Chapter 2
2
J oan watched as Lucas held court at his high-top table. Lucas adored an audience. He used his hands while he talked, and a nearby friend leaned away in order to avoid being accidentally smacked in the face by one of Lucas’s broad arms. His deep, booming voice carried across the bar.
“You’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “Kid hammers a fastball over the fence that comes within an inch”—and there Lucas pinched his fingers close together to indicate the distance—“of knocking the side mirror off this dude’s Lexus. Hardest hit ball I’ve ever seen.”
Joan continued to stare as he finished his story, which he punctuated with hurried gulps of his beer, as though he couldn’t bear to stop talking longer than absolutely necessary.
Kendall nudged her with an elbow. “What’s going on with you two? Didn’t you know he was going to be here?” Her eyes widened. “Or are you ignoring him? Did you two fight?” Kendall was from Eastern Kentucky, the more mountainous part of the state. Her normally subtle twang became a bit more pronounced after even one drink, so that the “I” in “fight” lengthened into a flat drawl.
Joan returned her attention to the rest of her trivia night team. She wasn’t the best at trivia. That honor went to Kendall, but she’d be damned if she didn’t give it her all. Kendall, Gwen, and Maria—her three closest friends from nursing school—perched at their own table. The bar teemed with excitement that night—it was Derby week in Louisville, and though not much changed for its residents other than potential traffic problems, an anticipatory buzz still stirred the air. Gwen and Maria were having a heated conversation about the ethics of the horse racing industry. Strings of garland featuring running Thoroughbreds extended along the ceilings of the bar, though in the dim light, Joan thought they looked a little sinister, like an homage to Sleepy Hollow.
Kendall cocked her head at Joan in the way she always did when she interrogated someone.
“We texted today,” Joan answered. “But I had plans to be here with you guys, and he’s hanging out with Eric and his other friends. We decided to come separately.”
The truth was a bit more painful and complicated than that, but she didn’t know how to articulate it without sounding like a coward. She didn’t know how to talk to Lucas, her male best friend, about her current situation. She’d been feeling erratic, like maybe the boundaries of her identity were indistinct and she had goals for her life she’d made little progress toward. She’d gotten dumped recently, and she languished, unable to move forward.
The problem was that she and Lucas had been friends nearly their whole lives, so he knew when something was bothering her.
“It’s freezing.” Joan tugged her sweater over her hands as Kendall opened her mouth to say something else on the subject. “Can we not have one Derby where it’s comfortable? Does it always have to be super cold, raining, or blazing hot?”
“You just described all of spring in Kentucky.” Maria had turned away from her conversation with Gwen. Her black ringlets bounced against her shoulders as she shooed a gnat away from her face. “Though these little jerks didn’t get the freeze memo.” She tipped her wineglass to where Lucas sat. “So, what’s going on there?”
Joan sighed and chanced another look at Lucas. She wasn’t a private person, but she was feeling touchy about the subject.
“Nothing’s going on.” Her stomach swooped uncomfortably. “He’s just over there being Lucas.”
“It’s extremely weird that you guys aren’t talking to each other,” Kendall said.
“Give me five minutes, and I’ll go say hi.” She downed a swig of her margarita. She snuck one more glance at Lucas then turned back to her friends. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“How’s the therapy going?” Maria asked.
Joan rolled her eyes. “I didn’t mean that it had to be about me.” Still, she aimed a good-natured grin at Maria. “It’s actually going well, though.”
“Too bad you don’t date women,” Gwen said. “Jackie and I, ah…” She shrugged, then grimaced, her pale cheeks turning a rosy shade. Unlike Joan, and definitely unlike Kendall, Gwen was a private person, and she usually wasn’t free with details about her relationships. Beyond that, none of them liked Gwen’s girlfriend, Jackie, and Gwen had picked up on it. But Jackie seemed to make Gwen happy, or at least marginally happy some of the time, so they hadn’t produced much noise about it.
Maria leaned forward. She was already soft spoken, but at that moment, her volume pitched barely louder than a whisper. Joan strained forward to hear her.
“What’s the treatment like?”
Joan sat back, prepared to give them the basics.
“What treatment?”
“Jesus!” Joan jumped, sloshing her margarita over the rim of her cup.
Maria stared behind her, toward the source of the deep voice.
“Lucas.” Joan turned to look up at him. “I was just about to come talk to you.”
He arched an eyebrow. The expression itself was such a cliche, but damn it, she wished she had that skill. It was so powerful and concise. “Were you?”
“Of course. I wasn’t sure you would be here, though.”
“After I told you I would be here, you weren’t sure I would be here?”
“Okay, fine. I swear I wouldn’t leave without talking to you.”
He took a deep breath. “Can we go chat?” He tilted his head toward the front door. “Just for a minute.”
She turned to her friends, who watched their conversation with the sort of interest they usually reserved for good gossip.
“But trivia’s about to start.” She gestured to her table.
Lucas rolled his eyes. “The first category’s horse racing history. I know that isn’t your forte.”
If she could have arched an eyebrow, she would have done it then. He was right about the horses, though.
“Alright, then.” She got up, set her drink down, and then thought better and picked it up again. “But only for a bit. It’s cold enough to kill a hog out there.” She’d heard that phrase from Kendall, and it definitely didn’t suit Joan. She’d set foot on a farm only once in her life.
“Come on, you dork.”
She followed him, and for the first time ever, she found herself inexplicably nervous about talking to him. Her insides twisted with guilt as she wondered how she would manage to dodge any personal questions.