Page 83 of Bourbon Truths
“You are my business. You’re my employee.”
“I’m your employee? How do you figure that when I’m the manager of this damn place?”
I was actually rather interested in hearing Goldie’s explanation.
She bit her lip while she tried to nail down her train of thought. Her eyes lit up the minute she realized what she was going to say. I geared up for what I could only imagine would be an obnoxious response.
“You might be the manager, Kace, but Jett is the boss of this facility, and do you know who owns Jett? I do,” she said, pointing at herself. “That man can’t function without me turning his head in the right direction. Therefore, I control Jett, and that means I control you—”
“You control me, little one?” Jett asked, walking up behind her undetected.
“Gahh.” She gripped her chest, startled. Whipping around, she pushed Jett and said, “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“I have to if I’m going to keep you in check.” Jett smiled at her while he pulled her in by the waist.
They were so fucking nauseating.
“Keep me in check? As if I’m a loose cannon?”
Jett just raised an eyebrow, letting Goldie know he meant what he’d said. Surprisingly, she didn’t oppose but instead agreed and pulled him into her embrace.
She turned to me and said, “Still, I want to know what’s wrong even though you might not be my employee,” Goldie succumbed.
“You’re damn right I’m not your employee.”
I’d started to walk away when Jett called my name. I stopped and waited for him to say something to me. “See Vinny last night?”
“Who’s Vinny?” Goldie chirped.
“Don’t worry about it, both of you,” I responded and then took off to the Haze Room.
The lights were off, and the room was silent, almost eerie looking after the day we’d had yesterday. Outside of the room, kids bustled around me, their mothers chasing after them, throwing out warnings that were sure to be forgotten.
The smell of leather and wood hit me first. My senses were knocked to the ground, memories clouding my mind, vivid images of my boxing days flashing in an instant. That smell would always break me. It would always send a pang of regret, of what could have happened if I hadn’t put all my trust in another human.
“Why did you see Vinny?” Jett asked, shutting the door behind him. I turned around to see that he was sans his little minion and let out a long breath as I walked toward the bleachers, feeling every little ache and pain.
“Needed to get lost. Seeing Madeline yesterday was too much.”
“Did you make an agreement to stay away from your face?”
“Couldn’t entirely scare the new members of Justice, now could I?” I joked, but Jett didn’t find it the least bit funny.
“You still look like shit.”
“Tell me how you really feel,” I responded, sitting and sucking in wind when my side tightened around my ribs.
Jett sat next to me, resting his arms on his legs with his head bent as he spoke. “When are you going to stop beating yourself up?”
“Christ, Jett. Give it the fuck up. Just let me do my own thing. I promised I would be different around you guys, but what I do on my own time should stay my business.”
“You’re killing yourself,” Jett’s voice caught in his throat as his hands ran through his hair. “I can’t fucking lose you.”
Silence filled the room as Jett’s confession sunk in. He was the reason I was still on this earth, the reason I kept moving forward, but how much longer could I really go on? I felt my days were numbered.
“You need to let me go,” I admitted. “Life has become too much. My time is just around the corner. My fucking grave is calling out to me.” I dipped my head as my throat choked up and my eyes burned with tears.
“I can’t,” Jett whispered. “It’s selfish of me, but I can’t let you go, Kace.”
