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Cade has had a lot on her shoulders since her father got too sick to run the bar. She took things over earlier in life than she expected. All her plans, college, career, set aside indefinitely.
“We could borrow a mini freezer from next door,” suggests Kyle. “Unless Sylvia’s in one of her moods. Or you could—”
“Fuck’s sake! If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.” Cade puts a wrist to her forehead, takes a breath. “Sorry, sorry … I’m just having a moment here. Fuck’s sake,” she hisses again, then yanks her phone out of a pocket, taps on the screen with her thumbs. “Sorry, Henry. I’ve got you changing hats every day, doing this and that, running you ragged. You really are a jack of all trades. What’d you do back in school, huh? Engineer or something?”
“Football,” answers Kyle absently.
And for a moment, for a brief, fleeting moment, he is on the field again with his team surrounding him. He feels his gear on his body, pads, helmet, cleats, the weight of it. He smells the musk of the locker room. He hears his teammates laughing and cheering each other on after the big game. Even Brock is there, and when the two of them meet each other’s eyes, they smile, not even a drop of bad blood between them.
The roar of that locker room fades when Cade says, “You were a jock back in high school?” She lets out a dry chuckle and shakes her head. “Wouldn’t have guessed. Like, that’s the last thing I would’ve guessed. You’re way too nice.”
“Some of my teammates were nice,” says Kyle, his thoughts far away, his mind, his everything. “And some weren’t.”
“Well, no one likes to look back on those days. Mm, I wish I’d been able to stick it out with nursing. I do miss the smell of sterilized bedding and lavender.”
Kyle shrugs. “You should find a way to get into it again.”
She’s pulled from her thoughts. “Huh?”
“Nursing.”
Her eyes scrunch up. “With what hour of what day? You’re crazy.” She laughs at once, shakes her head, then sighs with a gesture at the freezer. “Seriously, why do I keep asking you to do all these things around here? You’re supposed to just be my bartender. Not my handyman.”
Kyle nods. “Not a problem.”
She notices his arm. “Where’d that come from? You lean against the stovetop and burn yourself?”
He nearly forgot about it. “Something like that.”
“Henry, you can’t be so careless. Have you taken care of it? Put something on it? You don’t want that to get infected.”
“It’s fine.”
“Let me look.”
Before Kyle can refuse, Cade is upon him, holding his arm and inspecting every inch of the wound. She stops after a while, squints questioningly at it. She gently traces it with a fingertip, appearing troubled.
Kyle frowns. “Something wrong?”
“Wrong?” She’s snapped out of a thought. “Does this seem strange to you? It’s warm, like you were just burned a minute ago. Yet the wound looks a week old, scarred over, smooth.” She looks up at him. “How’d you say you got this again?”
He gently pulls his arm from her grip. “It’ll be fine, thanks. I better get back to the bar.” He heads to the utility room with the tools, putting them up. Passing back through the kitchen to the bar, Cade is busy tapping away on her phone, mumbling something about nickels and dimes. Leland nearby whistles to himself as he flips a burger, then scratches his ass.
The café owner from down the street is at the bar drinking away his woes—whatever trouble he’s in with his wife this time. Kyle becomes the unintended ear as he wipes the counter, the drunken man blaming himself for his broken marriage. While listening, Kyle wonders how long it might take for the sun to burn his own body into a pile of ashes. An hour? Half of one?
Three minutes like a bag of microwave popcorn?
“Have you, ungh, you ever had your—your heart broken, Henry?” The man squints at Kyle as if through thick mist, eyes watery and far away. “You ever—hic!—ever feel your whole life slip through your fingers like goddamned sand?”
Kyle continues wiping the counter, thinking of Tristan, of the last time they laughed, the last time they made love, the last time they woke in each other’s arms. “Not really.”
He snorts. “Yeah, you’re way too young. Someday though. Someday. You’ll—ungh, my head—you’ll understand. Not that I wish this on anyone, but once you dip your toe in, phew, you’re drenched, that’s what it’s like, this shit, that’s what it’s like.”
Kyle notes the empty glass. “Another?”
“You have to ask?”
Kyle pours. The man kicks it back, sets it down softly, then quietly starts to cry.
When the last customer leaves, Kyle locks up the front and starts with his usual nightshift duties. The office door is ajar, soft light spilling out from a desk lamp, Cade quietly working numbers. The kitchen is closed up, cook gone.
