Page 19 of Lucky Haven

He grins widely. “Yeah? Gonna get up to some trouble?”

More like make sure nobody else tries anything funny with someone who shouldn’t be here. “Sure.”

Inside, the music is blaring.

Dax’s friends wave from a table near the entrance. I follow my brother in that direction, but I’m scanning for the girls at the same time. I don’t see them at first. No sign of the silky dark red hair or that pretty dress I noticed Haven was wearing.

But then I catch sight of Mercy near a booth at the back.

“I’m going to grab a drink at the bar,” I say to Dax under the loud twang of country music.

I order a Coke to nurse, then move down the bar to try to get a better look at who they’re with in that booth. Haven is tucked inside—and she’s alone. Mercy slides in across from her.

Haven’s face lights up.

I breathe a little easier, and toss enough cash on the bar to cover my pop and whatever they might order, too. “Hey, you know Mercy Lane?” I ask the bartender. “Her and her friend’s drinks are on me tonight.”

“Sure thing.”

I head back to Dax’s table just in time for them to decide to play darts.

“You want to join us?”

I shake my head. “I’ll sit here, save this space in case you come back.”

With my back to the wall, I have a perfect vantage point to watch people come and go—and across the bar, two women start to drink in a booth.

Chapter Six

Haven

Bar None is…sticky. But after two rye and Cokes and a shot of something vile, I don’t care as much as I did when we arrived.

The music changes, turning slow, and a protest rises from the crowd.

“Hey,” barks the bartender, pointing to a cardboard sign that says Jukebox right above an old pickle jar full of loonies and toonies. And right on top, a curled up fifty dollar bill. “If you don’t like it, feed the jukebox!”

The couple who put the fifty in the jar takes to the small dance floor. They’re probably in their forties, or maybe well-preserved fifties, and they don’t care that they’ve turned the mood of the bar from boisterous to oddly romantic. They’re all wrapped up in each other, literally, his hands in her back pockets, her fingers playing with the hair at the back of his neck as they gaze into each other’s eyes, turning slowly.

Another couple joins them, then two girls start swaying at the edge of the dance floor, too. One guy drifts over and offers to dance with one of them, then her friend finds a partner, too.

Suddenly, nobody is complaining about the slower music.

Mercy tosses back the rest of her drink and slaps the table. “Another?”

“Sure,” I murmur, my attention stuck on the original dancing couple. I don’t know if they’re married, if they’ve been together for a long time or a short time, or if this is the first night they’ve connected, but they’re electric. He can’t stop touching her, her body is melting into his. They’re two pretty ordinary looking people, but wrapped around each other, they make an incredibly beautiful portrait.

It makes something in my chest pulse with a weird ache.

I want that.

I’m a late bloomer, for sure. Much to Jeb’s frustration, I wasn’t eager to have a relationship when I turned eighteen, or at twenty-one. And when I went to university, I was so rocked by his years-long pursuit of me, how gross it had made me feel, that I stayed inside myself for years.

But lately, I’ve been reading more romance books, finding myself fantasizing about the what ifs, and here it is playing out in front of me—and with people who are older than me, like there’s still hope for a twenty-nine year old who is just finding herself now.

Mercy returns with a small tray. Two drinks, two shots. Vile, vile, fun.

At some point after all four glasses are empty, I squint across the table, and see Mercy bopping in her seat. The music has picked up again, and people on the floor are line dancing.