AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hollis flags their server for coffee. She was so hungover at home that all she could manage was ice water, and now she’sstarving.Jack hands her the menu and says, “I know what you’re going to order.”
“Oh, please,” Tatum says. “We all know what Hollis is going to order.”
“Two scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, rye toast, and hash browns—as long as they’re actual hash browns and not home fries,” Kyle says.
“Well, now you stole my thunder,” Jack says.
“And mine,” Tatum says.
What no one eating or working at Black-Eyed Susan’s that morning could know is that, back in high school, these same four people ate breakfast at the Downyflake every Saturday morning after the Friday-night Whalers football game, and whereas Jack, Tatum, and Kyle mixed it up with French toast, omelets, and the Downyflake’s famous doughnuts, Hollis always ordered the same thing. She had been the predictable one.
How do they know I haven’t grown into other tastes?she wonders. Maybe she’d get the huevos rancheros or the spicy Thai scramble.
But she doesn’t want those things.
“Thatiswhat I’m getting,” she says, slapping her menu down.
“These boys went out hard last night,” Tatum says. “They went to the Straight Wharf. Then they went to the Gaslight.”
Kyle holds his palms up. “I was just trying to be a good wingman. Jack was searching for some nocturnal companionship.”
Hollis studies her diamond engagement ring, her wedding band. “Did you have any luck?” she asks lightly.
When Tatum hears the phrasenocturnal companionship,the tender spot in her breast starts to throb. “I leave you alone for one night and you go out on the prowl?”
“I’m innocent,” Kyle says. “I stood by while Jack worked his magic with your boss and her sidekick.”
It takes Tatum a minute to figure out what Kyle is telling her.Your boss and her sidekick. Tatum’s boss.
“You sawIrina?” Tatum says. “WithVeda?” She grips the sides of the table. She was expecting to hear that Jack chatted up some tourists from Menasha, Wisconsin, named Melissa and Debbie who had ended up at the Gaslight because the line at the Club Car piano bar was too long. It’s far,farworse that Jack talked to Irina and Veda. Yes, they wear too much makeup and their perfume makes your eyes water, but they have sexual confidence—and doesn’t Kyle remember Tatum’s hideous nightmare, the one where Irina and Kyle end up in bed together? “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“Iwasn’t talking to them,” Kyle says. He looks at Jack across the table. “Back me up here, bud.”
“They were the only two ladies in the place who weren’t vaping or filming TikToks,” Jack says.
“Did Irina see you?” Tatum asks Kyle. “Did she say anything?” To her knowledge, Kyle and Irina have met only in passing. This past winter when the Pilot was at the mechanic, Kyle would drop Tatum off at work and pick her up, so there had been an introduction—Irina was far more charming with Kyle than she’d ever been with Tatum; no surprise there.
A sweetheart,Irina had commented then.Your sweetheart husband.
What did Irina think about seeing Kyle out alone while Jack chatted them up?
Tatum isn’t sure what to do with her anger. Kyle squeezes her knee and Tatum swats his hand away with so much force that she jostles the table and everyone’s coffee splashes over the rims of their mugs.
Hollis tries to change the subject. “Do you still own a bar?” she asks Jack. But her question is lost in the static coming from across the table. Kyle assures Tatum that he was minding his own business, trying to listen to the band, and Jack was the one who talked to Irina, Jack was the one who danced with Irina and her friend. Hollis feels a strange pang at hearing this, which is completely absurd; Hollis and Jack broke up while Ronald Reagan was still president.
Their server, a longtime breakfast veteran named Naz, appears with their plates, but he can’t quite make the drop because the dark-haired woman at the table shoves her chair back and stands up and—whoa!—she’s crying. (Naz sees more people crying at breakfast than one might expect.) Hollis notices Tatum’s crying as well and she tries to catch her eye but Tatum pushes past Naz and heads for the restrooms at the back of the restaurant.
Naz sets their plates down. “Is there anything else I can bring you?”
Kyle is staring after Tatum. Jack says, “Can we have some orange marmalade, please?”
“Sure thing.” Naz beats a hasty retreat.
Hollis looks at her golden-brown rye toast, then at Tatum’s blueberry pancakes, then at Kyle. “I guess it’s nice to know she can still feel jealous.”
“She’s not jealous,” Kyle says. “I mean, she is, but that’s not why she’s upset.” He grinds pepper over his eggs Benedict. “I assume she told you about the biopsy?”
“The biopsy?” Hollis says. “What biopsy?”
