by Holly Kerr
“What he said,” I say to the bartender.
I stare unseeingly at the bottles lining the bar. When was the last time I’d gotten drunk? Drinking to excess is frowned upon when playing professional ball. After my career came crashing to a halt, there had been Evelyn who tightened her lips and closed her legs every time I ordered a third beer.
I don’t want to think about Evelyn. I don’t want to think about anything.
Beer will help.
The bartender returns, sliding the pints before me with a splash of wetness on the slick counter. I grab the Guinness, holding up a finger to the bartender, and proceed to down half the glass. “Another round,” I say, when I stop for breath.
Clay slides between me and the older women for his beer. It’s nice that he receives a similar look from them.
“Hey, man.” I turn at the tap on my shoulder to find the group of men beside me looking as closely at me as the women were. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.” I take another long swig of beer.
“You look familiar.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m really not the guy from Game of Thrones.”
“Hey, you look like him, though,” another one says with a laugh.
I smile grimly, as he touches my arm again. “Did you ever play baseball?”
Another swig and I finish the Guinness. I haven’t been recognized in months which makes me happy, but also reminds me that my career is definitely over.
“Yeah,” I mutter, wishing the bartender would bring me the second beer.
“It is you. Coulson, right? You threw that perfect game in Buffalo and the Jays grabbed you mid-season. Big fan,” he adds proudly. “We’re from Toronto. Well, Oshawa, but that’s close.”
“I know where Oshawa is.”
“I was there at your first game,” he gushes. “You were incredible. And then…”
“Then I wasn’t,” I finish.
Thankfully the bartender returns. “Here, let me get that,” the guy says, handing his credit card across the counter. “It’s not every day that I get to buy Dean Coulson a beer. That sucks about what happened. Do you think you’ll play again?”
“I’m done,” I say shortly. “Appreciate the drink,” I tell him, grabbing my Guinness and looking around for Clay. “Have a good night.”
Chapter Two
Flora
“What do we do now?” M.K. demands.
What do we do now? is M.K.’s go-to question in dicey situations. The first time she said it was back in kindergarten, when M.K. had still been called Moira. We both picked the same book to read, resulting in a tug of war between two stubborn five-year-olds. One of us had knocked over the pail of crayons, sending colours skittering into a rainbow on the floor.
“What do we do now?” M.K. had whispered.
Then there was the time we were fourteen and I got my period but neither of us had any tampons.
“What do we do now?” M.K. had wailed, loud enough for the whole washroom to hear.
Or when we had been twenty-two, and the two men we had been chatting up at the bar suggested we head home with them.
“What do we do now?” M.K. had giggled.
“Stop freaking out,” Ruthie tells her now as we stand by the bar.
Ruthie had caught up to me as I sprinted away from the chapel and bundled me into a taxi. I expected to go straight up to the room, but she steered us into the bar. I suspect Ruthie’ll catch me with a running tackle if I try to make another run for it.
“If anyone gets to freak out, it’s Flora,” Ruthie adds. She turns to me. “Are you freaking out?”
I stand in a crowded bar, loud music making my head throb. I’m wearing a dress I don’t like, and shoes that hurt my feet, and I just dumped my fiancé at the altar. I should be freaking out.
“Not really,” I admit.
“Okay, so is this a drown-our-sorrows situation?” Ruthie wonders, staring at the bottles behind the bar. Or staring at the bartender—I can’t be sure with Ruthie. “Or more of a celebration?”
In my disjointed family tree, Ruthie is actually my niece. I was an ‘afterthought’ or ‘miracle child’ depending on who’s telling the story. Ruthie is five years younger than me, and if you disregard the white-blonde hair hanging to the middle of her back in a mass of tiny braids, multiple piercings, and the fact she’s got six inches and about forty pounds on me, we look remarkably similar. Almost like sisters.
“Happy or sad?” Ruthie prods.
