Whiskey Flight

by Violet Howe

  “All right. Thanks.”

  I turned to place my back against the bar so I could watch the bathroom door and the entry door. I didn’t want any surprises.

  A loud burst of laughter erupted from one of the dart groups, and my eyes were drawn to Seth again. He was laughing with them, his perfect white teeth exposed as he tilted his head to one side to listen to what the guy next to him was saying.

  A pang of longing and remembrance hit me, and I tossed back my glass and drained it, trying to find a buffer against the pain.

  This would have been my life. This would have been my Friday night. If I had stayed in Cedar Creek and married Seth, I’d be a part of that laughing group. We’d be sharing inside jokes with our friends. He’d have his arm around me, and it would be my voice he’d tilted his head to hear.

  Instead, I’d run off to the city in pursuit of excitement and a bigger life than Cedar Creek could offer.

  I’d gotten the bigger life, and I’d had my share of excitement since I’d left, but things hadn’t turned out exactly the way I’d planned.

  Now, here I was, back in my hometown, drinking alone at the bar.

  My fast-paced, high-paying career in television news production was over. Instead, I’d thrown myself into opening a community theater to bring the arts to Cedar Creek, but I couldn’t even accomplish that. My endeavor had been beset with more roadblocks and obstacles than I ever could have imagined, and I wasn’t certain I’d be able to get the theater going at all.

  Instead of my posh, renovated house in a trendy Chicago neighborhood with an upscale restaurant or hot-spot bar on every corner, I was living in my late grandmother’s two-bedroom clapboard house and walking three blocks to reach a bar that didn’t even have a sign out front and only served wings, burgers, fries, and free stale peanuts.

  As Seth laughed and celebrated the start of the weekend with his friends, I sat alone—paranoid, fearful, and filled with regrets.

  This was not how I had envisioned my life.

  Suddenly, I was no longer content to sit on that bar stool and mourn the loss of my dreams, my aspirations, and my ill-fated marriage. I wanted to laugh, too. I wanted to feel good. I wanted life to be normal in some sense, even if just for one night, and even if it was exactly the normal I’d tried to escape.

  Two

  “Hey, Shannon? Do you happen to know what Seth’s drinking? Can I get one?”

  She chuckled with a knowing smile, and I chose to ignore it as I paid her for Seth’s beer and gathered up my whiskey, along with my courage, to walk across the bar to his group.

  He looked up and made eye contact with me as I approached, and I couldn’t tell if the shift in his expression was surprise or trepidation.

  “I come in peace,” I said, in case it was the latter. “In fact, I bring a peace offering.”

  I handed him the beer, and he took it with a hesitant grin.

  “Is it poisoned?”

  “No,” I said, pulling the cocktail napkin from beneath the glass in my hand to wave it in front of him. “See? White flag. Truce! Can we talk?”

  His eyes narrowed, and I hated that he didn’t trust such a simple request from me. I couldn’t blame him, though. I’d done that. I’d destroyed a lifetime of friendship. And love.

  “Um, sure,” he said as he looked around the room. “You wanna get a table?”

  “Yeah. I mean, if that’s okay. I don’t want to take you away from your friends.”

  “It’s fine. Mike and I were losing anyway.” He turned to the group and called to one of the guys. “Hey, Kyle, fill in for me for a minute, would ya?”

  “No problem,” Kyle said, taking Seth’s darts.

  We walked toward the empty booth that Metro Man had occupied, and as we navigated the tight space of tables and people, Seth’s hand brushed against the small of my back ever so briefly to guide me.

  It was nothing—a casual touch in no way intimate—but I’d been starved of a man’s touch since Victor’s arrest a little over two years ago, and this wasn’t just any man.

  My heart quickened, and memories of Seth filled my head. Our first kiss. Our first touch. Our first time.

  His face flushed red as we sat across from each other, and he averted his eyes.

  Was he having the same flashbacks? Did they affect him the same way they did me?

