Unlawful Chase, C.J. Schnier [best book clubs TXT] 📗

look at the total listed at the bottom. I winced when I noticed I had spent over two hundred dollars. I was confident I had found the source of my blackout. The Brass Monkey was the most dangerous place in the town of Marathon. At least as far as your liver and standards in people were concerned.

I can't say it surprised me. For weeks I had found my way there, as if by muscle memory. The drinks helped to both hide the horridness of the bar and to drown out the ghosts who haunted me. The Monkey was the sort of joint where cigarette smoke settled in a permanent halo around the bar, and the floors were sticky enough to catch flies. None of that mattered much to me. The drinks were cheap, and the food was decent. Best of all, they stayed open until 4 am. The combination of cheap booze and later hours might be dangerous, but it was the best place to forget about life for a while.

Stirring sounds, followed by a soft groan, wafted out from the v-berth. It must have been the smell of the coffee that woke her, I realized. I poured us both a cup and went in to meet my guest.

"Good morning," I said, "I've got coffee here if you want it."

She was reclining against the bulkhead and snatched the blanket up, holding across her bare breasts. I couldn't help but look at the constellation of freckles scattered across her skin from her chest all the way to her cheeks.

"Thanks," she said with a sheepish smile as she took the mug I offered her. I noticed she had all of her teeth. You never could tell with those Brass Monkey women. That bar didn't always have the highest caliber of clientele. The combination of beer-goggles and dim lighting had led to more than one awkward encounter the following morning.

"About last night..." I said, gathering my thoughts.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "You had a lot to drink, it happens to everyone."

"I'm sorry, what? What are you talking about?" I asked, taken aback by her insinuations.

"You don't remember?" She asked, a knowing smile on her face. "I wouldn't worry too much. You were pretty wasted."

My mind raced for an explanation. Don't remember what? Hell, I couldn't remember anything. "Um, no, I don't remember much of anything about last night." It was my turn to sound sheepish.

She diverted her eyes to her cup of coffee. "You could barely keep it up. At first, I thought it was me. Like, I wasn't good enough for you, but after a while you passed out. That's when I realized you were just too drunk."

So that was it. I guess I didn't get as lucky as I had thought. I looked her over, seeing her for the first time. Or at least for the first time I could remember. She was younger than me. Less than thirty, if I had to guess. Her freckles stood out against her pale, translucent skin. She was beautiful in the same way a Greek statue was beautiful, real, yet mesmerizing and otherworldly.

When she looked up at me again, verdant green eyes shimmering with gold specks met my gaze. A mixture of embarrassment, vulnerability, and loneliness played across her features. I had no doubts those eyes had attracted me to her. I once loved someone who had those same eyes. Someone who had been ripped from my life without warning. Someone I desperately needed to let go of, but was too afraid to try.

I looked at the girl in my bed and banished the ghost from my mind. "Darlin' if I had a problem last night it certainly wasn't you. I had way too much to drink. In fact, if I had been sober, I would have had the opposite problem." I said, giving her a disarming wink.

Her pale face flushed red, but a genuine smile crept across her lips.

"You don't remember anything?" she asked.

"Honestly, No, I don't. This is going to sound horrible, but I'm afraid I can't remember your name."

She stared at me for a moment. Her face contorted into different expressions as she worked through what I had told her. I figured she was trying to decide if she should be angry or if she should take pity on me.

"My name is Anna," she said at last.

"Well, Anna, it is, um, nice to meet you. Again."

Anna favored me with a pitying look. "What now, stud?" she asked after an uncomfortable moment of silence.

"I vote we drink our coffee. After that, if you want to go back to shore, I'll be glad to take you."

"That sounds good," she said.

We drank together without saying a word. Small wavelets caressed the outside of the hull, the sound amplified by our awkward silence. Neither of us knew what to say, and when our mugs were finally empty, I jumped at the chance to wash them.

"Chase?"

"Yeah?" I called back from the galley.

"Could you bring me my clothes? I don't know where they're at."

It took me a few minutes, but I found all our clothes. I bundled up Anna's and brought them to her. She ushered me out of the v-berth so she could get dressed. I found her modesty misplaced considering I had slept with her last night. But I knew better than to question the eccentricities of women.

I pulled on my own clothes, a ratty pair of board shorts and a ragged t-shirt, before heading out onto the deck. Squinting against the harsh sunlight, I looked over the mooring field. Boot Key Harbor bustled with activity. Two hundred boats of all shapes and sizes filled the entire harbor. They sat arranged in neat rows, resting patiently, while their occupants shuttled back and forth from shore. It was another beautiful sunny day in Marathon, but I couldn't enjoy it. My headache screamed against the sun's blinding attack on my eyes, and I retreated to the shade of the cockpit.

My dinghy, a hard-bottomed inflatable, floated abreast