“I don’t know yet. Do you remember the night of my birthday, the one with all the shots?” When I turned nineteen, my friends thought of the brilliant idea of buying me nineteen shots to celebrate.
After the twelfth, I fell off my stool onto the sticky floor of the pub. No one had caught me. “I feel like that.”
Flattened. But I can’t blame this on too much alcohol. It was my choice to call off the wedding. I can pretend this was a last-minute change of mind, or cold feet, or any variety of reasons, but the truth is that I should have ended it with Thomas years ago.
M.K. rubs my arm. “No one’s letting you fall off any stools tonight.”
Ruthie bumps me with her shoulder. “Look, you know I’ve got your back whatever you do. Dump his ass, marry him—whatever you want, I’m with you.” She waves her hand at the bartender. “But this is my first rodeo, my first time in Vegas so excuse me if I drag you into having some fun. I’ll get the first round.”
I let Ruthie order me a drink, a double something. Alcohol sounds like a good idea about now. “I wish you’d told me not to marry him.”
Ruthie snorts. “Like you would have listened.”
“You loved him,” M.K. says with a sad smile. “We couldn’t say anything.”
“I really wish you did.” I heave a sigh. “It would have saved a lot of trouble.”
“What’s the fun in that?” Ruthie asks. “You so were hung up on the guy, it was stupid. Nothing we could have said would have done any good. You left home and moved to Toronto for him. There must have been something about him. Was it the sex?”
“It was pretty good at the beginning,” I admit.
Eight years. I’d been with Thomas for eight years and now, with a snap of my fingers, it was over. I’d been a different person at twenty-three, full of ambition and energy and love. He had been there at the right time, in the right place and nothing could have stopped me from falling for him.
“He was so unhappy,” I say slowly. “He wasn’t getting along with his daughter. He was miserable. Except when he was with me. He told me that all the time. I could tell it wasn’t bullshit. I was good for him.”
And that had been the turn-on. The sense of satisfaction that I made a man happy when others had failed was huge.
What a fool. I might have made him happy, but I’d always been second choice for Thomas. Work came first. His daughter. His club membership. And I stayed with him because I made him happy.
What an idiot.
“Of course you were good for him.” M.K. sniffs with disdain. “But he wasn’t good for you.”
“I know that. Now I do,” I add when Ruthie rolls her eyes.
“Just like that?” M.K. wondered.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “It was the flowers. Lack of flowers. He didn’t remember my bouquet.”
“You’re Flora. You do flowers,” Ruthie exclaims.
“I do flowers.” Growing up in Niagara-on-the-Lake in the middle of the family’s nursery business, I could tell an annual from a perennial before I was six, created my own species of hostas for my grade ten science project, and won a coveted internship at the Royal Botanical Gardens after graduating.
“And Thomas didn’t get that.” M.K. nods like she understands. I’m not sure how she can; not only would my best friend never be in this position, I never told her much about my relationship. It wasn’t a secret between us, but I never elaborated.
“He didn’t get me. It just took a while to see that.”
&nbs
p; “And you just happened to wait until the very worst moment. No matter,” Ruthie says in a brisk voice. “All done now and time to party.”
And that was it, end of discussion for Ruthie. She wasn’t much for examining feelings or emotional outbursts. M.K. would stand and listen to me wail and wonder and cry until the cows came home, but that’s the last thing I want to do. I’d given Thomas eight years of my life and that was enough.
It was over.
I rotate my shoulders, literally feeling the weight lift off.
“Time to party,” I agree.
“I think we should move to do that,” M.K. advises.
We’ve been sandwiched at the bar between a group of heavily intoxicated women wearing too much makeup and too little clothing, and a couple who is clearly in the midst of a serious disagreement. Two men, smelling strongly of beer, push between me and M.K., knocking me into the couple without a word of apology.
“Hey!” Ruthie cries, reaching for the nearest one’s shoulder. “Rude, much?”
“Leave it,” M.K. tells her, always trying to be the barrier between Ruthie and conflict. Sometimes it works. Sometimes Ruthie ignores her.
