"A couple of months is two or three," she interjected. "It's been more than two or three months. It's spring. Seasons have come and gone while I've been engaged."
"And I see we're sensitive about that," I said, laughing.
"A little bit," she conceded. "I just feel like I should have this sorted out by now." She laughed into her raspberry wheat. "If you asked my mother, she'd say I'm inexcusably far behind. She leaves me voicemails reminding me to make appointments with florists and bakeries and priests. But whenever Jackson and I try to decide on anything, we get derailed."
"Let's not call sex on the living room floor getting derailed." I shook my head. "It's punny, but we're better than that."
"There is that, but we're also trying to build a house and figure out how to live together without fighting over every little thing," she said. "The wedding is low on our list right now."
"And between all that living room floor sex and your mother, you're opting for the sex." I shrugged. "That's fair."
"My mother can't decide how she wants to handle this," Annette continued. "She's somewhere between wanting to make this bigger and better than my sisters' weddings, and being annoyed because I'm nothing like my sisters and won't go along with her daft ideas."
She went on venting about her mother's assortment of misguided wedding initiatives. I listened, nodding and sympathizing as best I could. Her mother wasn't my favorite person. She wasn't kind to my friend and I was waiting for an opportunity to call her on that shit. But beyond my frustrations with Mrs. Cortassi, I found myself wondering about my mother and how she would've reacted to me getting engaged.
I tended to believe my mother would've transformed into a steamroller, knocking me and my fiancé out of the way while she planned a showstopper of a wedding. It would be at home, of course, as she and my father were married there and she loved tradition when it fit her interests. She would've ordered the most opulent tent and bought all the flowers in New England. Every last one of them. The cake would be banana. Fucking banana. I'd wear whatever she told me to and style my hair as she instructed, and I'd do it without complaint or argument because I had to be perfect. Had to be perfect for her, for everyone.
It was macabre to think it, but I'd always known she'd die suddenly. My mother lived for putting on a show. It was always going to be the blink of an eye or a long, epic, slow process where she died but came back to life at least three or four times because everyone loved a good sob story.
"Shit," Annette murmured.
I glanced around the nearly empty restaurant, but couldn't locate a cause for concern. "What?"
"I'm going on about my mother and how I'd rather she go back to ignoring me." She gestured toward me. "And that's really insensitive of me."
"Oh, no, don't worry," I said, waving her off. "I'm fine. It never gets better, but it's okay. I don't think I want to get married anyway."
Annette gaped at me. "What? Since when? We've had no fewer than four thousand conversations about our fantasy weddings. You've already planned your groom's cake and you haven't even met him yet." She leaned forward, peering at me. "Why are you feeling all the feels today?"
"I'm not feeling all the feels." I busied myself with the beer flights, lifting and sniffing each glass before sipping. "This is your day to try on heinous dresses and have tiny panic attacks in them. This isn't about me and I'm not feeling the feels."
"I'll admit I had a tiny panic attack if you admit you're having deep, boggy feels."
I drained two different beers and shoved a slab of nachos in my mouth. "Fine," I said around the chips. "Feels."
"This is good. It's progress," Annette said, pointing at the empty glasses. "Drown them in beer and cheese." She nibbled a chip. "Was it the dresses or the wedding talk that did it?"
I shook my head. "Neither, I don't think. I don't know why I've had these—what did you call them?—boggy feels."
That was the truth. I didn't know where all these emotions came from or why they seemed to flood my waking moments, but I was lonely. Not alone, but lonely. Living with my father was like living with a ghost. In many ways, he was gone. He didn't recognize me, didn't call me by name, didn't remember his own name, couldn't care for himself. He hadn't experienced a good day in many, many days.
But he was very much alive. He was obsessed with banana cream pie and Laverne and Shirley reruns. He played Monopoly with one of his home health aides for six hours straight last week and required help to bathe and use the toilet. He was a living, breathing person but my father was gone.
Annette snagged another chip from the nacho plate. "Getting derailed might help."