  “So, what’s up?” he asked. “What did you want to talk about?”

  I swallowed hard, uncertain of my decision now that it was time to say the words. “I wanted to apologize.”

  He arched an eyebrow and tilted his head to the left. “Oh? What for?”

  “I haven’t been the nicest person to you since I got back.”

  “Really? I hadn’t noticed.” His sarcasm was heavy and familiar, but his grin gave me hope that it wasn’t fueled by anger.

  “I’ve just been going through a lot. It seems like every time I’ve run into you since I came home, it’s been a bad time. A bad time for me, I mean. My life. My circumstances. Not that it was bad to see you.”

  He stared back at me, silent, like he could see right through me, just as he always had. I crossed my arms over my chest and caved my shoulders a bit, folding in on myself to hide, to keep him from seeing those rotted spots inside me from the horrible mistakes I’d made.

  At one time, he’d known me better than anyone, even my own family. He could read me like a book back then, and we had no secrets between us. Nothing hidden.

  It struck me how different that was from my whirlwind romance with Victor, which had been all deception, all lies.

  Seth grinned again, but his gaze still held mine unchanging. The grin was for appearances. He was trying to keep things lighthearted, but the pain was there in his eyes. Even after thirteen years, I still knew him well enough to know that.

  “And here I thought you were going to apologize for disappearing on me,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for that one a while.”

  Ah, a dagger thrown. A door opened that had long ago been shut. Were we really going to go there? Was it even necessary after all this time? What did it matter anymore?

  His attempt at a grin faded with my silence, and he shook his head and looked away.

  Evidently, it still mattered to him.

  “I’m sorry, Seth.”

  He took a swig of his beer and stared at the amber liquid once he’d set the glass back down.

  “Somehow, I thought hearing that would be a lot more satisfying,” he said, his voice quiet. He took a deep breath and then another drink from his glass before he looked at me and grinned again. “So, you’re gonna be an aunt, huh? I saw Amy at the store the other day. She seems over the moon.”

  Grateful for the subject change, I smiled broadly and uncrossed my arms, willing to be open if it meant discussing my sister instead of me.

  “Yes. She and Leo are both thrilled, and I’m so happy for them. We’re almost done with her nursery, and they’ve been going to pregnancy classes at Jensen Memorial. I swear, you’d think she’s the only woman who’s ever been pregnant. Every little thing that happens is monumental.”

  Seth laughed. “Amy’s always been a bit on the dramatic side.”

  “A bit? That’s the understatement of the year. My baby sister came into the world blue, and she’s thrived on the drama surrounding her ever since. She’s the only person I know who can stub her toe and turn it into a story that has people hanging on the edge of their seat.”

  “She’s hilarious, though. I’d listen to her tell a story about stubbing her toe, and I bet it’d be entertaining as hell. You gotta love her.”

  “Oh, I do. I adore her to pieces. She’s my favorite person on the planet, no doubt.”

  “Do you remember that time—” He leaned across the table on his elbow, propping his head in his hand as he chuckled. “—you were doing something to her hair, something that was supposed to make it curly?”

  “Oh, my God! The home perm from hell!”

  We both burst out laughing
at the memory of the disaster.

  “She looked like a French poodle.” Seth’s brown eyes brightened at the memory. “She screamed at you and—”

  “Chased me through the house! It wasn’t my fault though. I followed the directions. I have no idea what went wrong. But, man, did her hair look awful.”

  “She refused to go to school, remember?” Seth said, barely able to get the words out between laughs. “She made your mom go to the teachers and get her work, and she didn’t go to school for like, what?”

  “Two weeks. Yeah, that’s right. My mom finally took her over to—”

  “Deborah Graves—”

  “Yep, Mom took her to Deborah’s hair salon and had Deborah cut it so short that Amy couldn’t even put a hair clip in it.”

  “Amy kept saying she looked like a boy, and I kept teasing her that wasn’t a bad thing because boys were better, and she’d get so mad at me.”

