“Two and a half months,” she says. “I won’t even fit into a truck by then.”
“There’s always the tailgate,” I point out, and she smacks my arm. I give her another smile and crank the engine.
Audrey puts some music on the radio, and I relax because I assume that means she won’t grill me about May.
But apparently she’s only lulling me into a false sense of security. At the first red light, she says, “If May thinks she’s so sneaky, someone should tell her not to park right beside the dumpster we use for the bakery. I don’t go to work at five thirty very often anymore, and still I’ve seen her car there several times.”
“Oh.” Whoops.
“You’re going to take good care of our girl, right?”
“If she lets me. It’s a pretty big if.”
“Oh, she has it bad.”
“I don’t know.” I’m trying to hang on to my optimism, but May isn’t making it easy.
“Pfft.” Audrey dismisses this with a wave of her hand. “Every time she’s on her way out to see ‘Selena’—” Audrey makes quote marks with her hands. “—she’s practically singing. I mean, I know what sexual satisfaction looks like, and it looks like that.”
I snort. “Thanks for the five-star review. But I was looking for more than just sex, and she isn’t.” You can make a girl sing without winning her over. “I told her I’d be her fun rebound guy. But then I tried to change the rules.”
“Ah,” Audrey says. She’s silent for a moment. “You really fucked that up, then, didn’t you?”
“No?” I argue. “How can it ever be a fuck-up to tell someone you love her?”
“How many women have you said ‘I love you’ to?” Audrey asks.
It’s an easy calculation. “One.”
“Does May know that?”
“Probably.”
“You sure?”
“Well, no. But everyone knows I’m allergic to commitment. Was, anyway.”
“Hmm.” Audrey rubs her belly. “Then how hard did you try to explain why she’s different for you? Did you sit her down and lay out each of the ways that you’ve changed? Or did you just hit her with this news like a hand grenade.”
“Uh…” I look back on the last twelve hours and realize that I made more mistakes than I thought. Fuck. “Not so much. I texted ‘I love you’ to her while she was driving in the snow. And then she hit a tree. Also, we were having a fight at the time.”
“Smooth,” Audrey says with a sigh. “Look. That was a real rookie move. But you know it’s not over, right? The last person who claimed to love May asked her to move in and then cheated on her. May is only protecting herself. It’s been how long since you started seeing her—six weeks?”
I let out a little groan as the truck rolls toward Colebury.
“Yeah,” Audrey says with a sigh. “I get that this whole relationship is a big deal for you. When you love someone, you want them to know right away. But sometimes epiphanies aren’t on the same schedule. Just because you’ve suddenly discovered that unicorns and leprechauns are real, doesn’t mean that May is on the same timetable.”
“Leprechauns?” I laugh, because I feel like crying.
“Roll with it,” Audrey says, backhanding my arm. “I’m trying to make a point here.”
“Oh, you’re making it. Six weeks. There are barrel-aged beers that take longer than that to make. I’m such a bonehead.”
“Nah. You’re just a first-timer. A love virgin.” Audrey finds this idea so hilarious that she cracks up right there in the passenger seat.
“So what do I do?” I ask when the hilarity peters out.
“Patience and calm. Just be there, okay? She’s going to be out of work for a couple of weeks until they decide if her hand will heal without surgery. She can’t drive, I bet. It’s going to be boring. Can I give you a couple of tips?”
“Certainly.”
“She has a weakness for Twizzlers. And pop culture. And…” She looks thoughtful. “May is a practical person. Not the kind of girl to chase after luxuries, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t appreciate little things. Nobody ever brings her flowers. Daniela certainly didn’t.”
“You are full of wisdom, Audrey Shipley.” I pull into the parking lot for the Busy and the Gin Mill.
She smiles, and not for the first time I wonder how she and Griff get along so well. He’s a storm cloud, and she’s the sunshine. “Later, Romeo.”
“No, I’m coming in for breakfast.”