* * *
Just one more time, I promised myself as I headed toward the village that night. There's nothing wrong with it as long as it's just one more time.
When I reached the Galley, I stopped outside and stared up at the sign over the door. Scowled at it. I couldn't remember the last time I'd paid attention to the round logo with words arched over the top and a busty mermaid with a handful of wheat and berries—which made no sense whatsoever.
Aside from the logistical issues of a mermaid holding field crops, when did mermaids become things of admiration rather than animosity? The whole of history painted them as temptresses with fickle moods and violent methods. If they weren't seducing seamen into unchartered depths, they were gathering storms to toss those seamen and their ships into riptides and rocks.
It was never the sailors who encroached upon their sacred waters. Their warning songs and brutal storms were never acts of self-defense. The fishermen who reeled in mermaids and tortured them on ship decks weren't getting their due. Rather, it was the mermaid's fault for swimming too close to their nets.
She was asking for it.
And now, somehow, that mermaid represented beauty and whimsy and mystery, and that was splendid. But it didn't erase three thousand years of men blaming mermaids for their existence. And it didn't explain why this one was holding wheat and berries.
I found the tavern mostly empty when I pushed through the heavy door. Not surprising. This town marked its days by sunrises rather than sunsets, and anyone who worked on the water was tucked into bed by now.
Several familiar faces dotted the tavern, but the game playing on the television consumed their attention. Nate Fitzsimmons stood behind the bar, busy marking notes on a clipboard. No one noticed as I slipped into my usual seat on the far end.
I wasn't concerned about finding JJ. I'd put eyes on him when the time was right.
I checked my phone and then tucked it into my back pocket when I found no new messages. Jackson and Annette were watching a movie—rather, having sex while a movie played in the background—and my father was asleep. Barring any disasters, I'd have a couple hours before anyone noticed me missing.
Nate tapped his clipboard on the edge of the bar. He looked older than I'd remembered, with lines creasing his forehead, the edges of his eyes, his mouth. Tired too, but he'd bulked up since the last time I saw him. His shirt strained over his chest and his legs looked like tree trunks. "What can I get you?"
I hesitated. "What do you have for white wines tonight? Anything you'd find outside of this one-stoplight village where dreams go to die and conventional wisdom predates the Civil Rights movement?"
It took him a moment, but he chuckled. "Let me see what I can find. Are you looking for something dry or something sweet?"
The door to the storeroom burst open as JJ backed in with a keg in tow. "Nothing sweet about that one." To Nate, he said, "Put the empty out back with the others going to Allagash."
My chin propped on my palm, I watched while Nate removed one keg and JJ tapped another. He did it with an eye on the ball game and that was when I knew I really needed to have sex because there was nothing hot about him distractedly tapping a keg.
Still watching the game, he asked, "What brings you in here tonight, Bam Bam? Where's Annette?"
"It's just me," I said.
"Haven't seen you
without your sidekick in months."
He had to call me on that. Had to make note of the fact I hadn't crossed the tavern's threshold without using my best friend as a human shield. Yes, I'd hidden behind Annette since leaving JJ on the sidewalk outside my father's house months ago. And it'd worked. She was a glowing bounty of goodness and light, and it wasn't unusual for her to shine like the center of the Cove's solar system.
As the moon to her sun, it was easier for me to fade into the background, especially now that she was engaged to the sheriff. The townspeople couldn't stop dousing her in well wishes and I was happy for her—and happy for the reprieve. While the endless familiarity often bothered the hell out of me, the folks around here were mostly kind and decent and they always asked after my father.
There was only one problem with those questions: no one knew about Dad's dementia. As far as this nosy, in-your-back-pocket town was concerned, Dad was involved in a single vehicle car accident a little more than two years ago which resulted in a badly broken leg and long-term mobility issues. They didn't know he'd emptied the contents of his refrigerator into the trunk before driving away, barefoot, and losing control of his car in the middle of nowhere, about eighty miles inland. They didn't know he'd been restrained and then sedated after punching a medical assistant in the mouth. And they didn't know I'd chartered a plane from New York City to get here as soon as possible, only for him to demand I keep his secret.
