By midnight, we’re the only two people left. The other employees have gone, the door is now locked, and he’s carrying a case of empty glasses to the back.
I pull my leg up and wrap my arms around it. I’m nervous. I didn’t come back to this town to meet a guy. I’m in this town with a much bigger purpose. One he looks like he could derail with the point of a finger.
I’m only human, though. Humans need companions, and even though I didn’t return to this town to meet people, this guy is hard to ignore.
He walks through the double doors with a different shirt on. He’s no longer wearing the purple collared shirt with the rolled-up sleeves that all the other employees were wearing. He put on a white T-shirt. So simple, but so complicated.
He smiles when he reaches me, and I feel that smile slip over me with the warmth of a weighted blanket. “You came back.”
I try to act unaffected. “You asked me to.”
“You want something to drink?”
“I’m okay.”
He touches his hair now, pushing it back, staring down at me. There’s a war in his eyes, and I am by no means Switzerland, but he comes to me anyway. Sits next to me. Right next to me. My heart beats faster, even faster than when Scotty came to my register for a fourth time all those years ago.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
I don’t want him to know my name. He looks like he could be the age Scotty would be now if Scotty were alive, which means he might recognize my name, or me, or remember what happened. I don’t want anyone to know me, or remember, or warn the Landrys that I’m in town.
It isn’t a small town, but it isn’t huge either. My presence won’t go unnoticed for long. I just need it to go unnoticed for long enough, so I lie, sort of, and give him my middle name. “Nicole.”
I don’t ask him what his name is because I don’t care. I’ll never use it. I’ll never come back here after tonight.
I pull at a strand of my hair, nervous at being so close to someone after so long. I feel like I’ve forgotten what to do, so I just blurt out what I came here to say. “I wasn’t going to drink it.”
He tilts his head, confused by my confession, so I clarify.
“The wine. Sometimes I . . .” I shake my head. “It’s dumb, but I do this thing where I order alcohol specifically to walk away from it. I don’t have a drinking problem. It’s more like an issue with control, I think. Makes me feel less weak.”
His eyes scan my face with the slightest hint of a smile. “I respect that,” he says. “I rarely drink for similar reasons. I’m around drunk people every night, and the more I’m around them, the less I want to be among them.”
“A bartender who doesn’t drink? That’s rare. Right? I’d think bartenders would have one of the highest rates of alcoholism. Easy access.”
“That’s actually the construction industry. Which probably isn’t good for my odds. I’ve been building a house for several years now.”
“You’re really setting yourself up for failure.”
He smiles. “Looks that way.” He relaxes into the booth a little more. “What do you do, Nicole?”
This is the moment I should walk away. Before I say too much, before he asks more questions. But I like his voice and his presence, and I feel like staying here would be distracting, and I really need a distraction right now.
I just don’t want to talk. Talking will only get me in trouble in this town.
“Do you really want to know what I do for a living?” I’m sure he’d rather have his hand up my shirt than hear whatever it is a girl would say in this moment. And since I don’t want to admit that I do nothing for a living because I’ve been locked up for five years, I slide onto his lap.
It surprises him, almost as if he really did expect us to sit here and chat for the next hour.
His expression changes from mild shock to acceptance. His hands fall to my hips, and he grips them. I shiver from the contact.
He adjusts me so that I’m sitting a little farther up, and I can feel him through his jeans, and I’m suddenly not as confident that I can walk away as I was five seconds ago. I thought I could kiss him and then tell him good night and saunter home with pride. I just wanted to feel a little bit powerful before tomorrow, but now he’s dragging his fingers across the skin on my waist, and it’s making me weaker and weaker, and so fucking thoughtless. Not thoughtless as in uncaring, but thoughtless as in empty inside my head, and feeling everything in my chest, like a ball of fire is building inside of me.