Rebecca laughed, because shedidknow me and was possibly still plotting my “accidental” death in the elevator shaft of the IDS tower. But before Rebecca could act on any potentially murderous impulses, Laurel ripped the weapon from her hands.
And that was when they confiscated our axes.
“Paula Bunyan’s is a family establishment,” a server in shorts and suspenders hissed.
“I’m the reason this didn’t wind up in someone’s skull!” Laurel insisted, indignant. Even though the party was a complete and utter disaster from moment one, my sister had nothing to do with its descent into madness.
“I think we should call it,” I said, surveying the way our group had practically emptied out the place, including the exes, who’d taken their yelling outside. The only person who’d evaded the bar’s notice was Stacy, who was parked next to the pull-tab dispenser, responding to work emails in noise-canceling headphones.
The party was over. Time of death: eleven p.m.
“No,” Laurel whined, and tugged at my arms. “This was supposed to be the fun part. We can still crash a stranger’s pedal pub. That was my break-glass-in-case-of-emergency plan.”
I grimaced. “Pass. Can we put this party out of its misery, please? I’ll settle up.”
“Fine,” she relented. “No matter what, you looked hot tonight. No one can take that away from you.” She pulled me into a goodbye hug, then opened her rideshare app. “I’ll make sure Drunk and Drunker find their way into separate Ubers. You’ll be good getting home?”
I nodded and left her in our little lumberjack cubicle of partitioned plywood targets lining the back wall and headed for the bartender. Cedar planks covered every inch of wall space and filled the bar with the scents of a Norwegian sauna and stale beer. The place had recently opened up in the cursed part of a strip mall, next to an AMC, and would undoubtedly revert to a Spirit Halloween in nine months. Still, I was attracted to the idea of cutting loose in such a controlled environment.
THUNK.
My shoulders jumped the tiniest bit at the sound of an ax careening into plywood. I’d assumed the noise would fade into the background at some point, but it hadn’t. The reverberations of cracking wood continued to hit me between the eyes like a ball-peen hammer to my lightly liquored skull. Every. Single. Time.
Still, I was disappointed that I hadn’t gotten the chance to throw one myself.
THUNK.
I tried to close out the tab with the bartender, but the bar’s grudge against our party was too fresh. A couple who’d been playing at the target next to ours came and went and still I hadn’t received an ounce of recognition from Paula Bunyan et al. I was invisible.
The light of an Edison bulb refracted off the blade of anabandoned ax like a neon sign readingThrow Me. You Know You Want To.I tried once more to get the bartender’s attention—seriously, was I a ghost?—before wandering over to the forfeited target.
Ax in hand, I lifted my arms above my head. No one was looking. I let out a long stream of air between my lips, already wincing in anticipation of my ax’s thud against the back wall.
“Beekman.”
The voice behind me sliced deep into my core. I jerked backward.
“Are we seriously at an ax-throwing bar?” he asked.
He’s here, I thought, my inner voice giddy. I turned around and there he was. Ethan.
He was dressed like an indie dirtbag in distressed jeans and a stained T-shirt. His arms were more toned than I remembered. They must’ve been forcing him to lift weights on that tour bus of his. It was like his forearms were flexing, even at rest. The floral tattoo I’d picked for him when we were eighteen was now framed by other botanicals in a complementary style, and he was wearing some expensive-smelling cologne I didn’t recognize. Yet, even with all the changes, he felt exactly the same. Like home.
“Jesus, Powell. Don’t you know not to surprise a woman with an ax in her hands? I could’ve thrown this at your head.”
“You couldn’t hit my head if I offered you a million dollars to hit my head.”
“Think you can do better?” I offered him the ax. “Go on. Let it fly.”
His lips curved up into a perfect sideways grin. “There’s my Chuck. I knew you were still in there.”
I pulled a face at the insinuation that I’d disappearedsomewhere, but he was too busy lining up with the bull’s-eye to notice. His life had changed way more than mine had in the last few years. There was the tour with Silver Lining Society, their first album, their single that spent three whole days on theBillboardTop 100 afterSNLparodied it, and the sophomore album that I…didn’t totallyget, but I was still hotly anticipating their next musical move.
For years, we’d texted almost daily. We FaceTimed, me in corners of the law library and him in the backs of vans and tour buses. We’d been each other’s first call, until the calls from him started coming less and less frequently. I found Rich, and as a result, Ethan and I placed each other on the back burner, each hoping the other wouldn’t scald from the lack of attention as we focused our energies on other, more tenuous parts of our lives. It was the unspoken agreement of our twenties: we’ll neglect each other and call it “growing up.”
Still, selfishly, I wanted it all. I wanted the career, the husband, the house,andEthan. I wanted to stay the most important person in his life even as mine stretched to hold Rich. I knew it wasn’t fair, but it didn’t make it any less true.
Seeing him now, at this bar, I wanted to believe there were still parts of us that were the same, preserved all these years, to be excavated by each other alone. I wanted it tomean somethingthat he’d come here tonight. That I was still the first person he wanted to laugh with and share secrets with. Now Ethan was here—proof positive that our friendship was still as meaningful to him as it was to me.
