Chapter 4
FOUR
Emilia
Maybe I overreacted by summoning Silas.
It figures when I finally take the step to protect myself, Chase is suddenly on his best behavior. No random calls from unknown numbers, no presents on my doorstep, and no surprise visits from his buddies at the sheriff’s office.
Until now, I have felt like I have been standing on this precipice or hanging by a thread, and waiting for it to snap. He knows everything about me, that’s what happens when you’re with someone for nearly ten years.
I can’t help but feel like one of these days the other shoe will drop, and he will play the last card in his hand and threaten to out me as a witch. Something I cannot easily run from.
Without the support of a coven, it would be the same as him painting a target on my back. A solo practitioner is easily expendable, since there’s no threat to the collective.
Silas wouldn’t let that happen though, would he?
For the past week he’s been crashing on my couch, because “Demons aren’t genies, they don’t get put back in a bottle and set on a shelf.” At least he isn’t terrible as far as roommates go. He doesn’t eat much and when he does, he makes enough for both of us. I’ve come home from work to late night waffles two nights in a row.
Poppy loves him too, the little traitor. I thought animals were supposed to be afraid of demons, but I guess I was wrong.
“Table five is watching mukbangs on his phone.” Carly Beth whispers as she passes, setting the tray on the bar.
I glance in his general direction, “He’s cute.” Pretty blue collar, with messy golden blond hair.
“I should give him my number.”
Carly Beth is one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met. She’s 24 and way more optimistic than I was at her age. She’s 5’10 and built like a runway model. Hazel eyes, deep auburn hair, with two bleached blonde streaks in the front to frame her face.
Sometimes I wonder why she befriended me, the divorced bartender with ex-husband drama, and not one of the other waitresses, but her friendship has been a lifeline in this tiny town. I only got the job because I tended bar back in Indiana to get a head start on paying off my student loans before Chase and I got married.
Mitchell’s Sports Bar is the hottest spot in Moonstone Ridge, since it’s the only place that stays open until 2 am most nights. All in all, it’s a pretty nice job.
The dark wood bar stretches across the length of the building with bottles of liquor lining the mirrored wall behind me. There’s plenty of seating and two pool tables, along with a small stage for live music and karaoke on the third Thursday of every month. Not to mention the dozen TVs constantly running replays of every sport you could imagine.
There’s also the added bonus that kitchen staff makes us French fries most nights we work together.
“I don’t know.” I turn to her, “Remember what happened last time with that one guy who was watching book reviews?”
“Oh.” She sighs, “It was a nice three months, though.”
“Sure, but it has to be some sort of setup to lure women in. He’s at a bar at 10:30 at night watching people eat food on his phone. There’s a couple eating onion rings less than ten feet away.”
“You’re probably right.”
Carly Beth leans against the bar, eyeing me.
“What about you? You looked like you were off in your own little world just now.”
I move around her and tend to the customer at the end of the bar, pouring him two pints of the only imported beer we have on tap.
“There’s a lot on my mind.”
She hands me a ticket, “Is it Chase again?”
“When is it not Chase?” I grab the three beers from the fridge, wrapping them in a paper napkin and opening them before setting them on her tray. “No, I just have someone staying with me right now.”
“A male someone?”
“Yes. A friend,” I pause, “from college back in Indiana.” Shit, Silas has an accent, no, this is fine, I’m sure there are loads of Brits who end up there.
“Is he cute?”
“Don’t you have tables?”
“It’s been, what? Two years since you guys separated? A year since the divorce was finalized? Do you ever think about dating again?”
I do, a lot, and for some reason that makes me feel a little guilty.
“In Moonstone? There’s not really much of an opportunity.” I look around the bar, okay, it’s filled with men, but I know most of them wouldn’t want anything to do with me. Nothing personal, of course. I’m attractive enough to get hit on regularly until they realize I am that Emilia. “I’d much rather live vicariously through you.”
“So, you’re saying that I should give table five my number?” Carly Beth smiles at me, her nose crinkling.
