Deserved

3.

The rain started up like it had never stopped, but I coaxed Larry outside and we strolled under the trees lining the beach, providing us some cover. The scent of the salt from the ocean mingled with the aroma of the wet earth, providing a perfume that soothed my fraught mind. Back at the bar, Amber was helping Hunter clear up from the night before. I wasn't what you'd call a people person, so my buddy spearheaded any meetings with suppliers, or possible new partnerships. I stayed right here, polishing glasses, and taking care of the paperwork.

My grandfather was a painter, and during the war he'd created a stunning series of prints, all based around the sea. Some were of washed up boats on rocky coastlines, the sky heavy and menacing, others were of sun worshippers enjoying ice creams and sitting beside the surf, the sun glinting off the water. I first happened across the paintings when I was six years old, marvelling at the way a piece of artwork could draw me in, as if I were sitting by the sea, the breeze fanning my face. I only ever met him a handful of times, something I regret, but I couldn't control what happened when I was a kid. If he was around now, suffering like he had, I'd have been there.

Sure as s**t I'd have been there.

When I left military school, a bespectacled man with a briefcase and the most hideous comb over known to man, ambushed me as I made my way to the bus stop. He introduced himself as Terrence Damon, executor of my grandfathers will. Now I knew he wasn't a wealthy man, or rather always assumed that he struggled to make ends meet, so I didn't expect to open an envelope and find that my shrewd, thrifty grandfather had bequeathed his entire fortune to me.

Okay so it wasn't a fortune in most people's terms. But it was in mine.

I'd vowed, the day Grandpa passed away from pancreatic cancer, that I'd find the place he used to paint. The detail, the great commitment to the scenes, they had to mean one thing. That he'd sat somewhere, paintbrush in hand, observing a corner of the Earth I'd yet to find. And I did find it. Using details from the paintings, like some detective, drawing together all the clues to pin point a location, I found Willow Bay. It took me seven weeks of scrutinizing the artwork, and mind numbing google searches, but when I stepped out onto the pebbled beach, where I walked now?

I knew I was home.

The years ticked by, I enlisted, met Hunter and embarked on our two year stint in Iraq. Upon our return I bought seven acres of land close to the coast. Unlike other seaside towns, Willow hadn't been gentrified, we weren't close enough to major cities or towns to warrant weekend visits and masses of tourists. Off the beaten track, and with little to tempt holidaymakers, the place was virtually untouched. In fact, many of the beached sailing boats that my grandfather enjoyed depicting, were still there. As I made my way along the coastline, I imagined my grandfather walking beside me. His feet would have passed over the same earth, he'd have breathed in the same beguiling scent of the ocean.

If there was a place on Earth where I felt most at home, it was here.

The expansive bar was decorated with the paintings he'd gifted me with on passing. The place was relatively new, but the wooden cladding and exposed beam work inside was a purposeful tactic on my part. I wanted this place to look as if it had always existed here. I wanted passing boats to look up at the shore and see us nestled between the trees, and assume we had stood for many a year. At certain times of the year, the naval academy just along the shoreline let out, and scores of thirsty officers descended on us. I liked to imagine that my Grandpa and his friends had frequented a similar watering hole during their time in the military.

When I got back to the bar, I had to admit the boy had done good. And so had Amber. The scent of stale beer had been replaced by a zesty lemon tang, and the floor had been buffed to an inch of its life. Hunter took pride in this place, it was more than a home, more like a haven for us. We worked like a well oiled machine, once the customers had frittered away and the sun eclipsed the night, this place was cleaned from floor to high beamed ceiling. A note on the countertop told me that my friend and his groupie girlfriend had gone out for the day, and directed me towards the kitchen table.

Hunter had the entire top floor, a space he decorated with antique furniture and gothic artwork. I preferred to be on the ground floor, a heavy oak door separating the bar from my home. I slid open the door and stepped into my kitchen, bright light now pouring through the window onto the aged terra cotta tiles that I'd reclaimed from a junk yard. I liked manual labour, it busied the mind, it made time pass quicker, and it exhausted the body beyond the ability to dream. Much of the structure here, and the interior decorating had been performed by my fair hand. Hunter called me a perfectionist, he laughed as he watched me diligently laying the floor tiles, ACDC on the stereo. But it wasn't about being a perfectionist. It was about having somewhere I could be proud of. God knows there's not much in my life that I have pride in.

A note rested against a bottle of Coors Light, and I whipped it from the table. It appeared to be a cutting from a newspaper, stapled to one of the white letter headed notes we often took to meetings with suppliers.

'Check this website out. Remember what I said.'

I remembered alright. And I knew he was right, but I'd lived this long in the darkness, how could I begin to venture out into the light? And just because he had potentially found someone, didn't mean that I needed to. The thought of having someone find out about my past had my stomach heaving. The website was called;

Talktome.com

I read the brief description given in the newspaper advertisement.

'The anonymous way to make new friends today.'

'Ugh.' I balled the piece of paper in my palm and shoved it down the waste disposal unit. I didn't need a friendship website. Even if he thought I was a hermit, I enjoyed being a hermit. Maybe not enjoyed, maybe that was the wrong word, rather I felt comfortable like this. It was me. It didn't complicate my life. Not like other people could. I made a mental note to give him hell later and I uncapped the beer. My fourth of the day, and it wasn't even lunchtime.

....................

'Night captain!' Garth Kevler-one of our regulars-called out to me, as he tipped his Stetson and disappeared outside to his truck. It had been a slow night, as I predicted. Luckily, some regulars drank hard and they more than made up for the lack of custom, but by the end of the night, I was done in. Traipsing through to the kitchen, I called out to Larry, and he followed me through to the bedroom.

The floor to ceiling windows reassured me, but I know from the way the contractor looked at me when I said I didn't plan on obscuring them with curtains, made me seem like a psycho. But I liked the way nature was within touching distance. I liked to watch the stars glitter against the often jet black sky. Sometimes it seemed like the ocean could roll up against the house and carry us to sea. The thought of floating in the middle of the ocean was reassuring, just the lull of the water and a whole lot of nothingness. Tonight however, my mind tumbled with thoughts of what Hunter had said on the beach, and the pathetic website he'd left for me. As delirious fitful sleep claimed me, I had the urge to kiss a woman. An aching feeling that gripped me in a state of hypnosis.

I hadn't longed for a woman like this, in years.