with the woman. She wasn’t important to her. She was nothing.
What if her father had found her, though? Had he experienced the same kind of treatment? Willow felt a deep sadness, because she had never thought of her father as feeling anything. He had accepted that she left, had handled the divorce, and then just worked and drank.
“Are you okay?” Rebel asked.
“Yeah, I’m … I’m just realizing that I wasn’t quite as good a daughter as I thought.”
“No,” Rebel said. “Don’t do that. I don’t know what it was like between you and your dad. I only know the man who would talk about his little girl, and Bill told me he had fucked things up between the two of you. This is not all on you.”
“But some of it is?”
“I do believe in taking responsibility for our own actions, but you shouldn’t feel guilty. You’re back.” Rebel took the trash bin from her. “And that’s all that matters.”