That was one of the last lucid conversations we'd shared, and it'd left me carrying a burden of unimaginable weight while those good, decent Talbott's Covians kept peppering me with their questions and concerns and prayers. So many prayers. Sooner or later, those prayers were bound to kick in. Right?
JJ shot a glimpse in my direction before testing the keg. "I was beginning to think you and Annette were joined at the hip."
"We would be if Jackson didn't mind me sleeping with them." I shrugged. "Strange as it is, he draws the line there."
JJ stepped away from the keg and turned to face me, his hands fisted on his hips. "What do you want, Brooke?"
"As I mentioned, some wine would be nice."
He shook his head. "I don't think so."
"Excuse you?"
"You heard me," he replied. We stared at each other until Nate returned from the back room and crossed between us. To the other man, he said, "I'm going to check on the small batches. Work on hustling Lincoln out of here before his wife comes looking for him. I'm not interested in staging any more domestic disputes."
"Amen to that," Nate muttered.
JJ spared me a glance that came across as one part irritation, one part impatience, and one last part interest. I could work with the aggregate. "Drink your wine and go home, Brooke."
He set a glass in front of me before turning on his heel and marching into the storeroom. Nate and I stared at the door swinging shut behind JJ. "Put this on my tab," I said.
Nate tucked a dishrag into his back pocket. "You don't have a tab, Miss Markham. Boss's orders."
"Your boss is needlessly rude." I slipped off the stool, yanked a twenty out of my bra and dropped it on the bar. He eyed the cash as if it was contaminated with boob sweat, which it was. "I need to have a talk with that boss of yours." I paused at the door to the back room, my palm flat on the slab. "Do me a favor, Fitzsimmons. Stay out here, even if you hear yelling and glass breaking and all kinds of mayhem."
He glanced at the cash again. "Is that supposed to cover mayhem?"
"It is if you interrupt." I didn't wait for him to respond, instead pushing into the dim room. The last time I'd visited, I'd missed the entire chemistry lab setup back here. There were tanks and beakers and devices I couldn't name. A floor-to-ceiling rack stood off to the side with a dozen rows of glass bottles, each bearing a scribbled label. "What the hell is all this?"
I heard an exasperated sigh before setting eyes on JJ. He crossed his arms over his chest and scowled as if he could warn me off with an angry pose and some bared teeth. He had the audacity to do all that while also wearing million-year-old jeans, a button-up with sleeves rolled to his elbows, and a goddamn tweed vest. He was so fucking grouchy and it made me want to push at him, poke and scratch that mood. I wanted to antagonize him until he pushed and poked and scratched right back. Until he snapped.
"Jesus Christ, Brooke, what do you want?"
I circled his work table, dragging my fingertips over the surface as I went. "Did you order that vest from the Bartenders of Brooklyn catalog?" I moved behind him, my fingers ghosting over his shoulders and earning me some major side-eye as I went. "It looks very official. I mean, Brooklyn as fuck, but also official."
He hooked his hand around the waist of my jeans as I passed him, jerked my body flush against his. "Admit it," he ordered, his teeth pressed to my neck and his palm low on my backside. More of that, please. More more more. "Admit you lied."
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," I replied. "I'm also sure you have no business questioning my integrity."
His fingers followed the seam of my jeans down, between my legs. More. "You said never again, sweetheart, but look at you." His other hand slipped under my sweater, his knuckles brushing the underside of my breasts. "Admit it. You came out to play, didn't you?"
A fractional piece of me wanted to say yes, to surrender. To get what I needed. But the rest of me knew better than to surrender to any man. "Just as soon as you explain why your mermaid is carrying wheat and berries."
"My fucking what?" he growled into my hair.