I wiggle my way back to them. “Let’s find a table.” Sitting would be a good thing right now because the more I stand, the more I’m getting a blister from these new shoes. I shift my weight and resist the urge to adjust my special wedding underwear. Whoever designs lingerie clearly gets off on making women uncomfortable.
Relief comes as the bartender places three frothy drinks on the bar, complete with crushed ice, fruity garnish and colourful straws.
Thomas’ voice in my head reminds me of the empty calories in each cocktail, how it will go straight to my waistline and how he’d hate for me to stop looking so good for him.
I give him a mental face palm and pick off the chunk of pineapple from the rim and take an angry bite. “Did you know that it was Thomas’ fault I quit drinking?”
“No, but I blamed him anyway,” M.K. says with a grin. “He seemed all holier than thou, into kale and tofu and chia seeds.”
“What’s a chia seed?” Ruthie asks, already sucking the froth up her straw.
“I have no idea, but I bet Thomas loved them.” M.K. takes a hesitant sip, and then another. The level in Ruthie’s glass visibly lowers.
“He put them in his smoothie. He’d text me every morning with what he put in it, different every day.” I try to hide the smile. “All that healthy food he ate? It only made him fart, like all the time. And he’d blame it on Cappie.”
“Poor Cappie,” M.K. cries. Sometimes I think M.K. loves my dog more than me.
“But no more! No more Thomas farts!” I take a long pull on my straw, the cold liquid mixing with the heat of the alcohol making a wonderful combination in my stomach.
“Amen to that!” Ruthie cheers.
One of the men that pushed between us glances over with a drunken leer. “Are you praying for a night with me, darlin’?”
Ruthie looks down at him with a disdainful expression. The ring in her eyebrow glints in the lights. “Absolutely not.”
“Aw, c’mon.” His friend wheedles. “The three of you—two of us? We’d give ya a night to r’member.”
Ruthie laughs in his face.
“You should probably go back to your beer,” I say, pulling Ruthie away but not before the man grabs her shoulder, knocking into me. A wave of pink liquid splashes onto my dress.
“What’s your deal?” he says in a wounded voice. “We made you a nice offer. It’d be a fun time.”
“And we’re not interested in your fun time,” I say firmly.
“Hell, no!” Ruthie chimes in.
“You bunch of nasty bitches!”
“Oh no,” M.K. groans. She knows what that look means as much as I do.
“Excuse me?” Ruthie steps around me to face the men. “You have no idea how nasty
I can be.”
“Ruthie,” I warn, clutching her arm. Ruthie is tall and solid, with curves and muscles to spare. I’ve seen her intimidate many a woman when she was in a temper, and just as many men.
Ruthie stands before the men. With her heels, she is almost the same height, which might be intimidating if she wasn’t sucking a pink frothy cocktail through a straw. With a final sucking noise, she reaches the bottom of the glass. “Ooh, brain freeze,” she gasps.
Then she throws the ice from the glass in the man’s face.
The group of women beside them cheered.
“Ruthie!” M.K. cries.
I dart in front of Ruthie as the man, now with cubes of ice sliding off his shoulders, lunges at her. I brace for impact when he’s stopped by an arm thrust against his chest.
“I don’t think so,” a deep voice says.
I glance up, way up. My knight in shining armour has blue eyes and a beard the colour of fall leaves.
I know exactly how it feels.
Dean
I felt the shift in the air, the one that happens before a fight. The crowd clears enough for me to see a tall woman, her blonde hair caught in a tangle of tiny braids face off against two men.
Where have I seen her before?
Tall and Braided throws a glass of ice in the face of one of the men. Then a flurry of movement; another, smaller woman in a white dress leaps forward at the same time the man lunges with a furious expression.
It takes two steps for me to get there, another to get me close enough to slap my hand across his chest. “I don’t think so.”
The man turns with a glare, his scowl fading as he looks up at me.