“I think you should do whatever you want.”
She takes the tray and lifts her brows suggestively, then returns to the floor.
The kitchen closes around midnight, that’s when the sports crowd thins out and we’re left with the regulars. All we have to worry about is the random fight that could break out at the pool table.
While I clean up, I split my attention between Carly Beth and the hockey replays on the big screen off in the corner.
It’s been a violent game, I count three different fights just in the first half.
“Must be a full moon tonight.” I mutter under my breath.
“Hey!” Carly Beth folds herself over the bar in front of me, “I had an idea.”
“Hm?”
“There’s a band playing in Madison on the 24 th and I checked the schedules earlier and wouldn’t you know it? The stars aligned so that we both have that weekend off. We could drive up and make a girl’s weekend of it, rent a hotel, raise some hell.”
“We as in you and me?”
“Yeah.” She picks at a stray paper napkin on the bar, “We’ve worked together for almost two years and haven’t really hung outside of Mitchell’s and I thought it would be kind of fun.”
“I’m going to have to see if someone can watch Poppy, I’ve never left her home alone overnight.”
Carly Beth nods and smiles, “Yeah, sure, just let me know.”
I feel sick at the prospect of having to come up with an excuse later on, but Madison is Chase’s stomping ground and, as much as I want to go, the potential of running into him there is not entirely zero. He has shown up in the most improbable places before.
“Shit.” She hisses out, looking over my shoulder.
It doesn’t take me long to notice what she’s looking at when I see a couple of Chase’s friends walk through the door. Kyle, Chase’s best friend and the worst of them, breaks off and makes a beeline for us with a cocky little grin on his face.
Chase at least has the common decency to not show up at my job, which is why he sends his harbingers to do his dirty work. I know when I see Kyle, my ex-husband is not too far behind. It also makes the owner, Mark, a little nervous to have a sheriff’s deputy sniffing around.
This is my ex’s way of saying, “Look at how easily I can take all of this from you.”
“Emmy,” Kyle says with a nod, “Carly Beth.”
Carly Beth rolls her eyes, turning towards him, “Kyle Evers, to what do we owe the pleasure?”
He looks down at his deputy’s uniform, raising his brow, “Just got off duty.” He leans against the bar, with his back to me, “We were hoping we could sit in your section. It’d be nice to see your pretty face after all the horrors I’ve dealt with tonight.”
“Horrors, Kyle, this is Moonstone Ridge. All we have are those high school kids painting up the old shopping mall down on Meyers Street.” She folds her arms over her chest, “Also, the kitchen closed twenty minutes ago.”
I try to stifle a laugh, clearing my throat instead while I busy myself behind the bar.
Kyle glances over his shoulder for a second, “No matter, we’ll have two Millers and a Guinness.”
“Fine,” she huffs out, motioning her wrist to shoo him off. “Go.”
He pushes away from the bar and crosses the floor to join his friends in the booth at the far end of the room.
At least I don’t have to stare at him for the rest of the night, though Ricky and Isaac are looking at me like I owe them money.
“So gross,” Carly Beth turns to me, brushing off her arms with a shake.
I grab the beers from the fridge and twist off the caps, setting them on the tray, “How many times has he asked you out so far?”
“None.” She says with a laugh, “Thankfully, I think the poor guy is gun shy.”
Even if Kyle wasn’t 16 years her senior, I still think Carly Beth deserves a lot better than anyone from Chase’s friend group. To think at one point I considered them my friends.
They welcomed me to Moonstone Ridge and even introduced me to their girlfriends at the time. It makes sense that Chase got all of them in the divorce.
“Thanks for that, though. Watching you put him in his place made my night.”
“You gotta set those boundaries, Emmy.” She hums, grabbing the tray, “Or else these men will walk all over you.”
I glare at Carly Beth, and she flashes me a sweet smile, knowing full well that I hate when Kyle uses that nickname.
She’s right, boundaries are an entirely new concept for me, not that Chase would uphold them.
Which is why I’m curious what he’s up to right now. How long before he shows his face again?