"Your sign, Jed. You have a mermaid on your sign and she's holding wheat and berries, and I shouldn't have to explain to you that neither grow close enough to the coast for mermaids to be in possession of either."
"Mmhmm." He palmed my ass and boosted me up onto the table. "You came here to argue about the plausibility of mermaids getting their hands on some fruit? That's what you want, Bam?"
I raked my hands down his tweed vest, laced my legs around his waist. "I'd like your signage to make sense, even if it is promulgating misogynistic mythology."
He planted his hands on the table, caging me in his arms. "I'll give you a fight if that's what you want. Just tell me, sweetheart."
I met his gaze, tipped my chin up. "Admit your sign—the one with the outrageously voluptuous mermaid—is inaccurate and illogical."
He bowed his head and bit the side of my breast through my sweater. "Meet me at my place in half an hour and we'll talk about the right kind of voluptuous."
"Are you mocking me?" I shoved him away from the sweater covering my barely B-cup breasts. "No amount of dick is worth dealing with a dickhead."
He rasped out a growl as he returned to my cleavage. "I haven't forgotten how much you liked the dick and the dickhead, Bam. You haven't forgotten either."
"You know what? I don't need this." I scooted forward to get off the table, but JJ fisted the hem of my sweater, held me in place. "I don't know what you think you're doing, but I don't need you for this."
"You wouldn't be here if that was true." He twisted my sweater around his hands until it tightened against my body. "I'm not mocking you and I'm not taking your shit either. I want your tits in my mouth and I'll debate some fuckin' mermaids with you while I do it if that's what you need to make it work in your head." He turned his hands once more, banding the cashmere under my bra like a tourniquet. He leaned close, his short beard tickling my neck, and pressed his lips to my jaw. "But if your ass isn't waiting for me at my house within thirty minutes, don't think you'll ever play this game with me again, Bam."
A gasp shuddered out of me as he tightened the sweater once more and kissed my cheek, right at the corner of my lips. Then he was gone, the door swinging behind him.
My fingers pressed to my not-quite-kissed lips, glanced down at the wrinkled, stretched-out mess he'd made of my sweater. "Look what you've done now."
Chapter Fourteen
JJ
Compound Interest: interest paid on previously earned interest as w
ell as principal.
"You're closing up, kid," I called to Nate as I blew into the bar.
I'd spent twenty minutes pacing the short length of the walk-in refrigerator. I'd solved all of jack shit in there. I stepped up to the point of sale system as I adjusted the unflagging bulge behind my zipper, but that didn't escape the notice of my bar hand.
"Did you hear me? You're closing."
He eyed me up and down before saying, "This seems like the type of situation where I should advise you to run far and fast in the opposite direction."
"From Brooke?" I asked, hooking a thumb over my shoulder toward the storeroom of ill-repute. "Nah, I've tried that. Doesn't help. She's the kind of storm you ride out."
"You're sure about me closing? I'm allowed to do that?"
I tapped the screen to run a day-end report. He'd been on the job more than six months now and I'd learned enough about him in that time to know he could handle more than his history of guilty pleas and rehab stays suggested. His humor was dark and his work ethic was mile-long, and he hadn't slipped up once since leaving his treatment program. "Why the hell not?"
Nate continued unpacking a crate of freshly washed glassware. "Would you like that in brief form or bullet points? Chronological order or degree of severity? My parents prefer chronological, if you were wondering."
I squeezed my eyes shut, rubbed my thumb across my brow. I knew everyone had their limits, but I couldn't understand why Nate's parents insisted on persecuting him for his mistakes while he worked his ass off turning his life around. It was a fine thing that they'd stopped coming in here, because that shit wasn't helping anyone. "This isn't the time to be self-deprecating. Just tell me whether you can handle the close-up checklist."
"Yeah. I have this under control." He glanced between me and the door. "I'd thank you for trusting me with the responsibility, but I don't think this decision has anything to do with me."
Far Cry: A Talbott’s Cove Novel Page 10
