Page 35 of Pin My Alpha
Rhys glances between us, a flicker of understanding in his eyes. “I know a couple of people through the university’s legal clinic who do pro-bono work for local businesses. I can send you their names.”
“Yeah,” Shay says. “That’d be good. Thanks.” The words come out quieter, the fight draining out of them.
Milo walks over and sets a cookie on the table beside Shay’s elbow. He doesn’t say a word, just places it there and goes back to wiping down the counter. Shay stares at the cookie for a second like it’s a puzzle he has to solve.
I watch them all. The easy way they move around him. They know how to feed him without asking if he’s hungry. They know how to offer help in a way that lets him pretend he’s the one in control. They’re here on a Saturday, scrubbing my floors and reading my legal documents and making my bar feel less like a tomb.
They’re not here for me. They’re here for him.
And the distinction, which should sting, doesn’t.
My bar has always been just mine. My responsibility. My failure to protect. I kept it small after the first one went under,manageable, something I couldn’t lose. I’ve spent years thinking this place was my life.
It’s not. It’s just a room with beer taps.
The life is the noise. It’s Milo leaving a cookie on the table. It’s Jude arguing about photo angles and Knox stitching up a booth like it matters. It’s Shay, shoulders squared, getting ready to fight a battle that’s supposed to be mine.
My hands are flat on the bar top I polished this morning. All this time, I thought I was building a business. I was just waiting.
Tessa appears at the far end of the bar, wiping a glass. She doesn’t say anything. She just gives me a long, knowing look.
The afternoon light turns the front windows to gold. Callum stacks the last of the chairs, and Milo packs up the leftover cookies, leaving a few on the bar like an offering. Knox wipes grease from his hands with a rag while Benji picks invisible dust off his jeans.
“I have upholstery lint in places I didn’t know I had,” Benji says.
“You sat on your ass for two hours,” Knox tells him.
“It was emotionally taxing.”
Jude’s phone hasn’t stopped buzzing. He’s been posting photos for the last ten minutes, narrating the comments. “Okay, some dude named Brad says the new booths are sick. Kelsey wants to know if we’re doing trivia on Thursday. Oh—my aunt wants to know if you’re single.”
He’s looking at me.
“Tell her no,” I say.
The words are out before I can catch them. The low hum of conversation just cuts off. Every head in the room turns in my direction.
Shay’s too.
Heat rushes up my neck. I’m a thirty-five-year-old man who has dealt with bar fights and burst pipes, but this is apparently what it takes to make me feel like a complete idiot.
Jude’s eyes are wide. “Oh?”
“I mean,” I say, clearing my throat. “Tell her I’m busy. The bar is busy.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“It’s what I meant.”
Benji makes a soft, knowing sound. “He’s so gone.”
“Benji,” Shay says, but the word has no edge.
Knox just watches me, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Yeah. He is.”
“I hate every single one of you,” I mutter into the sudden quiet.
“No, you don’t,” Milo says, his voice gentle.
