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TheRustyAnchorBar and Grill.
The sign above the door is missing most of its vowels, and the way the ‘R’ flickers violently is giving me a migraine. Frowning, I pull out my cell and open Tripadvisor again.
Nope. Not hallucinating. This really is the highest rated bar in Devil’s Dip. Jeez, I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I’m pretty sure I remember its pages being as shoddy, too.
Wren really works here? It just doesn’t make sense. She’s all sunshine and smiles and this place is, well…
I cast a weary gaze over the parking lot, which is just a gravel road with two beat-up Chevy pickups parked under a broken street lamp.
…the setting for a true crime podcast.
Stop it, Penny. I don’t know why I’m being such a snob about aesthetics. My apartment in Atlantic City had a family of spiders living under the sink.
My gaze slides up to the black sky. Truth is, I’m just using it as an excuse not to go inside. Because the thought of walking through that door and putting out the nicest version of myself in order to make friends feels…sad.
Still, what other option do I have? I need friends. Normal girls have friends. Can’t fake it with the likes of Anna, and I can’t spend all my days off glaring at the stark white walls of my apartment.
Christ, yesterday I called the hotline four times, simple to have somebody to talk to.
And Wren invited me, right? At the hospital, she said there was always a seat at the bar for me on Tuesday evenings. But she was probably just being nice…
Well, Rory invited me, too, I guess. On the night of my first shift. I’m not sure it counts, though, because she got so drunk she had to be put to bed in one of the cabins. Maybe it was just the liquor talking.
Ah, fuck it. I’m going in.
As I step inside, warmth wraps around me like a hug. For a brief moment, my lids flutter shut, but then I force them open and scan my surroundings.
If this bar was in the heart of a big city, the interior would be described as shabby-chic, or rustic. But I highly doubt the hole in the ceiling or the tin bucket directly underneath it was a design choice. Or the suspicious looking stain on the floor, for that matter.
The Rusty Anchor still has the same old pages; they’re just covered in gaudy Christmas decorations.
Heaving a nervous sigh, I walk past the handful of pot-bellied men slumped over half-drunk beers and slide onto a stool at the bar. There’s nothing behind it apart from a few liquor bottles, and nobody in front of it but me.
No Wren or Rory, and definitely no other girls I could share jeans with.
I strum my fingers on the wooden bar. Chew on my bottom lip. Looking around for any sign of life under seventy, my eyes settle on the tip jar and my strumming stops. Years of morally-gray conditioning make my fingers twitch to fish out a few bills, but instead, I curl my hand into my lap and huff out a bitter laugh.
This is ridiculous.
I’ll just go back to the diner, grab a burger, and get started on HTML for Dummies—
“Penny!” My name in squeal form shoots out from behind me and pierces my jacket. I turn as Wren emerges from a back room, a crate of glasses balancing on her forearms. “Oh my goodness, so good to see you!”
Relief fills my chest as she buries me under a pile of questions, like where I’ve been, how’s my head, and how I’m finding the Coast. Once they taper off, she drops the crate and beckons me over. “Come, Rory and Tayce are over here.”
I follow her golden glow around to the farthest corner of the bar, where Rory and a girl I don’t recognize sit on stools on the other side of a Christmas tree. A deck of cards, a bowl of candy, and two beer bottles sit between them.
“Penny!” Rory jumps off her seat and slings her arms around my neck. Even with a messy bun and wearing Nike sweats, she looks as beautiful as ever. “So good to see you.” She grips my shoulders, pushes me to arms-length, and searches my eyes. “Last Monday, I didn’t do anything…embarrassing, did I?”
I mean, I walked in on her sucking her husband’s dick in the storage room, but there’s no need to bring that up. “Not at all.”
She looks relieved, then ushers me over to where they’re sitting.
“This is Tayce,” Wren says. As I sit down, I meet the gaze of the dark-haired girl. She’s wearing a beanie and a leather jacket, and, actually, I recognize her from the yacht, too.
“Tayce is a tattoo artist, lives in Devil’s Cove, and is…um…”
“A mystery,” Tayce finishes for her, flashing me a wink. “And what about you, red-head?”
