Chapter eight in The Davies serialized novel. More new characters are introduced. I’ll have a blog post soon about the mistakes I’m seeing I made when initially writing this book. It’s been a trip!

Owen had spent the entire day crouching over spreadsheets and bank statements and now he was paying for it. No ergonomic chair or desk could compete with 8 hours of data analysis.  He stood and stretched slowly, feeling his muscles complain painfully. Snapping his laptop shut he headed out the door and upstairs to his apartment. Numbers don’t lie, he reflected as he stowed his laptop and grabbed his gym bag. He had assessed his father’s business – his business now, from every angle. Several things became apparent straight off.

Chief among them was that they had spent so much time trying to win a commercial bid in Revere that they were now behind on local contracts. They had turned down other projects because his contact at the company kept acting like Caldwell had the inside track. But, they were underbid by Decsenzo Bros. Not for the first time either. That outfit was a piece of crap as far as Owen was concerned. He was amazed that Tolman Properties had gone with them.

On the drive to the gym, he tried to clear his head. After all, the business wasn’t in immediate danger. But the signs of weakness were concerning. They had nothing of any real size the works until the end of the year, just a small job here and there. He had plans for the Elm Street property his father had left him. If they could get that development approved, then it would keep the entire crew busy until things picked up. If that failed though…   

It was clear that he was going to have to get off his ass and sell Cliff Top since he wouldn’t be able to pay himself a salary. The company might survive, but he’d starve. Even as-is, the house was worth a chunk. He would have to find a way to get over being a coward and go clean the place out.

He hit the treadmill and warmed up to full speed. He loved to run and think, channeling whatever stress he was feeling to his feet, letting his body burn the adrenaline off. By the time he had finished, showered and changed, he had a few decent ideas formed. This was the point he liked best, when he could see the storm forming and make a plan, not sit there and worry about it.

Unbidden, the memory of the day he learned his father died flew through his mind. That was a storm he hadn’t planned for. His father’s death ripped through his life like a tornado, lifting it off its foundations and dumping it battered and bruised in a different place altogether. The last time he saw his dad alive they had talked business. They rarely had a reason to discuss anything else so his last words to his father were about a bid on a boathouse and one of the contractors quitting. They were standing in Owen’s office. His dad left saying “I’ll see you when you get back” and that was it.

As he thought back on it now, there was no clue, no indicator that he was about to die. The man never complained about an ache or pain in his life, for all Owen knew he was invincible.

Guilt.

There we go. It was only a matter of time. Think of his father, and the guilt would come. His stomach was full of it now. He’d been planning to go home and watch the game, but he needed distraction from the thoughts now threatening to surface. Instead, he headed to O’Neil’s, his friend Kevin O’Neil’s restaurant and bar. Five years after graduation, Kevin had convinced him to go in with him to buy their old high-school haunt. He told Kevin to name it what he liked so of course he named it after himself. Owen didn’t mind. He enjoyed being a silent partner. He had no interest in running a bar.

O’Neil’s did a great business year-round since it was popular with locals. Kevin had done his best to make it the kind of place that you could be comfortable hanging out in regardless of your socioeconomic status. When he pulled into the parking lot, it looked packed. Good for business, maybe not so much for his state of mind. He went in anyway.  

The building was a squat, one-story box sitting a mere 100 yards from the water. They had a huge deck built off the back to capitalize on the view. They hadn’t had to kill themselves to afford the rent since the water’s edge was rocks and marsh, not the ocean. He walked in the front door and into a small vestibule. It acted as a barrier to weather, but also as a barrier to sound. When he opened the inner door, the noise hit him like a wall.

In the center of the room was a long rectangle bar currently filled on all sides with patrons either watching the game or shouting to each other over the din of conversation and the sound system which piped either generic rock music or Celtic tunes depending on the night. The walls were lined with high-backed booths seating four people or six skinny teenagers. On the far side from the entrance were two smaller rooms with private dining areas and a passageway out to the deck.  The kitchen was at one end and next to the door he had come in from was a tiny room with a table for four. It was the original coat check and now it was called the ‘snug’. It was about as private as you could get in a public bar.

Kevin had decorated with pub classics like street signs, Guinness and Harp advertisements, and a few flags. It was wall to wall green and gold with a bit of Scottish stuff mixed in. He told Owen the thistle glasses and plaid curtains were for him. Owen had to remind Kevin that his father hadn’t any use for the old country so the only thing Scottish Owen was familiar with was whisky.

Tonight he headed straight for the bar to find Kevin and get a sense of whether or not he’d be likely to get a meal anytime soon. Kevin was at the far corner talking over the bar to one of the waitresses. He saw Owen and waved him over, clearing a spot in front of an open stool. “Have a seat buddy before it’s gone. It is seriously hopping tonight.” He said this with a bit of giggle which coming from his 6’3” ex-linebacker friend was a bit odd.

Kevin checked on something with the bartender and turned to Owen. “Whatcha want tonight anyway?”

            “To eat.” Owen said simply.

“Don’t be an ass. The usual?” Kevin asked. Owen smiled and nodded. Kevin waved over a busboy and asked him to run into the kitchen with the order. “No plans tonight?”

            “I’m making them now.” Owen said as he scanned the faces surrounding the bar.

“And of course you’re serious about that.” He shook his head. Kevin had married his high school sweetheart a year after they graduated and had criticized Owen’s dating habits ever since. “You’re too old to be this aggressively single.”

Owen shrugged at this and took a drink of the beer Kevin had put in front of him.

Their entire group of friends considered him a player and it grated a little. They imagined that Owen took every girl he met home with him only to kick them out before breakfast. He didn’t. It would be pointless to try to clear that up though.  Kevin enjoyed taking the moral high ground so after a while Owen decided to cede it to him. It didn’t help that his mistake with Renee was now public knowledge. You don’t leave a bar with a woman in full view of a crowd and not expect to catch some grief. Not in a place like this.

One face Owen did recognize as he scanned the bar. Will. He sat sullenly a few stools down. Owen leaned in and tried to get the man’s attention, but his face was in his beer, and it looked like it had been there a while. Eventually he looked up and Owen raised an eyebrow at him. Slowly Will unwound himself from his stool and walked over to Owen. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself. No offense, but you look a little rough. Bad day?” Will shrugged and sat down on the stool next to Owen.

 “Everything’s fine when you get right down to it but…” Will trailed off.

“What?”

            “I had a run-in with a ghost of sorts.”

“Okay, I’m assuming it was of the female variety.”

            “Yes. She has a cousin.” Will didn’t need to clarify who ‘she’ was. Owen knew who he meant. There had only been one ‘she’ for Will for the last two years. She was why the man was sitting at this bar with his hang-dog face.

Owen stared at him waiting for him to go on. Will made him pull this sort of stuff out of him. “And she came to the bakery?” he prompted.

            “No, that would probably have been fine. Dani could have run interference for me. She came to church with her aunts. It ended up being a thing. She got into it with one of the fine old ladies of Coventry. There was some shouting. She ran off crying and I chased after her, because apparently, I’m a glutton for punishment.”

“No Will, you’re a good guy and for some reason women like to hurt you.”

            “Not all women…just the one.” He sighed and hung his head again.

Image credit: Kevin Snow via Unsplash