Never, I think.Not a real one. Not since?—
"I'm working," I say instead.
Ava shrugs and drifts away, her attention already captured by a group of boys who just walked in. Definitely runners for one of the crime families in the area. They're the type who'll tip well if she laughs at their jokes and leans across the table just right. She knows exactly what she's doing.
I miss Naomi.
Naomi never played those games. She'd stand behind this same bar with me, all business and work. She was fantastic, great at small talk and serving up drinks. She didn't like the drama Ava does or to pass off work in favor of getting paid to sleep with the customers like everyone else seems to.
But Naomi doesn't work here much anymore. She took some shifts last month, but mostly she's home now. With Nilos. With her son Jordan. Living the life she spent years convinced she'd never get to have.
I'm happy for her. Genuinely. Watching her and Nilos fall together was like witnessing something I didn't quite believe in anymore—two people who actually chose each other, who made space for each other's jagged edges instead of trying to file them smooth. I warned her at first, but it seems it's good she didn't listen to me. Nilos looked at Naomi like she was the only fixed point in a spinning world, and Naomi stopped carryingeverything alone because she finally had someone strong enough to help her bear the weight.
They moved in together six months ago. Nilos built a family around her, around Jordan, with that quiet certainty that terrifies me because it looks too much like the thing I used to have and threw away.
The thing Ihadto throw away.
A customer signals for another round and I pour it automatically, muscle memory taking over while my mind drifts somewhere darker. Being back in Philadelphia still feels like wearing clothes that don't quite fit anymore—familiar but wrong, restrictive in ways I can't articulate. Every street corner holds a ghost. Every familiar landmark is a reminder of who I was when I left.
I came back for Nia.
Owen died eleven months ago. Some structural collapse during a routine call, a floor giving way beneath him, and just like that—gone. Nia was seven months pregnant, glowing and exhausted and so goddamn happy, and then she was a widow planning a funeral while trying to figure out how to raise a daughter alone.
I got the call in New York at three in the morning. Nia's voice on the other end, flat and hollow in that way that meant she was holding herself together through sheer force of will. "Owen's dead."
Notpassed away. Notwe lost him. Just those two words, stark and brutal, because anything softer would've shattered her completely.
I was on a bus twelve hours later.
New York had been my escape after everything fell apart with Declan. After I destroyed us trying to save him from having to choose. I'd left Philadelphia with a broken rib that was stillhealing and a hole inside me that felt like it might never close, convinced I was doing the noble thing. The selfless thing.
Therightthing.
What a fucking joke that turned out to be.
I'd found work while I healed—nothing glamorous, just whatever kept money coming in. Waitressing mostly, though the physical demands were hell on my still-recovering body those first few months. Eventually I moved into bartending because the money was better and I could do it without wanting to scream every time I bent wrong. I saved every penny, thinking maybe I'd get back to school eventually. Finish that nursing degree I'd been so determined to earn.
But the months turned into a year, then two, then three, and I was still pouring drinks in Manhattan dive bars, still living in a shoebox apartment in Bushwick with two roommates I barely spoke to, still waking up every morning feeling like I'd left something vital behind.
I never made real friends in New York. Never dated, despite the endless parade of men who asked. A few times I'd let someone buy me a drink, let the conversation stretch long enough to remember what flirting felt like, but it never went further. Because none of them were him. None of them would ever be him.
Nia hadn't liked me leaving. She'd threatened to come after me once I finally called her and told her where I was. I could hear her fighting tears over the phone. "You don't have to do this."
"Yeah, I do."
"Hechoseyou, Z." She never once believed my excuses that we just weren't right for each other, and I had to get away from him so I could live. "He was willing to give up everything?—"
"Exactly." I'd shoved another shirt into my duffel. "He was going to give upeverything. His whole future. Because I got hitby a fucking car and lost my uterus. You think I can live with that?"
"You think he can live without you?"
The question had hung there between us, unanswerable.
"I know you need time," she'd finally whispered. "Just come home soon."
Butsoonturned into over seven years.
I'd visited, of course. Came back for a weekend every few months, stayed with Nia, carefully avoided anywhere I might run into Declan or Stellan or anyone else connected to that old life. Nia would update me—she'd opened the bookstore five years ago, right before marrying Owen. The wedding was small and perfect, all warm wood and string lights and Nia in a simple dress that made her look like something out of a painting. She was so happy it hurt to look at her sometimes.
