AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Thanks,” she replies, but her eyes narrow, like I’m being insincere.
Wyatt’s hands are on my shoulders now. He leans closer to my ear. “Let’s go grab a drink.”
Zane watches his friend, but doesn’t react. I keep my face neutral, swimming in my silent pain alone.
I force a smile over my shoulder and follow Wyatt to the bar. I take the stool next to him. My body is on the barstool, but my mind is back with Zane and Jessica.
“I thought you could use a drink,” he says.
“You thought right,” I respond. I take a shaky, deep breath. We order shots. I add in a whiskey and Coke, deciding the dark liquor might numb me quicker than vodka would. We watch as Ivan assembles our drinks.
“What’s up with that?” Wyatt nods toward the corner we just came from.
I shrug, refusing to look over there. “No idea.”
“Didn’t you two just go camping together?”
“Yep,” I say, tapping the shot glass to the wooden surface and swallowing it down before Wyatt can even grab his.
Wyatt’s eyebrows rise high on his forehead. “Okay then …” His head tilts back as he drinks his shot.
I take two gulps of my mixed drink.
“Slow down, Lo.”
I stare right into his eyes, wishing I preferred his brown gaze to the navy-blue one across the room. And I wonder how I ended up here in the first place. Lately, my entire life has felt like a series of two steps forward and ten back.
Against my better judgment, I glance over at the pool table. Zane’s attention is already on me. His jaw tics as our eyes meet. His mouth is in a straight, unhappy line. Jessica has disappeared. She was wearing her apron, so I guess she’s working tonight.
“Looks like you were right,” I declare, pulling my attention back to the man sitting beside me.
“Right about what?” Wyatt asks. He tips his beer back, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.
“Right about Zane. And Jessica.”
“They’ll always have history,” he comments, watching as Jessica delivers a tray of food to a nearby table. “But somehow, I don’t think that’s what this is about.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, desperate for any morsel of information I can gather about Zane. Anything to help me understand what’s happening right now.
“Zane doesn’t want Jessica,” he finally says, looking me directly in the eye. “But for some reason, he wants you to think he does.”
I look over to the corner to see Zane still watching us as he takes a long pull from his beer.
“He’s pushing me away,” I surmise. But the question is … why?
“Seems that way,” Wyatt agrees.
If that’s really what he’s doing right now, then maybe I should let him.
“You know”—I sigh—“my life was complicated enough before I came here. I don’t need anything else weighing me down. I don’t think I can take it.”
“I hear you, Lo,” he says.
I extend my glass and try to manufacture a smile. The surfaces clink when he taps it with his beer bottle, and we drink in silent solidarity to seal the silent toast.
“Tell me what’s been going on with you,” Wyatt says.
So, I tell him. I fill him in on the urgent care in town. I detail the application process. I admit that I’ve been less than happy with my current job in the city and that I’m seriously considering relocating to Sullivan’s Way.