I get out of my truck, then walk around to help Audrey down.
There’s a damaged brown sweater mocking me on the back seat. Just one more thing in my life that needs fixing.
We walk into the Busy Bean together. Audrey greets Zara and then disappears into the back to wash her hands.
I wait for a customer before me to be served. After the heart-stopping panic of hearing about May’s car accident, the other problems in my life seem smaller now. But since I can’t be with May right now, I might as well tackle a couple of them.
At the counter, I greet my sister and get more coffee. Zara brings me that pretzel I didn’t get a chance to eat before. I eat it right there while she quizzes me about May’s condition. I do my best to explain that she’s banged up but okay.
“Well, that’s a relief,” she says, pointing at the crumbs I’m dropping on her counter.
I sweep them into my hand. “Aren’t you going to grill me about the whole relationship, now?”
“Nope,” she says, offering me more coffee. “Figure Griffin’s got that covered.”
“Rossis don’t end up with Shipleys, anyway,” I remind her. “I think I remember telling you that once. He’ll realize pretty soon that he doesn’t have anything to worry about.”
“I don’t know.” My sister looks thoughtful. “Griff and I weren’t a good match. I loved the idea of him more than I was in love with him. But it’s not the same for you.”
I guess it really isn’t. “May and I are a bad match on paper. That’s what she tells me, anyway. But I just don’t buy it. And she makes me want things I didn’t think I’d ever want.”
“See?” My sister chuckles. “You might break the streak, big brother, if it’s meant to be.”
That’s Zara for you. She doesn’t take any shit from anyone, but she doesn’t judge, either.
“That’ll be six fifty,” she says.
Right. I pay my sister, finish my delicious pretzel with cream cheese and salmon, then get back into my truck.
I drive out to Otto’s farmhouse, feeling weighed down by a lack of sleep and too much on my mind. And I’m dreading asking Otto for help. There’s more than one thing I need from this man and humbling myself will sting.
It’ll be bad enough if my uncle refuses to help me. But he won’t just refuse, he’ll insult me, too. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.
I’m girding my loins as I park my truck in front of the house. I can’t allow our conversation to end up like a teenage throwback. I’m going to go in there and be calm and ask for help. Even if it makes me want to put my head through a wall.
I jump onto the porch and knock on the door.
Otto answers with his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. He looks harmless, but I know better. “Need something?” he asks.
The urge to snark is strong. But I don’t do it. “Yeah. I need your help.”
“Of course you do,” he says. “Quite the show you put on last night.”
And here we go. I make a promise to myself as I follow him inside. After this, I’ll head to the gym and take it all out on the heavy bag. I’ll need to.
I take a long breath in through my nose and let it out. “I found out yesterday that Giltmaker cut off my supply of Goldenpour a week ago. Would you happen to know why that is?”
Otto’s bushy eyebrows lift. “No. New strategy? They wanna go it alone?”
“That would have been my guess, except they haven’t opened their brewpub yet. I also found out th
at I’m the only one they cut off.”
“Don’t know a thing about it, boy. Maybe that supplier’s daughter got sick of you.”
“This wasn’t the supplier’s decision, I’m told.”
“So you want me to fix it?”
I swallow all my pride, and the taste is bitter. “I’d like you to make a phone call on my behalf to ask what the problem is. And if it has anything to do with the Gin Mill, I’ll address it. And I’d like to apologize for flipping out about Hamish’s place last night.”
Otto sucks on his teeth, his face unreadable. “Wait here,” he finally says.
I take another gulp of oxygen as his footsteps retreat toward the back of the house. See? I can do this. Nice and calm gets the job done.
Too wound up to sit, I pace my uncles’ TV room until I’ve almost convinced myself that things will work out. But when Otto comes back five minutes later, he says something completely inexplicable. “You were cut off for selling growlers out the back door.”
“For selling… What? I would never do that.”
Otto shrugs maddeningly. “I saw you give beer to Zara last month.”
