Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
I changed into jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket at the condo before heading into Hank’s, which was surprisingly packed with customers on Christmas Eve. I recognized a few of the guys playing pool.
“Hey, Camden,” Ricky called as he leaned over a pool table. He had a wiry mustache and potbelly. The guy was from Texas and wore a cowboy hat every day of the year. In New York City. Baffling.
“Ricky,” I said, shaking his hand.
“You up for a game after I crush Big Al?” Ricky asked.
Big Al was actually a scrawny twenty-something, who wore a white sleeveless shirt and low-hung jeans. He sometimes worked as a bar back for Monica, when she let him.
“Hey, I’m going to clean up,” Big Al said before missing his next shot.
I laughed. It came out effortlessly. None of the pressure from real life here. “Maybe next game, Ricky.”
“Sounds good.”
I passed them by and headed straight for the bar. I really fucking needed a drink. I needed to drink and not remember anything that had happened tonight. My father, Candice, Lars… even Katherine. It was all too much of a goddamn nightmare. And maybe if I let Monica liquor me up, I wouldn’t have to think about anything for a few hours.
“Camden,” Monica said, already reaching for her top-shelf liquor as I slid into a seat at her bar. They’d only started carrying it once I became a regular. “You look like shit.”
Monica was in her fifties and could scare the piss out of any man in this establishment. Everyone said that she had been a knockout in her youth. I didn’t need to see a picture to imagine it. She was still beautiful now. Only about five feet tall with dark brown hair and green eyes, and a total hard-ass. She didn’t take anyone’s shit, which was probably why I liked her.
“Thanks, Monica,” I said, passing a hundred-dollar bill into the tip jar.
“At least you tip well,” she said. She dropped a glass of scotch on the rocks in front of me.
“And a shot of tequila,” I added. “For you and me.”
She shrugged and reached for the Patrón. She poured us each a shot and held it out. “What are we toasting to?”
“No toasting,” I said. “Just drinking.”
I clinked the glass against hers, and we both downed the shots. She didn’t even blink as she got back to work.
“Well, what brings you in on Christmas Eve?” she asked. “Don’t you have family to see? Your pretty wife?”
“Yeah. That’s why I’m here.”
“I hear you,” she said, pouring a pitcher of beer.
Monica rarely saw her family. She and her husband were separated. She’d said that her son didn’t live nearby and he was busy a lot. She claimed that the bar was more her family now.
“Just keep ’em coming,” I told her.
“You going to clear out Ricky before Christmas? I don’t think his wife will much appreciate that.”
I shook my head. “I’ll just play. I only try to hustle the new guys.”
She snorted. “I remember the first time you came in here with José and cleaned the entire place out. He was spitting mad at you. I’d never seen him so pissed off. Then you bought the entire bar drinks the rest of the night. They begrudgingly liked you after that.”
I shrugged and shot her a lopsided smile. It was a good memory. I had definitely hustled them that night, but they’d come to accept me after the drinks.
“It’s how I knew you weren’t a complete shit.”
I snorted. “Like the rest of the Upper East Side?”
“Wouldn’t know anything about that, but I can tell that you’re down tonight. Worse than normal. Tell Mama Monica what’s been going on,” she said, leaning into the bar and flashing me a smile.
“I don’t know,” I said, downing the scotch and passing it back to her for a refill. “My father is a dick. He’s pressuring me to get this deal done, but he’s pissed off because my sister came home pregnant.”
She arched an eyebrow. “That’s a bad thing?”
“To him, yes. She’s pregnant before my wife. He doesn’t like the competition.”
She rolled her eyes. “That sounds stupid.”
“It is,” I agreed. “It might have all been okay if I’d ignored him baiting me, but he gets under my skin, and things aren’t great with my wife.”
“Katherine, right?”
“Yeah, Katherine. I fucked up our anniversary. We’re supposed to try to have a baby, and she got mad at me for bringing it up.”
“Why?” she asked.
“She’s maybe not ready.”
“And you’re pressuring her? Did you talk about this before you got married?” Monica asked, sinking into one hip and giving me a look. “Because, you know, pressuring a woman to have a baby is the dumbest thing you can do. She’s the one who has to carry it for nine months and birth the damn thing. Then she’s mostly in charge of raising it. She either wants it or she doesn’t.”