  “Never for long, though,” I said, smiling at the closeness we’d all shared. “My sister adored you. She thought you hung the moon.”

  More memories bubbled up and out, and as we shared them, in some ways, it seemed like no time had passed at all.

  We still finished each other’s sentences. We still connected through our sense of humor. We still made each other laugh.

  “How’s your family?” I asked once we’d thoroughly caught up on mine. “What’s everyone up to?”

  “Noah’s teaching elementary school, if you can imagine my brother doing that. I don’t think you ever knew his wife, Karlie, but no loss. Their marriage was short-lived.”

  Probably not as short-lived as mine, I thought.

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone, scrolling through to show me pictures.

  “That’s his little boy, Thomas. He’s five.”

  “Oh, how handsome! He looks just like Noah. Spitting image, in fact.”

  “Yeah, he’s a good kid, and Noah’s a great dad. He’s done an incredible job with that kid, and he’s been raising him alone since Thomas was only six months old.”

  “Six months? Where’s his mom?”

  “She left.”

  “Who the hell leaves a six-month-old?”

  “Karlie, evidently. She’s got…issues. Trust me, Thomas is better off with Noah, and Noah’s better off without Karlie.”

  “And what about your little sister? What kind of trouble is Zara getting into these days?”

  “Zara is frickin’ awesome. She amazes me. She’s got one year left in school, and then she’ll be Dr. Zara Donovan, veterinarian.”

  “What? No way! She can’t be old enough for that. Wait—how old is she now?”

  “She’s twenty-six.”

  “No! How is that possible? I still see her in my head at thirteen, boy-crazy and giving your mom fits.”

  “Yeah, well, she’s all grown up now. I think being the youngest, Mom’s illness hit her the hardest, you know? Noah and I were both out of the house by the time Mom was diagnosed with MS. At first, Zara rebelled against it, as though she could keep it from happening if she caused enough of a ruckus. But then as Mom got sicker, Zara had no choice but to accept it. She straightened out, quit all her shenanigans, and somehow made it through high school. Then, she went on to college and has busted her ass to get where she’s at today. I couldn’t be more proud of her.”

  I smiled at the idea of the freckled-face teenager with the long braids being a veterinarian. She’d always loved animals, and every time their mother turned around, Zara had brought home another creature to rescue.

  “I’d love to see her,” I said, surprised at the warmth that filled my heart with the thought.

  “I’m sure she’d love that, too. I’ll tell her to look you up the next time she’s in town.”

  His family. My family. At one time, the lines were blurred, and we all belonged to each other. Zara had been just as much my kid sister as she was Seth’s, and Amy had been his even more than she was mine.

  I’d been closest to his mother, Eileen, but I’d turned my back on her along with everyone else. My heart hurt to think of how I’d betrayed them all.

  “How’s your mom doing now?” I asked, though the topic was painful for us both. “Amy said she’s using an electric scooter?”

  “Yeah, she has good days and bad. Some days she can’t even get out of bed, but she’s still here, fighting. Mentally and emotionally, she’s as strong as ever. Her body just can’t keep up with her anymore.”

  My eyes filled with tears as my heart choked in a deluge of regret and guilt. So much lost. So much hurt inflicted. And what had I gained from it?

  “Hey, hey, now. It’s okay,” Seth said as he grabbed a napkin from the dispenser on the table and handed it to me. “They’ve got her on good meds, and she’s doing her physical therapy like a champ. She’s been experimenting with different foods and herbal supplements, too. I think some of that’s helping. Seems to be, anyway.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get upset.”

  “You don’t have to apologize,” Seth said. “I appreciate that you care how she’s doing.”

  His eyes were so tender, his face so familiar. It was both comforting and depressing at the same time.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said again, the tears flowing faster. “I never meant to hurt you, Seth. I never meant to hurt your family, or my family, for that matter. I was so selfish. I couldn’t see beyond what I wanted.”

