“Yep, this is about right,” Max said. “You haven’t eaten in a while, right? This is the point when you start to get extremely irritable.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re like a gremlin. Back in Nashville, I needed to keep you fed every few hours or you’d turn into a beast.”
“Keep me fed? I wasn’t your pet, Max.”
His smile faded somewhat. “No. I guess you weren’t,” he said, turning his attention to the game, even though Sadie had never heard Max say he followed hockey.
Despite her annoyance with Max, the whiskey’s heat was now dulling into a pleasant warmth that spread through her chest and all the way down to her toes. Kara appeared from the kitchen, two steaming, cheese-covered bread bowls in her hands.
“Poutine’ll be up in a moment,” Kara said.
Sadie dug into the soup immediately.
“That better?” Max asked after she’d had a few bites.
“You’re right, this is really good,” she said, her mouth full. She noticed the bar was starting to fill up; most of the tables were now taken. “Why is it so busy in here in the middle of the day?”
“It’s karaoke day.”
“Karaokeday?”
“Yeah. Once winter sets in and it starts to get dark early around here, nobody tends to go out much at night. Way too dangerous on the roads—or the roads are closed on account of snow. So the wise owners of this here tavern decided to have their karaoke night during the day. It just makes sense.”
“I’m sure it does.”
“Most people just snowshoe or cross-country-ski home later—and there are a few volunteers out patrolling the paths, making sure no one who’s had too much to drink falls in a snowbank and freezes to death.”
“Sounds perfectly reasonable.”
“Yeah, but it’s pretty awful. I personally am of the mindset that day-drinking and karaoke do not mix.”
“It actually sounds like fun,” Sadie said.
He cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. “That, ma’am, is becauseyou’vebeen day-drinking.”
“We should do a song.”
“Out of the question,” Max said, turning his attention to his soup. “No way.”
Sadie stopped eating and picked up a shot glass, shaking it gently at him. “Well, I guessthisis the only fun I’m going to have today,” she said, knocking it back.
“Seriously, Sadie, you’re going to be on yourass—”
“Well, that’s fine, because I need to drown my sorrows.” She hadn’t meant to say that, and tried to smile to make the words go away.
But Max tilted his head. “Sorrows?”
Suddenly, she felt a bit queasy. He was right—she shouldn’thave been so liberal with the whiskey drinking on an empty stomach. Kara arrived with the poutine and Sadie dug into that as a way to avoid Max’s question.
“Sadie. What’s going on?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Sadie said, finally gaining control of her emotions. “I’ve been back in the States, working my ass off, and you’ve been...” She looked around. “Here, avoiding everything? I’ve been trying to reach you all year to try to talk to you about that night, and you just disappeared on me. Have you thought about me, or anyone who’s been trying to help you, at all?”
“Let’s talk about that night, then, Sadie,” Max said, his expression now cold.
She opened her mouth, then closed it again—realizing she couldn’t. But not for the reason he thought. After too many whiskeys, if she told him about her gran, she knew she would completely fall apart. The tears were still stinging at her eyes but she blinked them away. You didn’t unbottle something you’d kept inside for so long in a tavern filled with strangers, in the middle of the afternoon. “You let me down,” she said, knowing that wasn’t quite fair, but also that it was at least part of the truth.
