"Wait, ass-less chaps... made out of tin foil?" I ask in bewilderment.

Austin laughs. "Yeah, but that's not the craziest thing I've seen. We take Mardi Gras pretty seriously in New Orleans."

I give him a flat look. "I really don't think tin foil ass-less chaps would make the experience better... more like uncomfortable."

"Yeah, you're probably right. My mom forbid us from attending the parade until we were teenagers. She was trying to prolong our innocence, I guess," he jokes, but I detect a twinge of sadness in his tone.

"Our?" I ask curiously. "Do you have any siblings?"

"My brother, Reed. He's two years younger than me. You've met him before, actually. Well, not met, but yeah, he was with me the day I hired you." he explains.

I smile, remembering the day he waltzed into RJ's and offered me a job on the spot. It was also nice to finally put a name to a face; but now that I think about it, I haven't seen Austin's brother around in awhile.

I fiddle with the crumpled up napkin next to my empty plate, pondering my next words. "Does he live here in Memphis too?"

I watch as he takes a sip of his soda before responding. "Nah, he's back in Louisiana with my mom. He visits every once in a while, though."

"Your mom is in Louisiana, too?" I ask, surprised.

He shifts in his seat. "Yeah," he exhales. "Well, a small town outside of New Orleans. She, uh, lives in a senior apartment in Metairie. Twenty-four hour care. It's a nice place."

"Twenty-four hour care?" I ask gently. "Is she okay?"

Austin smiles wryly. "Alzheimer's."

And that, ladies and gentleman, is the sound of my ice cold heart splitting in two.

"Oh, wow," I say softly. "Were you close?"

He clears his throat. "Sometimes."

I take that as my cue to change the subject. Feeling grateful that he's already shared so much personal information with me tonight, I decide to reciprocate.

"Savannah and I are pretty close. I like to think she's the mini-version of myself, but nicer," I joke.

Austin smirks. "She told me you chased her around with worms when you were kids."

"Oh, god," I laugh. "The one time a year my dad would take us fishing. Savannah hated it. Between the live worms and the killer mosquitos... yeah, it wasn't the best time. I guess I wanted to see how annoyed she would get."

I smile bitterly as I remember being woken up at the ass crack of dawn, my dad screaming at us to throw our rain boots on and get our asses out to his truck. My dad and I were never close, but for some reason, he had initiated annual fishing trips. It was maybe the one day a year where he was stone cold sober and alert. A raging asshole, sure, but a sober asshole.

"I never knew either sets of my grandparents," I find myself confessing. "My mom was disowned when she was sixteen. My dad never knew his father, and his mom was about as coherent as a concrete wall. He told me he'd always wanted to go fishing as a little boy. I don't know, it's just something he'd always been interested in."

Austin stares at me curiously. "Where's your dad now?"

I sigh. "I don't know. He met a woman almost a year ago.. had an affair. Hopped on a Greyhound, and we haven't seen him since. I don't care to know where he is."

"You don't mean that," he says gently.

I stare at him, stunned. "He was a shitty father. Yes, he might've lived in the same house, but he was absent. Drugs were more important to him, and alcohol is more important to my mother."

Austin scratches the stubble on his chin and shoots me a wry smile. "Addiction is a hell of a disease. I think the hardest thing to come to terms with is the fact that we know they love us. Deep down, they do. They just don't know how to show us. The desire, the need to get high, it takes control. They're powerless."

I swallow harshly.

We know they love us. They just don't know how to show us.

Us.

Briefly, I wonder who in his life is, or was, an addict. He was right, he does understand it more than I thought. There's so much more to this guy than I realized, and it makes me want to sit at this table for hours and discover every little thing about him.

A beat of silence passes, and finally, I choke out, "I think you're right. There's a lot I don't know. And honestly.. I don't think I wanted to."

Austin clears his throat. "It's getting late. Should we head out?"

Scrambling out from my side of the booth, I hastily pull my phone from my back pocket. My eyes widen once I check the screen. 4 AM.

Time flies when you swap life stories with your boss in an empty Waffle House.

"Holy shit," I blurt out.

Austin laughs and digs his keys and wallet from his pocket.

"I've got my half covered," I say, proudly pulling a crumpled $20 bill from the pocket of my jeans.

He waves me off and tucks a handful of bills under the canister of sugar sitting atop the sticky tabletop. "It's all good. I invited you."

I roll my eyes playfully and huff as I follow him to the door. "Technically, you didn't invite me. You said "You coming?" and got out of the car."

The parking lot is deserted, and the sky is dark and full of stars. The cool breeze sweeps across my skin and blows strands of hair in my face.

Austin laughs and walks around to the passenger side of his Jeep, opening the door. I climb up clumsily. "Did I? Next time I'll be sure to give you a proper invite."

I pause, one hand on the seat belt. "Next time?"

Austin smirks. "Yeah."

"Is that your response to everything?" I grumble. Then I shake my head. "Never mind, don't answer that."

He closes my door, his raspy laugh echoing across the empty parking lot as he rounds the car.

I'm tired as hell. The exhaustion of a six hour shift weighs heavily on literally every part of my body, but at the same time, I don't want to go to sleep. I don't want to go home, because that would mean that tonight has to end. I'm having fun sharing stories and learning about each other.

I'm not scared to be vulnerable around him. Which both excites and scares the living fuck out of me.