  He reached across the table and took my hand in his. “You were young. We both were. Fresh out of college, it’s hard to see everyone else’s big picture. At that age, you just wanna look through your own lens, you know?”

  I turned my hand in his to grip it tightly, not wanting him to let go or pull away.

  “I was certain if I left here, if I went to Chicago without you, that you’d follow me. I was so sure of your love that I thought I could use it to force you to do what I wanted. That was wrong of me.”

  He took in a deep breath as he reached to take my other hand in his, our grips matching in intensity.

  “It was never about me not loving you, Dani. My heart belonged to you since the first day I laid eyes on you in that kindergarten class. I came home and told Mom I’d met the girl I was gonna marry. I thought you were my destiny, and when you left town, you took my heart with you. But my family needed me. Mom was getting sicker, even more than I knew at the time because she and Dad hid that from us kids as long as they could. Of course, even they didn’t know what was causing it until after you’d gone. Dad had his hands full with Mom and with Zara acting out. I know you and I had made promises, and I never meant to break them. I wanted to leave with you, babe, to just escape. But I couldn’t.”

  “I know. And I knew that then, but I was selfish. We’d been planning to get out of here since we were in middle school, and I’d held onto that for so long, I couldn’t let it go.”

  Feelings long buried rose up inside me, and for the first time ever, I had the courage to spit them out and expose them to the air, to be rid of them.

  “I feel horrible admitting this, but I think in some ways, I resented your mother’s illness for messing everything up. The way I looked at it then, when I was young and stupid, your mom had your dad and two other kids to take care of her. I figured she didn’t need you as much as I did. I had no idea it would turn out to be multiple sclerosis. I didn’t have a clue what she would go through. What you all would go through. God, talk about self-centered!” I hung my head in shame and tried to pull my hands away, but he held on, refusing to let go.

  “Hey, you couldn’t have known.”

  I forced myself to look up, to meet his eyes and take responsibility for what I had done to him. For what I’d done to us.

  “I guess I never considered her feelings when it came to you leaving with me. I certainly never considered yours, and what it would mean for you to stay. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me most. I wish I could go back—” I looked back down as the tea
rs came again.

  He stood and came to sit beside me in the booth, tucking his thumb beneath my chin to bring my eyes back to his as he put his other arm around my shoulders.

  “Like I said, we were both young. If I had it to do over again, I’d have driven to Chicago when you stopped taking my calls, and I would have found you and made you come home with me. I would have never let you leave my side. But I felt rejected, and I was just as stubborn as you and just as determined not to give in. We can’t go back. It is what it is, and it’s all water under a bridge that washed out a long time ago.”

  I don’t know what possessed me to kiss him in that moment. It wasn’t something I’d intended to do. I didn’t weigh the consequences or consider what it meant. I didn’t even really think about. It was purely impulse and raw need, and maybe a little whiskey.

  He didn’t pull away. He didn’t even hesitate. His lips parted the moment I pressed mine against them, and neither of us held back in any measure.

  The bar disappeared along with its patrons. The passage of time was gone, along with all the hurts and heartaches that had come with it. Suddenly, the choices of the past held no sway, and it was just me and Seth again.

  I’d forgotten the way he could make my body respond. When you unlock all your firsts together, there’s no barriers to exploration, and he’d learned long ago what I liked and how I liked it, and somehow, he hadn’t forgotten a thing.

  A loud comment from a fellow patron walking by brought us back to present reality, and Seth pulled away with a grin.

  “Wow,” he said, his breathing heavier and his eyes dark with desire. “I must say, that was a much more satisfying apology than the first one.”

  Having no idea how to respond to what had just transpired, I reached for my whiskey and downed it.

  “Damn!” Seth said. “How many does that make for you tonight, D? Three, that I know of. Should I be worried that you’re saying and doing things you won’t remember in the morning?”

  “I remember everything.”