“It’s not bad.”
I lift a brow and he lets out another chuckle.
“I developed a taste for it when I worked a summer in Chicago. There was this little bar we would go to after our shiftssometimes when we were dead tired and a little slap happy. We’d drink Malört and watch baseball on the tiniest, shittiest TV you’ve ever seen.” He stops, shrugs like it’s no big deal, just a fond memory.
But it settles over me like a weighted blanket, heavy and a little overbearing. All the life he must have lived and all the places he must have gone.
So I take the shot glass and tip it back. And promptly cough. And gag. When I look back at Jack, he’s grinning and popping a black olive between his teeth.
“Worse than I expected.”
“I was thinking about asking the bartender if I could buy the bottle off him.”
“I think Matty would payyouto take that biohazard out of his bar.”
His foot nudges mine beneath the table and he leans back in his chair, stretching his back. “So what’s your most intrusive story?”
I shake my head, drumming my fingers on the table. “You first.”
“Hmm,” he says, the sound coming from the back of his throat. Behind him, Myra and Melissa are singing about windows and walls. “I told you my mom was a single mom. Our town got a decent amount of tourists because we were pretty close to some ski resorts and there are a few dude ranches. A bunch of well-meaning older women in town carried around wallet sized photos of my mom with her phone number on the back and whenever they met a nice man, they’d hand them out and tell him to call her.”
“Wow,” I say. “Respectable.”
“You have a better one?”
“Oh, definitely. But first, how did your mom take it?”
His smile is small. “She was a good sport.”
“Did she ever find her Prince Charming?”
A shadow passes over his expression, and he sits up straighter in his chair, the loose lines of his body becoming tight coils. I instantly regret asking, but before I can take it back, he says, “No, she didn’t. So, what’s your story?”
“When the town found out that Wren and Holden had eloped in a private, family-only ceremony, they threw them a surprise wedding. Invited the entire town. Six-hundred people showed up. In the town square. Myra and Melissa even somehow got ahold of Wren’s measurements and ordered her a wedding dress.”
His jaw hinges open. “Wow.”
“Oh, and it was two years after the original. So it really caught them off guard. They said they needed time to plan.”
He lets out a bark of laughter. “Okay, you’re right. You win.” Glancing back up at the stage, he asks, “What am I singing?”
“‘Baby Got Back.’”
“You had that locked and loaded, huh?”
“From the moment you showed up with Malört.”
He lets out a sigh, pushing a hand through his unruly hair once more. “Fine. How do I look?” When he looks back at me, it’s to find me already watching him. His faded navy sweatshirt pulls at his broad shoulders. His hair is a mess. His cheeks are red from the alcohol and the warmth inside the crowded bar. His eyes sparkle like the lights on the stage. He looks like he doesn’t belong here. Like he’s too big for this place.
“Good,” I tell him, and a grin lifts his lips. “Now go sing.”
Themorningisbriskand dense with a fog that hung over my Jeep the entire ride home from the hospital, blotting out the sunrise and turning it into a haze of orange rising over the trees. The weather matches my mood. Last night’s shift was a mess from the minute I clocked in. An elementary school kid whose oxygen had dropped so low from pneumonia that he had to be admitted. An elderly woman who came in from the ambulance with a visibly broken arm from taking a fall alone in her house. A man who could have been my mom’s age who didn’t make it after a terrible motorcycle accident. That patient is the one who lingers with me the entire car ride home, the sound of his monitors flatlining echoing in my ears.
I just want to be in the cabin on the overstuffed leather couch. Out of my scrubs and in something comfier. Something stupid on the TV.
More than that, I don’t want to be alone, and that’s a new feeling.
I let out a relieved breath when I pull into the short driveway leading up to the cabin and see Stevie’s truck parked out front.She hasn’t started back to work yet, but her schedule is still unpredictable, and I’m never quite sure if she’s going to be home when I am. It’s what I was hoping for when she moved in. I haven’t had a roommate in years, and I’ve been thankful for it, but I haven’t minded having Stevie around. If I’m being honest with myself, I’ve even enjoyed it.