“That was a gift for her, for doing me a favor. And that was a different beer.” Not that it matters. “I would never make an illegal sale.”
“Might be tempting,” Otto says. “There’s profits to be had.”
“No fucking way! It’s not the least bit tempting,” I steam. “Because that’s how people get cut off. Why would I jeopardize my weekly supply to make an extra twenty bucks?” My mind is spinning, trying to figure out why Giltmaker thinks I’d do that.
“He says he watches Craigslist.”
“What?”
“Lyle said something about screenshots of a transaction. He paid somebody for a growler on Craigslist. Was told to pick it up at your bar.”
“Craigslist,” I repeat like a dummy. “That wasn’t me.”
“Better figure out who it was, then.”
I have a horrible idea that I might know who it was. Fuck. “Okay. Thank you for making that call. I obviously have some personnel issues to deal with.”
Otto snickers, and I have to pace the room again so I don’t punch him. I feel like my sixteen-year-old self again. I was always fucking something up, and Otto was always brutal about it.
And yet there’s more pride-swallowing in store for me. It’s the only way to have what I really want.
“One more thing,” I say quietly. “You once offered to invest in the Gin Mill if I’d give you fifty-one percent. I’d like to revisit that.”
For once, I’ve surprised Otto. “Didn’t see that coming. You always were a stubborn thing.”
I actually laugh, because he thinks I’m the stubborn one. And it will kill me to sell a majority stake to Otto. The only silver lining is that it might make May happy. I’m only half a bar owner if I sell out. “Be that as it may, I can’t let Giltmaker buy the place next door when I already have an offer on the table.”
“An offer on what?”
“Before he died, I had a gentleman’s agreement with Hamish. To buy him out.”
“Gentlemen’s agreements mean shit if someone dies. And you don’t have the money.”
All of this is true. “I don’t expect Tad to just hand the place over. But he’ll have to listen when I show him the emails between me and his dad. And I don’t have the money. That’s why I’m asking for your help.”
Otto sits down heavily in his ugly lounge chair. “I gave it to ’em already.”
“What?”
“I funded the Giltmaker deal. I don’t have enough cash to invest in you both.”
“Oh.” I sit down on the sofa, feeling defeated.
“If you’d asked me earlier…”
If only.
“But just because there’s a brewpub next door doesn’t mean you’re done for. It might make your little neighborhood more of a destination.”
“Maybe,” I admit. “But if they do a kitchen and serve food, too, I’m definitely going to be the runner up. I’ll get the overflow crowd only on the good nights.”
“You need to serve food,” Otto says. “Pizza, I think. A pizza oven is pricey but then you don’t need a full-service kitchen. And there’s no good pizza in town.”
“Zara’s new baker is working on that.”
“So you’ll all work it out together. Get your sister involved. Stake out a thing that’s yours and let Lyle peddle burgers or something else.”
Fucking Otto. He’s a dick but he’s also kind of smart. “Thanks. I’ll think it over.” I stand up. “Meanwhile, I have an employee to fire. Which means I have to hire somebody, too.”
“Fun times owning a business.”
“Yeah,” I grunt. Then I take my leave.
Outside in the truck, I sit there for a second, folding my arms on the steering wheel and resting my head against them. I’m getting schooled by life today. But there’s nobody to blame but myself.
I’ve spent the last sixteen years trying to tell Otto that I’m smarter than the party kid he thinks I am. But today his view of things looks exactly right. I am that guy. My full-time employee was shooting heroin and selling beer out of the back door. It took my sister one night at the Gin Mill to flag his behavior as odd.
But I didn’t listen. Smitty was fun to work with, so I didn’t pay attention.
And now I’ll pay for it.
Chapter Twenty-Six
May
It’s four p.m., and I’m watching daytime television. There’s nothing sadder than daytime television. But I’m drowsy from a night’s lost sleep at the hospital, and I can’t use my right hand.
