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“Harrison. It’s nice to meet you, Lola.”
She asks him for his member number and they chit chat. This was a horrible idea. I don’t have any business being here. I. Am. Sick.
Lola slides the glass to me while laughing at something Harrison says. I knock back the entire glass in one swallow. It burns going down my esophagus. It’s a welcome burn. The discomfort reminds me I am alive, no matter how dead I feel.
“Another one,” I say, clinking the glass against the glass countertop.
Lola looks to Harrison, and I swivel my barstool away from the two of them. She’ll either serve me, or I’ll go across the street.
Long fingers with fire engine red nails clasp my thigh. I brush the hand off my leg and glance back to the bar.Where is my drink?
“Ian, you don’t remember me?”
I lift my gaze and take in the brunette before me. Dark eyes, long, thick lashes, sensuous red lips. Her silky black hair is looped into a low side bun with a gaping hole for someone to fist.
Memories surface. I fucked her. Harrison and I fucked her at the same time in one of the back rooms in this massive place. She’s a member here, too. It was the first and only time I’ve ever shared a woman. The heavy bass vibrated through the walls and floor and lights flickered as we explored her orifices in highly erotic ways.
“Andrea. How could I forget?” I attempt a smile, but fuck if I succeed. Those long fingers return to my forearm, and her expression shifts into one of concern.
“Baby, you look so sad. What can I do for you?”
Lola slides another glass my way. I knock it back in one long swallow. I wipe my lips with the cocktail napkin Lola thoughtfully set out. Pressure on my wrist and a potent floral scent remind me Andrea is still there and she awaits an answer.
“Can you help me forget?” I ask.
“And what, exactly, are we forgetting?” Her breath warms my ear, and those fingers stroke my thigh.
“The sun.” Her breast presses against my bicep.
I drop my head and have the strangest desire to lean against Andrea and just ask her to hold me. How the fuck did I get here? How did I get to this place?
“The sun?” she questions. I probably don’t make sense. It’s a long story. One Andrea probably doesn’t want to hear.
“Or maybe the rain.”
ChapterTwo
Sandra
The Christmas Before Last Christmas
“Merry Christmas, Dad.” I set the mix of red and white carnations against the gravestone. “I’ve got to get back to the house. Having Christmas breakfast with the Dukes this morning. You’ll be happy to know Patty and Sam Senior are doing good. I don’t get to see them as much since they’ve retired to San Pedro Island, but they still look after me. You always said they were good people, and you were right.”
A breeze spreads across the cemetery. Territorial blue jays squawk in a nearby tree. The bare limbs of the trees are the only nod to winter on this sixty-one-degree day with blue skies and scattered, wispy clouds.
“I’m wearing the white snowflake sweater you gave me.” The too-warm-for-Texas sweater is my Christmas staple.
The pads of my fingers dip into the uneven divots on the arch of the chilly granite. Dad designed this gravestone nearly forty years ago. All I had to do was have them add the date of his birth and death next to my mom’s engraving.
The tires of an old Buick scrape against the curb, and I wave.
Mrs. Mitchell gets out of her car and ambles to her trunk. She lifts a red and white wreath out of the car.
“Merry Christmas,” I call out to her.
“Merry Christmas, Sandra,” she calls back. Her trunk slams closed with a bang that travels across the sloping cemetery, and she trudges up the hill to her family plot.
“Well, Dad, I guess I’ll get out of here. Gotta check on that casserole.”
