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“Chicks are chicks, Eli. As far as I can tell, that doesn’t change much from place to place.”
“Now that one, I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with. Some chicks are chicks. Some might as well be goddesses.”
“Oh man!” I laughed, a laugh that felt surprisingly good after how tightly wound I’d been ever since receiving the news of my father’s death. “Goddesses, huh? It sounds like you’ve been with a different kind of woman than me, Eli. I can’t say I’ve ever met a woman I would call a goddess before.”
“No?”
“No, can’t say that I have.”
“How about Fay Turner? You remember her? If my memory serves me correctly, the two of you were practically married when we were all still in school. Or when the two of you were still in school, anyway. I dropped out at the end of tenth grade.”
“I wouldn’t say anything close to married, Eli,” I answered in what I hoped was a light tone, feeling most of the levity that had been building up inside of me evaporate at the mention of Fay’s name. “There was never a ring or anything like that. We were just kids, man. You know how it goes.”
“She was fine though, right? She was definitely hot.”
I didn’t say anything in response, only sipped on the new drink the bartender had brought me. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to something like that. A part of me wanted to kick his ass just for talking about her, but that wasn’t right. When she had been my girl, sure. Anyone talking about how hot Fay was would have learned not to disrespect our relationship in front of me. But she hadn’t been my girl for a hell of a long time.
Besides that, Eli was probably trying to fuck with me by talking about Fay. Call it the lawyer in me, but there was a certain glint in his eye that made me think this was more than reminiscing. And he kept looking over one of my shoulders. I got the distinct feeling that something else was going on. I didn’t want to ask, though. Whatever he was trying to get at, I didn’t want to get roped into it. I’d been having a good time with Eli up until now. I didn’t want to ruin the night with thoughts about the past.
I decided that I wasn’t going to say anything else until Eli changed the subject, apologized, or did something to try and explain himself. Finally, once the tension had really started to build to a noticeable level, Eli laughed a little and clapped me on the shoulder with a meaty palm.
“I’m only fucking with you, brother. I couldn’t help it. Just a little ribbing for knocking my hometown.”
I nodded. “My hometown, too, Eli. Don’t forget that. It’s not like I’m a tourist.”
He shrugged. “After all of this time, you kind of are a tourist. But anyway, I was also just wondering what your thoughts were on her. Fay that is. You know, seeing as she’s sitting right over there behind you.”
“What?” My pulse raced faster than I wanted to admit. I suppressed the urge to whip my head around to see if he was telling the truth. “Are you fucking with me again, Eli? Because I gotta say, man, not too cool.”
He grinned and shook his head. “Nope, not a joke. Not this time, dude. She’s right over there with Courtney. You remember Courtney? Anyway, Courtney and I fuck around from time to time. So I tend to notice her when she’s around. And seeing as Fay never comes out to the bar, she’s pretty easy to spot as well. Plus, almost every guy in here is looking at her right now. Makes it hard to miss her.”
Against my better judgment, I looked over my shoulder
in the direction Eli had been looking, off and on, for the last couple of minutes. It might have been coincidence or fucking fate. It might have been all kinds of things I didn’t pretend to understand, but when I looked in her direction, she was impossible to miss. She was looking right at me.
Our eyes locked for half a second, and she ducked her head the instant they did. There was no doubt in my mind that she’d been looking at me. It was dim in the bar, but I thought I saw her start to blush immediately after I looked in her direction. I had to smile at that, despite the fact that I was almost ready to get up and sprint out the door.
All of a sudden, I remembered that Fay had never been able to hide it when she blushed. Her face was so perfectly creamy that it looked like she’d never stepped foot outside, even though I knew she was one of the most outdoorsy girls I had ever met. Her pale complexion made it painfully easy to see it when her face went red. It was something I’d always liked about her.
Remembering that made me think about our shitty meeting in the diner. I’d bailed as soon as I’d seen her. Just the sight of Fay awakened uncomfortable feelings inside me that I didn’t want to deal with. Opening up those old wounds seemed like more trouble than it was worth. But maybe that wasn’t quite fair to her. The two of us definitely had a history together, and she didn’t look particularly pissed to see me, after all.
“What do you say, man?” Eli asked loudly, speaking up so I could hear him over the ever-rising din of the strangely honky-tonk Alaskan bar.
“What do I say to what?” I asked back.
“You feel up to going over there with me? I know you don’t have any time for women, or at least, that’s the way you make it sound. But it’s been a while for me and Courtney, and she’s the best piece of ass I’ve ever had. She strikes me as a little bit crazy, which is something I appreciate in a girl.”
“Yeah, man, if that’s what you want to do. I can play wingman.”
Eli nodded at me in agreement. Although, I thought I saw a little look there that said he thought I was bullshitting if I was trying to convince him that part of me wasn’t heading over to that table for me. The two of us got up to go.
Almost immediately, our places at the bar were swallowed up, making the impromptu decision feel like a disturbingly final one. For the time it took us to walk from the bar top to the little booth Courtney and Fay were holed up in, I felt like I was walking through no man’s land. There was always the chance that my ex would still freak out, tell me what a piece of shit I was, and make it clear that she only wanted me to drop dead.
But when I looked at her again, I saw those deep green eyes on me again, saw the renewal of that blush, and I knew that I was okay. At least I was pretty sure, which was enough to get me into the booth, sitting beside Fay as if our separation had only been for a week or two, instead of something approaching a decade.
“Hey,” I said quietly, hoping I sounded more confident than I was feeling. She was the only woman who could still make me feel unsure after all these years, and I didn’t like it. This was the old me, not the man I’d become since leaving this town far behind me. “I didn’t really expect to see you again so soon.”
“No, I guess I didn’t either,” she said hesitantly, gripping her drink as if it would disappear if she let it go for even a minute. “Even though we both know this is about the smallest town in the whole world.”