Jude Nickel walks into the room and sits down on the couch beside me. “Hey, Pooh Bear. How are you feeling?”
“Sleepy. Grumpy. Stupid.”
He chuckles. “That sounds like three of the seven dwarfs. Who are you leaving out? Sneezy and Happy…”
“Dopey?”
We stare at each other, trying to think of another one. “Horny?” Jude suggests and then we burst out laughing.
I miss Jude. Since he works so many hours at the body shop in Montpelier, I don’t see much of him anymore. He’s one of my sober buddies. I call him Eeyore, because he used to be so grim about life. But somehow we’ve flip-flopped. He’s Mr. Smiley, happily married to the love of his life. And I’m the hot mess.
“This is for you,” Jude says, handing me a bright red gift bag.
I peek inside, and then let out a squeak of happiness. It’s like a window into my needs. There’s a full-sized bag of Twizzlers and several glossy magazines. “Thank you!”
“I’d love to take credit. But these aren’t from me.”
“Who, then?”
“Alec Rossi.” Jude smirks.
“Oh, wow. Did you tell him my secret weaknesses?” Because this gift is seriously on point.
“Nope. But somebody must have tipped him off. I ran into him on my lunch break and said I was coming to see you later. So he gave me the bag to pass to you.”
“Thanks,” I say again.
Jude’s eyes dance. “So.”
“So.”
“Alec Rossi, huh? What happened to ‘I can really only see myself with a woman’?”
“You shut up.”
He laughs again.
“I don’t even know how it happened. And I do still see myself with a woman. I thought I did, anyway. He confuses me.”
“Because he doesn’t have boobs?”
“No. Because I can’t believe he’s serious about me.”
Jude points at the bag of Twizzlers. “Are you going to open those, or just clutch them to your chest?”
He makes a good point. But I have trouble opening the bag because I don’t have the use of my right hand.
Jude grabs it from me and opens the top. When he had a broken arm I’m sure I did the same thing for him more than once.
In silence, we munch a couple of pieces of licorice each, and watch the characters of a soap
opera fight with one another. But my mind is elsewhere. “I can’t believe I totaled my car. And I did it sober.”
“Doesn’t seem fair, does it?” Jude chuckles. “I already put out a couple of feelers with mechanics I know. We’ll find you something at a good price.”
“Really?” I stare at him. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Can I ask you something? Do you still have drug cravings?”
“Yeah, but they’re different now.” Jude shoves a Twizzler in his mouth.
“How so?”
He chews, thinking. “When I was using, my brain and my body were on the same page about cravings. But now that connection is broken. Sometimes I feel itchy for a hit, but my brain says, ‘No way, stupid.’ Or maybe I’ll see something I used to associate with getting high, but I don’t feel as triggered because my body isn’t as needy.”
“Because you’re out of practice?”
“Yeah. I still think about it every day, but it’s not as sharp because I never reward it.”
“But you still want to.”
“Sure. But now there are things I want more than drugs. Like not dying.”
“Good one.”
“Resisting has gotten a whole lot easier lately—there’s been a spike in OD deaths due to fentanyl flooding the supply.”
“Alec’s bartender OD’d at work. They brought him back with Narcan.”
“See? That’s why I only abuse Twizzlers now.”
I reach into the bag. “I feel like Alec doesn’t really know what it means to be an alcoholic. If he could see into my soul, he wouldn’t want me anymore. If he says he loves me, I’m thinking, ‘Obviously I’ve fooled him.’”
Jude just shrugs. “Isn’t that everybody, though? Who walks around every day feeling perfectly worthy of love?”
“Everyone else in my family?” I hazard.
“No way,” Jude says, swatting this idea away with a wave of his tattooed arm. “You’re just gun shy, Pooh Bear. If you like this guy, why hold back? What does your gut say?”
My gut harbors the suspicion that there’s something a little too needy about me, and it drives people away. And if I could just stay unattached, I wouldn’t have so much drama.
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