Our fingers touched on the mug, brief and deliberate.
“I love you,” I said.
I’d been saying it for a week now, since the first time it had slipped out without planning, without a system, without a Post-it note to announce its intention. It had simply arrived, in the middle of a Wednesday night while Peter was reviewing thefoster kittens’ weight charts, and I was sitting on the counter eating cereal. I’d said it the way you say things that are so true they don’t need preparation. Peter had looked up from his charts without so much as a flinch and said, “I love you, too. I had a Post-it note drafted for this. The Post-it note was more comprehensive.” I’d laughed, and he’d kissed me, and the Post-it note was delivered the following morning, taped to the bathroom mirror.
I love you. This is the comprehensive version. The verbal version was insufficient but accurate. The feeling is larger than any format I’ve attempted. I’ve tried four. This is the fifth. None of them are adequate. I’m going to keep trying.
— P
I kept the Post-it in my wallet.
I was going to keep it forever.
“I love you, too,” Peter said before sipping his tea. “The statement remains accurate and comprehensive.”
“You’re going to say, ‘accurate and comprehensive,’ every time, aren’t you?”
“Until I find better words. The search is ongoing.”
“Search on, good man, though I don’t need better words.”
“You deserve better words,” he said, and I swear someone ground pepper nearby, because my eyes began watering, and the more I wiped them with my nasty bar towel, the wetter they became.
“If you make my mascara run, I may never forgive you.”
“You don’t wear mascara.”
“Exactly!” I stabbed a forefinger in his direction. “If you can make it run when it’s not even there, we have a serious problem that simple forgiveness may never solve.”
He looked at me with the expression that was mine and mine alone, the one he’d never made for anyone else and swore he never would. I went back to making drinks. He sat on his stool and watched me work the way he’d been watching me since the first night he’d sat in the bar, with the quiet, comprehensive attention of a man who saw everything and who had decided that what he was looking at was worth staying for.
After closing, the bar belonged to us.
Not the public us or the customers-and-staff us, but the real us, the family that Barbacks had built one person at a time.
Skyler was arm-wrestling Rod in a booth. This was a rivalry that had started two weeks earlier as a joke and had escalated into a genuine athleticcontest, because Rod did not do anything casually, and Skyler did not lose at physical competitions. Ever. For any reason.
Two large men were locked in a silent, non-violent battle while Ruthie watched from the kitchen pass-through with an expression that suggested she had money on her husband.
Skyler won.
Rod’s wrist hit the table with a sound that made Finn wince from across the room.
“Rematch,” Rod said.
“You said that last week,” Skyler growled.
“I wasn’t ready last week.”
“You’ve had seven days to prepare,” Skyler countered.
“Next week. I’ll be ready next week.”
He wouldn’t, but no one argued the point.
Adrian was teaching Mia a body roll at the far end of the bar. Mia was producing a motion that looked less like a wave and more like a person trying to unstick a zipper from the inside.
Finn and Chase sat in a booth near where Mark pecked away at his keyboard. Chase’s arm draped along the back of the seat behind Finn’s shoulders. Finn was making notes on the evening’s performance, because Finn made notes on everything. Chase was reading over his shoulder, occasionallyadding a comment that Finn would consider, accept or reject, and write down regardless.
