The Bottle and the Bruise

The bar was dark and thinly crowded, neon buzzing sickly in the window. Richie sat hunched over a glass of something brown and mean, eyes glassy, lip already split from a fight he barely remembered starting.

“Keep it comin’,” he muttered to the bartender.

“Richie.”

The voice came from behind him — gravel and steel. Francis.

“Fuck off,” Richie slurred without looking.

Francis didn’t move. “I got a call. You were throwin’ punches at a guy twice your size.”

“I won,” Richie muttered. “Sorta.”

Francis sat down beside him. Quiet. Heavy.

“You know, you’re not the only one who bleeds in this family,” he said, almost gently.

Richie chuckled darkly, then wiped at his lip with the back of his hand. “I told her to leave.”

Francis didn’t ask who. He didn’t need to.

“And now you’re drowning in whiskey ‘cause you miss her.”

“’Cause I loved her,” Richie snapped, voice cracking like something raw underneath. “And I keep screwin’ it up.”

Francis was quiet for a beat. Then: “Let’s get you home.”

Richie shook his head. “Nah. I don’t wanna go back to that apartment. Everything in it smells like her.”

Francis looked at him — really looked — and for a moment, he saw the kid underneath all the swagger and bruises.

“I’ll take you to her place.”

Richie looked up, startled. “You serious?”

“I’m not carryin’ your drunk ass across half of Chicago to let you choke on your own self-pity. She deserves to know what’s tearing you up. And maybe you deserve one more shot.”

---

Three knocks. Then silence.

She opened the door in a robe, sleep in her eyes. When she saw Francis, her brows furrowed. Then she saw Richie, and they softened.

“I’m sorry,” Francis said, steady and low. “He wouldn’t go anywhere else.”

Richie didn’t look at her. He just leaned against the doorframe, eyes glazed, hands shaking slightly.

“I didn’t wanna come,” he muttered. “But I didn’t wanna be anywhere else either.”