Page 62 of Rough

Garret tossed me a confused glance. “What are you doing?” he mouthed.

I smiled. My distraction tactic had worked.

“That’s me, with my fraternity brothers after a fundraiser during pledge week,” Charles explained.

“You must have been close to your fraternity brothers,” I mentioned.

Garret gave me a sideways look. He clearly wanted to know where I was going with this.

“He looks familiar,” I said and pointed to a man on the far left, who was leaning in with his arm draped around Charles’ shoulders. Both men were smiling widely. They looked like they had been friends for years.

“Oh, yes. That’s my fraternity brother Nelson Sanderson. He and I go way back.”

Garret’s expression was over the moon with elation. He finally understood the trap. Charles had confessed his personal connection to Nelson with such ease that he had missed his mistake completely.

“Thank you for your time,” Garret said and nodded to me with a private grin of excitement.

We both shook the mayor’s hand and exited the office, intending to return to the club to set up for the day.

Once at the club, we realized that it wasn’t going to take much time or effort. Since the club had been shut down prematurely the night before, there wasn’t much to clean up and the employees had come in early to set up. In fact, the place was downright spotless.

Garret’s grim demeanor was returning as he lamented over how he was going to pay his staff for such exemplary service with all the closures.

“Will you stop?” I asked him, stroking his cheek and rubbing his back. “You aren’t thinking straight. You can’t allow yourself to automatically assume the worst.”

“It’s easier said than done,” Garret complained with a resentful frown. “You haven’t had to stand up to bullies your entire life. I just can’t let Nelson win, especially since he’s gone through such shady means to rip the rug right out from under me.”

Garret’s eyes brimmed with defiance and assertiveness that I had never seen on anyone else. I knew he wanted to persevere no matter the cost, fighting tooth and nail until the very end.

It was my natural instinct to want to convince Garret to just back down and sell the damn club and move on. He could always open up another club in a different location, but since he kept bringing up the discriminations of his past that he had already conquered, I couldn’t bring myself to sway him in the selling direction.

Bullies were clearly Garret’s blind spot. I realized then that my sole responsibility, for now, should be to comfort him and support him, no matter what choices he made in the end.

Part of my admission to being a sub meant that sometimes, it wasn’t my battle. I had to step aside and let Garret deal with this in his own way. I would be there to pick up the pieces if needed, but I was assured that between the two of us, we could get through this storm and come out shining on the other side.

16

Garret

We weren’t yet officially open for the night when Linda, the bookstore owner from across the street, came in, fidgeting, pacing, and wringing her hands. She had a wild look on her face and her overall demeanor seemed flustered and extremely anxious.

“Is everything all right, Linda?” I asked, knowing full well that everything was not all right.

Linda looked at me, her hand visibly shaking as she raised it to tuck a strand of loose hair behind her ear.

“Linda?” I pressed after she stared at me, seemingly looking straight through me. It was almost as if she hadn’t heard me. Maybe she didn’t even realize I was there at all.

“I, uh…” she trailed off.

I glanced at Felix, who shrugged. He seemed just as puzzled as I was about Linda’s behavior.

“What’s wrong, Linda?” I asked in a gentler tone to coax her into talking.

She didn’t immediately respond, but her eyes shimmered with guilt.

“Whatever it is, I’m sure we can work through it.” I managed to give her a smile, but it felt fake on my lips.

“I’m not so sure we can work through this.” Linda shook her head.