I sent the text before I could second-guess it. The phone buzzed again, but I didn’t check it right away. Instead, I stood and grabbed my suitcase from beside the door.
Drew might not believe me yet.
But by tonight, or tomorrow morning at the latest, he would.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Drew
It was late, the kind of late when the tavern lights start to buzz and the world outside goes soft with snow. I’d sent the last of the customers home an hour ago. Now, it was just me, a broom, and the ghost of a good mood I’d lost somewhere between Reckless River and Seattle.
The Rusty Stag always felt different after closing. It was quiet in a way that made every thought echo louder than it should. I stacked stools on tables, wiped down the counters, and tried not to think about the fact that the one person I wanted to see most was probably sitting three hundred miles away, convincing herself that she’d done the right thing.
I should’ve known better.
Hell, Ididknow better.
This was how she worked. She’d stop showing up. She’d stop answering texts. She’d just stop.
And yet, like an idiot, I’d believed this time would be different. That Melanie would show up. That she’d see Reckless River again, seemeagain, and realize maybe she didn’t have to keep running.
But here I was, closing down the bar alone, humming into the empty room because if I didn’t, the silence might just drown me.
I flipped on the old jukebox in the corner. It sputtered to life, lights blinking weakly until Elvis’s voice filled the space, smooth and melancholy.
I’ll have a Blue Christmas without you…
I laughed under my breath. “You said it, King.”
It was too on-the-nose, but I didn’t change it.
Instead, I sang along, badly, my voice bouncing off the walls. If anyone walked in, I’d have died of embarrassment, but the odds of that were low. Reckless River rolled up its sidewalks after ten.
I grabbed the broom and danced it across the floor like an old partner.
And when those blue snowflakes start fallin’…
“You and me both, Elvis,” I muttered, sweeping around the tables.
The truth was, I didn’t even blame her. Not really. Melanie was a city girl through and through. She thrived on chaos, noise, people—things Reckless River didn’t have unless you counted the Christmas bazaar or the occasional moose sighting.
I’d known what I was signing up for.
A woman who could make me laugh so hard my ribs hurt and vanish the next day without warning.
We’d had our rhythm: a few weeks of texts, a few months of silence, and every now and then, a night that reminded me why I put myself through it. She was wildfire and warning labels, and I was the idiot who kept standing too close. But this time, I truly thought it was different. Maybe it was the holidays or the fact that I was going to be an uncle.
But I’d let myself hope. That was the stupid part.
When she said she was coming up this weekend, I’d actually believed her. I’d cleaned the cabin, changed the sheets, even stocked her favorite coffee—the fancy city stuff that came in bags with words likearomatic notesandhandcrafted roast.
Now it was all just sitting back at home, mocking me.
I leaned the broom against the bar and poured myself a small shot of bourbon. The good kind, the one I usually saved for celebration nights. I stared at it for a second, then lifted it in a half-hearted toast to no one.
“To my impeccable judgment,” I said, and downed it in one swallow.
The burn went down smooth, but it didn’t warm me.