“Do you have something to say to her?” I really hope the guy doesn’t back down. Taking a swing at something, even a drunk in a bar, seems like the best idea I’ve had all night.
“No, man.” He gives me a nervous glance, shaking the ice cubes from his shoulders. “Jus’ a misunerstandin.’”
I flex my hand before giving the man a little push. I’m proud that I resist the urge to make it a big shove, to send him flying into the tables. “If that’s the case, you should take your misunderstanding out of here.”
With a heated glare towards the women, the two men shuffle off. I watch them with a tinge of regret. Fighting never helps, but it might have made me feel better. Once he’s out of sight, I focus on the blonde in the dress, with her flashing green eyes. She’s flanked by a laughing Tall and Braided and a tiny brunette.
“Thank you, but that wasn’t necessary.” Tall and Braided gives an imperious toss of her head, sending braids flying. “We can take care of ourselves.”
“Good to know.” I can’t take my eyes off the blonde, who either doesn’t recognize me as the guy she tried to tackle in the chapel, or is pretending not to.
“Ruthie!” The tiny brunette gives Tall and Braided a soft slap on her arm. “We didn’t mean to cause trouble but they were—” She frowns and I see the recognition in her eyes. “Hey, didn’t we just see you? You’re not the bouncer, you’re the guy from—”
“Oh wow! You’re the big guy Flora ran into when she was escaping,” Tall and Braided finishes.
The blonde shifts guiltily and a flush begins at her neck. “Sorry about that,” she says awkwardly, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. “The chapel and this—”
“You’re not apologizing for that jerk,” I interrupt. “He had it coming. Besides, apparently, your friend could have handled it herself.”
“Yes, I could have, thanks for noticing,” Tall and Braided says with a grin as Clay elbows his way to my side.
“What’s going on?” Clay catches sight of the brunette in the blue dress and his face lights up. “Hello there.”
“Hi,” the brunette says, looking flustered.
“We’re looking for a table.” Clay’s best smile appears on full alert and focused on the brunette. I once came across a deer standing on the side of the road and the brunette has the same look in her eyes. “Care to join us?”
“It’s the least we can do after Flora tried
to knock you over.” Tall and Braided looks me up and down. “From the looks of you, that might have been a little difficult.”
“I didn’t try and tackle him,” the blonde mutters. Flora. I’ve never met a Flora before, but I hope all Floras look like her. Tall and slim with huge green eyes and a wide mouth, currently drooping into a frown.
Cute. Very cute. But ugly dress.
“Can you see any free tables?” Clay pokes me. “Deano?”
I tear my gaze away. “What?”
“Tables. Can you see any?”
I scan the crowd. “Over there.” I point to across the bar. “Behind the pole. They’re just standing up. Go get it.” Clay darts away, leaving me to escort the three women through the crowd. By the time we cross the gauntlet that is a Las Vegas bar, Clay has fought off any opposition and is seated at the empty table. He smiles at the brunette, and pats the seat next to him.
The brunette smiles back, transforming her from merely pretty to a knockout. Clay looks dazzled, and I know how this night will end.
The women take the chairs, leaving me standing between Tall and Braided and the blonde.
Flora. She has a tiny gap between her two front teeth.
She’s not Evelyn.
Loneliness hits me like a punch in the gut and suddenly I’m not in any mood to stay and watch Clay chat them up, despite how pretty Flora is.
Why am I thinking she’s pretty, or cute, or anything about her? I’ve just been dumped. There’s no sense of thinking anyone is pretty.
And then the realization that my relationship with Evelyn is really over hits me.
“You okay?” The blonde touches my forehead with fingers that are icy cold from holding her drink. “You look like you’re going to throw up. I’m Flora, by the way.”
Chapter Three
Flora
“Dean.” He offers his hand and I can’t stop staring at the size of it. Big and meaty with long fingers capable of palming a basketball or playing perfect Mozart.
What else can he do with those hands?
