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CHAPTERONE
EVA
January 4th
The wind buffeted my hair and chilled my fingers while I forced the old key into the rust crusted lock.
‘Come on,’ I muttered, the large key biting into the chapped skin of my fingers. I used my other hand to wiggle the handle simultaneously nudging the door with my hip as the rain lashed at me. I’d lost the knack for it in the eight years I’d spent in London.
Eventually, the old door gave way with an exaggerated groan and swung open. I stumbled into the old bar and hunted for the light switch on the wall. Dim lighting washed the dusty room with orange light. With a sigh, I slammed the door behind me and pushed my damp hair from my face.
The cleaner had done a cursory last clean after Pop had passed away, but otherwise, Rusty’s bar remained exactly as my grandfather had left it.—chairs upturned on the tables, a mop and bucket rested against the far wall and spirit bottles left half-filled along the back of the bar. A breath caught in my throat, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
His funeral had torn me apart inside, but I’d squashed the emotions down to hold myself together in front of the residents of Coal’s Lake, who had loved my Pop. Every whisper made me wonder if they were judging me as harshly as I judged myself.
He’d raised me, and I’d gone off and left him. He’d wanted me to take over his bar when I reached adulthood, and I’d chased the big city life instead. He’d never said as much, but he must have felt like I’d fled from him and my life in Coal’s as soon as I got the chance. In a way, I suppose I did. Not from Pop, though. I loved him with every little corner of my heart. It was the small-town life that I wanted to escape. I craved the anonymity the city promised. When a promotion offered me the chance to experience life in London, I hopped on a plane as quickly as I could blink.
At first, I’d called every other day. Then, every other week. Eventually, only to share special news or on holidays. I’d travelled back twice—twice in eight years.
I thought I had more time.
He’d always been invincible in my eyes as a child. The distance made his growing frailty easier to mask. I’d been too busy to look at the cracks appearing beneath the charade he gave me.
The old bar was his pride and joy. His life’s work. Home.
I’d spent hours in the office space behind the bar doing my homework while he worked. We’d lived in the tiny apartment upstairs. He’d given me his room when my parents died without a moment’s hesitation. Every night we’d pull out his couch-bed, and it had taken too long for me to recognise the sacrifices he’d made to give me a home.
What I’d have given for one more minute with him—to pull him into my arms and thank him the way I should have.
Instead of coming home to watch him being interred in the dirt, I should have come back to help him when he needed me.
The bar and its rag-tag bunch of old-timers were the only family he’d had at the end. He’d left it to me in his will, with the request that I keep it going.
My life was in London, though. I had no-one in Coal’s that I wanted to come back for. In England, I had John. It had only been six months, but it had been a good six months. My job was… well, it paid the bills. The pay increase that came with my move had seemed immense. I’d failed to realise the jump in living costs that moving to one of the world’s major cities would bring.
Sharing an apartment at twenty-nine wasn’t exactly unusual amongst my peers in London, but it was alien in the spacious town I’d grown up in.
So I was back to give Rusty’s a makeover, make enough to pay off the few debts the bar had, and see if I could sell the business to someone who Pop would have approved of.
My phone bleeped, and I fished it out of my pocket, smiling when John’s name popped up. It was a little less lonely knowing I had him only ever a text away.
Eva, I know that texting you like this makes me a bit of a bellend, but the long-distance thing isn’t working for me. I bumped into Anya last night, and we got to talking. I’m going to see how things go now that she’s back in touch. Sorry, luv.
I stared at the message as anger bubbled up through me, seeping out of my pores in a quiet rage that warmed me through.
Text?
Fucking TEXT?
I was burying my grandfather while my boyfriend was hitting on his ex?
In a burst of fury, I hurled my phone at the bar, watching it bounce off the old wood and skitter across the floor.
I stared at the phone as the dam broke and a tear rolled down my cheek, a sob escaped and finally, I cried.
Partly for my boyfriend turning into another unreliable pig, but mostly for my Pop and all the time I’d wasted. I’d spent six months in the arms of a man who’d callously tossed me aside without a second thought, while I could have spent them with the man who’d been my entire world.
I slid down onto the floor, my back pressed against the door, and buried my face in my hands, letting rivers of salty tears cascade over my fingers.
