“Couple of weeks.”
“You look amazing.” Her voice rang out a little too loudly, so half the bar turned to listen. “Big-time lawyer now, huh?”
I smiled. “Something like that.”
“And you’re single, right?”
Ah yes, small towns, where your relationship status was just as, or more important than your employment.
I flashed another smile. “It was good to see you, Casey.”
At the blatant avoidance, she grinned like a cat and wandered off, leaving me to fend for myself as three more familiar faces closed in.
“Gillian!”
“Oh my God, it’s been forever!”
“Where’ve you been hiding? We thought the big city swallowed you whole.”
And, inevitably: “So how’re your parents?”
There it was again. Like the town had a script they’d all agreed on, and that line was bolded and underlined.
My smile strained around the edges. “They’re fine.” I’d stick to the party line, because complicated didn’t even begin to cover it.
I ducked into the back hallway with my tray before anyone else remembered and recounted a story about me from tenth grade that they expected me to smile and nod through.
Small towns had long memories. And in Huckleberry Creek, they’d ask the questions straight to your face, no hesitation, under the guise of friendly familiarity.
I made a beeline for the kitchen window, dropped off the next round of orders, and used the clatter of plates and the sizzle from the flat top as cover to dig my vibrating phone out of my back pocket.
Of course it was my boss. Because why would the term “vacation” actually mean anything to him?
I swiped to answer and ducked into the hallway that led to the back office, pressing the phone to my ear to try to block out the noise of the bar.
“Gillian,” came the clipped, too-entitled voice of someone who’d never had to carry three pitchers of beer at once in his life, “please tell me you’ve seen my notes.”
I braced myself. “Yes, sir. I’ve seen them.” I hadn’t been able to stop myself from checking when the email came in earlier today.
“Good. Because the client wants the revisions first thing tomorrow morning. This is a big one. The kind of deal that puts you on the short list when the partners start thinking about who’s ready to move up. You understand?”
“I understand.” I leaned against the office door frame and shut my eyes for a second.
“Excellent. Then you’ll make sure the updated draft is on my desk by six a.m. No excuses.”
I could’ve pointed out that I was officially on leave. I could’ve reminded him that the only reason I wasn’t in the office was because I was taking my first time off in four years to visit family.
But I didn’t.
Because in my world, vacation didn’t mean a damn thing. If I didn’t do the work, someone else would. And after all the hours I’d put in—after everything I’d sacrificed—there was no way in hell I was going to let that happen.
“Of course.”
“Perfect. I’ll expect it in the morning.” He hung up without waiting for a reply.
I stared at the phone for a second, then shoved it back in my pocket. Another all-nighter. It wasn’t like I hadn’t done a hundred of them before. I’d built my life on the idea that I could do it all if I just worked harder, pushed longer, kept running. And I had. I would do this. I always had. I just wished I believed it more now than I did five minutes ago.
The wall of sound hit me the second I stepped back into the bar—laughter, clinking glasses, the jukebox fighting to be heardover the crowd. After the clipped, too-perfect cadence of my boss’s call, it was almost a relief.
