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“Will do,” I lie, reluctantly pulling my hand away from his.
His firm grip was like an anchor, and as I shamble toward the terrace doors, my moorings come loose. The two bottles of wine hit me all at once, my legs unsteady, my stomach roiling with something hot, like my lungs have poured boiling water straight down. My vision is smeared as I reach out for the wall, using it to support my steps down the narrow passageway to the main shop-slash-bar. There are a few chairs and tables, filled with patrons, enjoying some wine and side dishes while Delphine boxes up orders at the long, red-tiled counter.
I manage to reach the counter and climb up onto one of the high stools—oxblood leather—taking a moment to get my sea legs again. My stomach heaves a little, doubting if another bottle of wine is a good idea, after all. I should call it a night, or at least get some fresh air.
“Here.” Delphine appears, pouring me a glass of water from a carafe. She pushes a small plate of French bread and butter toward me. “You’ll be fine after that.”
Her features are fuzzy, and I hear myself slur as I reply, “Thanks.”
“You must be very special,” she tells me in her sultry French accent, slotting a Beaujolais and a Malbec into a cardboard box. “Rowan never brings anyone here. Not that I’ve seen.”
“He’s… my best friend’s brother,” I say, by way of explanation.
Delphine chuckles. “And? At least he’s not a stranger. Or worse, a lout, like one of those.” She nods her head toward a table in the corner, where a quartet of loud businessmen are drinking, vying to be the alpha of the pack. I can smell them from here. Perhaps, their aftershave is what’s making my stomach churn.
But there’s a face among them that I know. Familiar, cold eyes that are boring right into me. I’d know that lacquered hair anywhere, too—gelled so thoroughly that it could withstand a hurricane.
The world spins, and I grip the edge of the counter just to stop myself from falling off the stool. How can he be here? How could he possibly know where to find me? More to the point, why? Alone or not, this is my fresh start, and bitter memories of the past aren’t welcome here.
I down the glass of water, swipe up the bread and butter, and hurry back to the terrace with a mumbled apology to Delphine on my lips.
“We need to go,” I say, grabbing Rowan’s hand. I didn’t need the water or the bread to sober me up; I just needed to see a face I never wanted to see again.
Rowan gets up, but his brow furrows. “How expensive was it? That bad?”
“It’s… a long story.” All of them are, it seems.
“Okay, no problem. We can head out.” For all his confusion, Rowan appears to understand that I’ve been spooked, and not by him. His hand closes tighter around mine as he leads me back into the bar, drops sixty dollars onto the counter, says a quick farewell to Delphine, and guides me to the exit. For the second time tonight, he’s taken charge while I crumble, and though I wish it was Ben’s hand in mine, there’s comfort and security in Rowan’s.
At the door, I glance back over my shoulder, swallowing as I fix my gaze on the corner of the room. There are three men at the table, not four. I blink rapidly, trying to clear the Vaseline fog from my eyes, but the wine hasn’t nixed my ability to count. There are definitely only three, andheisn’t among them. Nor is he the kind of man who’d try to hide from me.
Did I imagine it?My brain is like the Mississippi air in August—thick and hazy, clouding my judgment. IknowI saw him, but he’s not there. My mind is clearly playing tricks, egged on by the wine. All week, I’ve tried to pretend I didn’t hear that name from Anthony Frost’s lips. All week, I’ve tried to forget I ever knew a man named Levi Montrose, pushing him back into a locked box in the darkest recesses of my thoughts, where he belongs. But two bottles of wine figured out the combination, and now, to add to the anxiety and the depression and the catastrophizing, it seems I can add hallucinations to my list of mental impairments.
“Are you okay?” Rowan stops and lifts his hands to my face, holding me steady. “What happened?”
I peer up into his eyes and take a breath. “Walk me home,” I say quietly, “and I’ll tell you everything.”
But where to start? Do I begin as a kid in Wisconsin, held hostage by a drunk mother and her never-ending carousel of bad boyfriends? Do I start at sixteen, when I left? Or should I cut to the chase, beginning my tale with “Once Upon a Time in a little blue cottage on the banks of the Mississippi Gulf, there was a blackjack dealer and an artist…”? Either way, I’ve got a long walk, and plenty of time to figure out where to start.
12
ROWAN
“Walking is good for thinking, right? I swear I read somewhere that when your mind is all muddled up, you’re supposed to take a long walk, and the longer you walk, the clearer everything gets,” I wax confused, feeling like one of those newfangled vloggers as I stride along, phone in hand.
My footsteps thud along the sidewalk as sirens whirr in the distance, and a cab horn blares at a group of young women stumbling across the street. They laugh it off. Of course they do. At that age, you think you’re invincible.
“I’m doing a lot of walking tonight, but things are only getting foggier,” I continue, glancing left and right before darting across the road. “Summer asked me to walk her back to her place. Nothing flirty, just a chivalrous walk home. She’s up there now, waiting for me to come back with fluids and sweet things, so… I figured I ought to make a note of this, in case it’s all too fuzzy in the morning, like I dreamed it or something. It feels pretty dreamy, with some essence of nightmare thrown in, but… hey, rough with the smooth, right?
“She told me everything, and I’m wondering if I ought to give her your number, Madame Therapist. The shit she’s been through—I didn’t even know the half of it. Like, I always thought the DuCates were bad news when Lyndsey was first involved with them, and I learned to keep my nose out when Grace came along, since they’re my niece’s grandparents. Everything Summer said confirmed it. If it was me, I wouldn’t have forgiven them, but Summer is… Damn, she’s a better person than I am. I mean, she’s buddies with Cybil now! How… bizarre is that? I think there’s probably more to that part of the story than Summer let on, but she seemed pretty tired, so I didn’t want to scrape around for the minute details tonight. When she’s ready, maybe she’ll tell me.”
A pigeon, up way past its bedtime, flutters down and scares me half to death. I barely keep hold of the phone as the bird descends on a discarded pile of fries.
Heart thudding from the shock, I step around the feathered rat and carry on toward the bright lights of the bodega on the corner. “And this Levi guy sounds like the worst of the worst—a blister on humanity. God, I wish I’d seen him. I’d like to think I’d have beaten the crap out of him, but I probably would’ve just ‘accidentally’ upended a bottle of Merlot on him or something, or brought him down a peg or two with some witty repartee. I don’t know. Idoknow that I hate his guts, and if Summer ever sees—or thinks she sees—him again, she’s under strict instructions to call me so I can… I can… do something, or whatever.
“Is it weird that I feel protective toward her?” I ask my face in the recording, like I’m speaking directly to my therapist. “I feel like… I know her better now, and by knowing her better, I want to… know even more. Is that insane? Lynds is always saying I don’t make life easy for myself, and… wanting to be around Summer is going to make things a hell of a lot harder. But the heart wants what it wants, right? Okay, too many ‘wants’ there. That word doesn’t have any meaning anymore, either. It was ‘know’ before, but I guess you had to be there.”
I slow my pace as I approach the bodega, so I don’t get any funny looks when I enter, talking to myself. Then, I remember that the recordings are just for me. Laughing at the ridiculousness of it all, I put the phone to my ear, still on record, and head inside the shop.