"How are you not tired right now?" I ask incredulously.

He sighs wistfully. "I'm used to long nights. I was a bouncer at a club in New Orleans before I moved here."

I stare at him in shock. "No shit?"

"No shit," he muses.

I twist sideways in my seat and narrow my eyes at him. "How the hell did you go from a bouncer at a club in New Orleans, to a manager at a club in Memphis?"

Austin smirks. "I have a degree in business management. Kind of essential if I want to, ya know, manage a business."

I lean back in my seat and stare at him with wide eyes. "Holy fuck. Sorry if this is too forward, but you're way more interesting than me and I need to know everything about you. This conversation will be continued."

He laughs again, looking over at me as he pulls up in front of my house and puts the car in park.

"I'm not that interesting," he says, amusement dripping from his tone.

"Oh, you are such a fucking liar. You know you are! I need to know everything there is about life in New Orleans," I say excitedly.

He smiles. "I'll tell you all about it tomorrow."

I unfasten my seatbelt and look at him in confusion. "Tomorrow?"

"Yeah," he says casually, "Tomorrow's Sunday. You're off on Sunday's. I want to take you and Savannah to lunch."

Taken aback, I flinch in surprise. I'm no longer tired. Suddenly, I'm wide awake.

"You don't have to do that," I reason.

"I know."

I purse my lips. "You are... something else."

Austin smirks, lightly tapping the steering wheel. "That a good thing?"

I sigh and open the car door. Jumping down, I turn towards him and narrow my eyes. "See you tomorrow."

And then I proceed to close the car door on his victorious, smirking, very cute, face.

There's a noticeable spring to my step as I trek down the driveway and skip up the front porch. The smile stays on my face as I unlock the front door and step inside, and even as I close it and lean my back against it, a happy sigh leaving my lips.

And then the kitchen light turns on, and reality knocks into me at full force.

My mom stumbles forward, cigarette in hand, graying hair sticking in every direction and nothing but a large t-shirt covering her hollow frame.

"Who was that?" her raspy voice asks.

Immediately, my face hardens and a scowl slips onto my lips so easily I'd almost forgotten that it hadn't been there in hours. "No one."

I go to shove past her, but the hand holding a cigarette shoots towards me, causing me to jump back to avoid getting burned. Mom takes a step forward, peering up at me with furrowed brows and a pensive look.

"You fucking him?" she accuses.

I roll my eyes. "Not that it's any of your business, but no. Now, move. I want to go to bed."

She steps closer. "He got money?"

I stay quiet, my frustration growing.

"Aw, hell," she hoots, throwing her head back and letting out a maniacal laugh. "He's paying you, ain't he? No man like that would get it from somebody like you for free."

I tense, her words feeling like a slap to the face. "Somebody like me?"

Mom takes a small step back and takes a slow drag from her cigarette. Carelessly flicking the ashes on the linoleum floor, she tilts her head in faux consideration. Her eyes roam my frame. "Poor. Trashy. Stuck-up."

Her words hurt, but I know better than to retaliate. Instead, I ignore her, knowing she's hoping for a violent reaction and an outrageous outburst. She won't get one. I slip into full-force, bitch-face mode, and stare at her flatly.

"Are you done?" I ask snidely.

She smirks, her yellow teeth on show. She steps aside. "For now. Night night, now. Sleep tight."

I roll my eyes again and take a step forward.

And then I stop. Austin's words from earlier echo in my mind.

We know they love us. They just don't know how to show us.

Maybe he's right. Maybe she doesn't mean it.

Feeling brave, I spin around and pin my mom's gaze with a hard stare. She smirks, probably expecting me to finally explode and spew a load of curses and hatred her way, but instead I take a deep breath and ask her something that I've wanted to know since the first night I picked up her sobbing body off of our kitchen floor.

"Why do you drink?"

Mom stares at me blankly. No emotion. No movement. Absolutely nothing.

And that angers me. Because there's never any fucking emotion with her. Ever since I was a child. If I tried to hug her, she'd push me away and tell me to go play. If I tried to ask a question, she'd shoo me away with a lazy "Not now, Aria."

I swallow and say, "I want to know. I want to understand."

Nothing.

"Just... give me something. Even if it's a lie. I just need something. I need to know... who you are, and why it's an option, or why... I don't know. I guess I just want to-"

"You're the spitting image of your daddy," she says flatly.

I snap my head up and rear back in shock. "What?"

Mom ignores me, and instead walks around me and steps up to the kitchen sink, tossing her cigarette inside. I watch, flabbergasted as she nonchalantly turns on the faucet and stares blankly as the streaming water puts out the burning ember. Finally, she turns towards me.

She sniffs. "You look just like him. You got your eye color and high cheek bones from him."

I don't respond.

"I loved him," she croaks.

"I know," I say cautiously. Because I did. I believed her when she says that she loved him. Even though we both know she shouldn't. But it's hard to control that kind of thing, isn't it?

"He hurt me."

"I'm sorry," I say. And I am.

Mom looks up at me, a far away look in her eye. "I'm going to bed."

I nod ruefully. "Okay, mom."

I watch as she pads down the hall and silently enters her room. I stand in the same spot for awhile, unsure of how the fuck to feel or where the hell to go from here.

She didn't give me an answer. But at the same time, she kind of did.

I don't understand it, and maybe I never will, but Austin was right; Addiction is a hell of a disease.

——

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