“No, and that’s the fucked-up thing about it.”
“How does being sober make it worse, precisely?”
“Because now we can’t blame it on alcohol.”
Duncan crossed his arms and leaned into the post at the corner of the bar. “I take it you succumbed to this pass, then?”
“Pretty much. Dude, I messed up, right?”
Duncan made a noncommittal face. “Not necessarily. It’s inappropriate, and ill-timed, and fairly irresponsible on your part, but it’s also not at all surprising.”
“No?”
Duncan smiled, as dry as unbuttered toast. “Have you forgotten the way you two used to circle each other?”
“No, but I mean, I didn’t know she was pregnant back then. Plus I’m her boss now.”
“And I don’t relish the day this implodes and we need to find a new bartender. But as I said, I’m not surprised.”
Casey felt his face turning pink. “In my defense, it wasn’t sex or anything.” Though Christ, it had felt like more than what it had been, hadn’t it? More memorable than the last time he’d gotten laid, for sure.
“I wouldn’t overthink it if I were you,” Duncan said. “Your very under-rested, very overstressed employee came on to you. The girl’s awash with hormones I don’t care to attempt to fathom, and scared, and probably somewhat imprinted on you. Unlikely though it may seem, you’re the most reliable male role model in her life at the moment. Don’t rake yourself over the coals for whatever’s happened, but for goodness’ sake, don’t encourage it if you don’t see it going anywhere.”
“It can’t go anywhere. That much I know for sure.” Though Christ, he wanted to feel that again, everything she’d brought out in him, last night. Everything that had burned between the two of them. Propriety could go fuck itself.
Duncan nodded. “Her life is complicated enough without all this.”
“Exactly. Plus she doesn’t know about my mental health shit, and I don’t feel like heaping that on top of all her other worries. Even if I wanted to make promises I’m not sure I’m actually ready for, there’s no guarantee I’ll be lucid enough to keep them in a few years’ time.”
“A fair point.” Duncan headed for the register, unlocked it, and took out the previous night’s deposit bag. “How’s the girl doing, otherwise?”
“Okay, I think. Scared, obviously, but the baby’s got a checkup, and it’s probably good that she’s had to get off the Church family compound for a few hours.”
“No doubt. Would you start on the floors while I take this to the bank?”
“Yeah, sure. Oh—tomorrow morning, Vince wants everybody out at Three C for a club meeting. Get our heads together over scheduling watches for the next week or so. Plus Miah has some unrelated business.”
Duncan looked uncomfortable, and not without reason. “Please tell me you’re only informing me so that I can pass this along to Raina.”
“You wish. You’re as tangled up in all this business as any of us are. Like it or not, you’re officially a Desert Dog. So your presence is required at meetings.”
“We ought to put it to a vote. I can tell you now, both Church and myself will vote nay.”
“Miah’s too fucking busy to care about that ancient history, man, and club business trumps hurt feelings. Anyhow, it’s got to be a breakfast meeting—six a.m. tomorrow.”
He sighed. “Fine. How long are you in, this afternoon?”
“I can probably hang ’til six.”
“In that case I might disappear into the office while you’re here. I could get on top of placing the help-wanted ads.” They’d need cooks soon, and at least two bar-slash-waitstaff, and there was no telling when Abilene would be back on the job. “And I’ve got to chase down a vendor about the counters that are going in this week.”
“Works for me.” Running around filling orders and making change Casey could handle, but he was glad Duncan was taking over the bulk of the tasks that required organization and a clear head. “Leave opening ’til five to me, if you want,” he told Duncan. “I’ll be fine solo ’til the postwork rush.”
“I may just do that. Can you handle Ware alone, if he turns up?”
“Guess I’ll fucking find out.” He paused, nagged by another thought. He’d been caught up in two impulsive decisions last night, and he wouldn’t mind Duncan’s opinion on this one, either. “Can I talk to you about one other thing, real quick?”
“Of course. What?”
“So I . . . I found this service,” Casey said.
“Service?”
“This mail-order thing that does DNA testing, with cheek swabs and shit, like you’d mentioned last fall.” He’d seen an ad for it in a magazine, and early this morning—to distract himself from the ache Abilene had left between his legs—he’d gone online to check it out. “You can get your medical markers analyzed, find out if you have a higher chance of getting diabetes or cancer or Alzheimer’s—whole load of shit.”
“Including dementia?” Duncan prompted gently.
“Yeah.” As far as Casey knew, that was what had left his mom a vacant, spacey husk by age forty. These days her world consisted of whatever was on the TV, and Vince, his girlfriend, Kim, their neighbor Nita, and Casey all split the duties of caring for her. Casey couldn’t lie—stressful or not, this past week had been an undeniable relief, with Abilene’s situation leaving him too busy to pitch in much on the family front. Every visit to his mom’s place was a reminder that her depressing fate might be his own, and not too far down the road. He shared those occasional seizurelike incidents of hers, after all. During his own episodes he went into another place, had weird vivid dreams, all while thrashing around on the ground. Duncan had witnessed one.
Weirder still, those dreams had a creepy way of coming true, though Duncan knew nothing about that fucked-up factoid. Vince knew, and now Miah did as well—if only because Casey’s last little spell had shown him a vision of Miah dying in a fire, on a starless night. He hoped that dream was a dud, though, or that they’d somehow managed to prevent it—starless nights only happened to Fortuity during the region’s minuscule rainy season, and that had come and gone with the holidays, tragedy-free.
Vince believed that the dreams were something to be taken seriously. He’d seen their mom’s crazy ramblings come true too many times to ignore them. Miah, on the other hand . . . well, skeptical was an understatement. He didn’t have a superstitious bone in his body, plus, to be fair, the guy hadn’t suffered so much as pizza burn since Casey had envisioned that fire.
He himself was starting to doubt if any of the stuff he’d ever dreamed up had been anything more than hallucinations.
But if I’m not seeing the future, what does that make me? The answer was, plain old fucking crazy. Just like his mom.
Either way, Casey wanted some answers—about his brain health, if not all this psychic nonsense. Needed answers. If he was going to keep telling himself he was finally manning up, there was no excuse to quit being such a goddamn pussy about it.
He told Duncan, “You can pay extra and get a thirty-minute consultation with a DNA expert over the phone, to go over the results.”
“And you’re going to do it?”
Much as hearing the truth terrified him . . . “Yeah, I think it’s fucking time.”
“Why now?”
The million-dollar question, right there. Maybe because having his feelings for Abilene violently reignited had got his subconscious wondering if his chances at a real long-term thing with a woman were well and truly fucked. Not that he wanted such a thing with Abilene, of course. She came with way too much built-in responsibility for his comfort. But somebody, maybe. Someday. If he had any somedays coming to him.
To Duncan, though, he fibbed. “All this shit here, with you and the business . . . I gotta know. You deserve to know if I’m gonna be fucking incompetent in five or ten years. Plus it’s only a couple hundred bucks. I got no excuse to keep putting it off.”