Who Do You Love - Dean Ambrose

Fun and Games

The inventively titled Smokey's Bar sat back from the road right beside the motel parking lot. It was a small little place – a single-storied hut in essence – but at the same time it was pretty much what I was expecting and more than that, it was what I liked as well. It was a small-town bar for a small-town girl and stepping inside felt almost like being home again. Even the neon signs felt familiar as did the handlebar moustache guy cleaning glasses, who looked up and flashed his teeth in my direction as I hopped up onto a barstool and leant my elbows on the wood.

"Evening miss, what brings you here? Let me guess. They cancelled your flight?"

"Wow," I smiled, "You know, you're pretty good at this?"

"I might've had a bit of practise across the years. What are you drinking anyhow?"

"Bourbon, straight up."

He blinked at me from under his bandana and by the way his eyebrows rose up out of sight I could tell that he was surprised by my order. He probably figured me for light beer girl and I imagined that's what Dean probably thought of me too.

"Whatever you say little lady," he chuckled, flinging the washcloth over one shoulder and quickly loosening the cap off a bottle, "That bad a night, huh?"

"That bad a day."

He slid the drink across to me and I took a sip of smooth brown nectar. It hit my throat like a flow of hot lava and I closed my eyes and sank into burn.

"All because of this little old storm?"

"That and the guy I'm travelling with," I huffed at him, "Who's just so – just so – ,"

What was he exactly?

Failing to find an appropriate word I instead waved my arm in the air in description and the bartender smiled and offered me a nod.

"You like him, huh?"

I recoiled in an instant, my vehement refusal a little too fast.

"What? No. I don't – I don't like him."

"Uh huh, whatever you say there sweetheart."

I downed the rest of my drink in a gulp and without the need for any kind of prompting, the bartender reached over and topped it back up.

"Thank you," I mumbled and he threw a knowing wink at me and then ambled off to serve other customers along the bar.

The solitude allowed me to think for the first time. As in really, honestly sit down and think, which I hadn't actually done since I'd set off that morning when things had been different and it had all seemed – well – simple.

I would fly out to Baton Rouge, meet with my father, be immersed in a cocoon of familial love and not have to face every day on my own. Because that's what I was. Completely on my own. I mean, okay, so sure, I always had Kelly but other than that there was nobody else. From the moment I was born until the moment she had left me, it had always been just me and my mom. No grandparents, no aunts and uncles, no cousins.

Just the two of us, together.

Except now there was only one.