Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
WYATT
The Half Pint is packed.
Never in my life did I think I’d find a packed bar on Valentine’s Day to be a respite, but that’s what happens when your formerly quiet, empty house suddenly contains a baby and a mother who’s newly free from prison and driving you crazy.
Honestly, to put any of this on Eden is unfair. That angel baby is a goddamn delight these days, what with the smiling and the giggling.
It’s my mother who’s driving me out of my ever-loving mind.
“If we don’t get some more men in here, and quick, this whole event is going to be a bust,” Mrs. Eberle says, gazing around the bar with a furrowed brow.
And it’s true. The Half Pint is pretty devoid of dick tonight, which is unusual. But Mrs. Eberle is hosting a speed dating event to benefit the Women’s Auxiliary, and the men of Cardinal Springs seem to have gotten the message and stayed home.
So far the bar is mostly filled with women ranging in age from their early twenties (my friend Carson, looking nervous in jeans and a loose pink sweater) to their late eighties (Mrs. Tingle, wearing a floral caftan and raring to go). But there’s only a handful of men, and most of them look like they came straight off a shift and had no idea there was anything other than drinking happening here tonight. They’re all holding hot-pink index cards, though, hand-printed name tags on their chests. Mrs. Eberle isn’t letting anyone out of here without participating.
Except for me, thank god, because I’m working.
“Well, you can always just mix it up and have everyone meet everyone else. Less heteronormative that way,” I say.
Mrs. Eberle pointedly ignores me and turns to Grace. “Where are your brothers?” she asks, wringing her hands.
Grace looks up from her perch at the end of the bar, where she’s hunched over her phone, watching the Grinders game. Her boyfriend, hockey god Decker Brooks, is playing the Vipers tonight, and she’s just hoping her man stays out of the box.
“Felix said he was coming,” Grace says, her eyes back on the phone, her brow furrowed as she follows the action. “He said he’d text the others.”
This is the only way I get to see her these days, since she spends most of her time either at the bookstore she opened a few months ago or watching hockey. She assures us that once the season is over, she’ll return to the land of the living. If I didn’t know just how perfect those two are for each other, I’d wretch. I don’t believe in love generally, but I make an exception for Grace and Decker, because I watched them both stumble ass-backward into happiness. That man would walk through fire for her. Hell, he’s leaving the NHL for her (well, for his broken body and for her). He’s one of the very rare good ones.
And even so, I keep my eye on him. I know all too well how someone can seem like the perfect guy, and then one day you wake up and he’s pinning your best friend to your couch with his tongue and calling it “songwriting.”
But what did I expect? It’s not like I’ve ever had good role models for love or relationships. Maybe if I’d seen Grace and Decker together earlier in my life, I might be a believer. I might have been able to spot a snake in the grass when he slithered up to me. But I didn’t know sparkle from spit back then, and now I have to change the radio station several times a day just to avoid hearing the evidence of my worst choices climbing the country charts.
“Hey, hon! How’s your night going?”
Speaking of bad examples of love and relationships, in walks my mother, her hair dyed back to her favorite cherry-cola red. She’s also found the boxes of her clothes that I shoved in the attic and reclaimed her favorite jeans, the ones with the holes in the thighs and rhinestone butterflies on the ass. She looks like Shein Paris Hilton. I try to be pretty nonjudgmental about shit like age-appropriateness, but the woman is in her early fifties. Would it kill her to dress less like an early-aughts disgraced heiress?
And she apparently didn’t stop her exploring in the attic.
“That’s my shirt,” I say through gritted teeth, eyeing the vintage Stevie Nicks Bella Donna T-shirt she’s wearing.
My mother grins like we’re thick as thieves. “Yeah, but who introduced you to Stevie Nicks? If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even have this shirt.”
Yep, that sounds just like the Libby Hart I know and barely tolerate. Always making everything about her. She’ll probably get a stain on it, then leave it on the bathroom floor. Just another one of her messes for me to clean up.
“Are you even allowed to be in a bar?” I ask.
“I’m not drinking, hon,” she says, and she has the gall to look annoyed. But I’ve learned to keep a close eye on her. I don’t mind if she makes bad choices for herself, but I’ll be damned if I let her decisions affect Hazel and Eden. I don’t even want her staying with us, but the house is still technically in her name. And a condition of her parole is that she has a stable place to live. As much as I’d love to tell her to kick rocks, I’m not in the mood to do battle with the State of Indiana.
I did, however, banish her to the basement. I’m not about to give up the primary bedroom to her. Not when I’m the one who has paid the mortgage these last nine years. Not when I’m the one who had the furnace replaced last winter and the new garage door opener installed last month. Her name may be on the deed, but that is my house. It’s the only long-term home Hazel has ever known. It’s where Eden will grow up safe and happy for as long as Hazel wants to raise her there.
And Libby Hart will not fuck that up. Not like she fucked up so much of my childhood.
“If you’re not drinking, then what are you doing here?” I ask.
“Speed dating,” she says with a wink and a saucy grin.
Jesus fucking Christ. Because what Libby Hart needs in this season of her life is a man .
Mrs. Eberle, who’s been stone still, listening to every single word like she’s trying to commit it to memory, finally leans forward to extend one of those stupid index cards.
“I thought you had too many women,” I say.
“Oh, it’s fine, there’s always room for more!” Mrs. Eberle says, but I’m pretty sure what she means is I need only two things in life: Jesus and gossip .
My mother hands over a ten-dollar bill, then carries her name tag and index card to an empty two-top. Which at least means I’m done talking to her.
The door to the bar flies open, and Archer McBride stomps in, his jaw set, his lips pressed into a thin line. He’s wearing a Cardinal Springs High School Hockey hoodie and a frown. Felix McBride comes in behind him, rolling his eyes at his big brother and scratching at the stubble along his jaw as he scans the bar. I find myself holding my breath, watching the door behind him, but Owen’s not with them. I exhale and try to decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
“Welcome, boys! Here you go.” Mrs. Eberle thrusts a name tag and a hot-pink index card at each of them.
“What’s this for?” Archer asks.
“I told you—speed dating,” Felix says. When Archer opens his mouth to protest, Felix cuts him off. “It’s for charity. You’re doing it. Sit down.”
Archer’s jaw tightens again, but he takes the card and the name tag and stomps toward an empty table.
“What’s his problem?” Grace asks.
Felix shrugs. “He won’t say, but I think it has something to do with the BMW parked in Madeline’s driveway.”
Madeline is the single mom who moved in next door to Archer last summer. The two of them have become good friends, though anyone with eyes can see that Archer’s feelings are bigger than that. Well, anyone except Madeline, who seems blissfully ignorant that the hulking ex–hockey player next door is made of Jell-O when it comes to her. “I think Betsy’s dad showed up for a surprise visit?”
“More importantly , where’s Owen?” Mrs. Eberle asks. I can see her silently counting heads. Owen’s arrival would make the numbers slightly closer to even.
“He said he was coming,” Felix replies, slapping his name tag onto his broad chest. He glances out at the crowd and spots Keeley Wentworth, a teller at the bank with wide brown eyes and a penchant for low-cut tops. He grins and heads in her direction.
“We’re not starting yet!” Mrs. Eberle calls, but Felix ignores her and slides into the chair across from Keeley.
I, however, am still stuck on the fact that Owen is coming.
Over the last month, I’ve had plenty of practice being face-to-face with Owen McBride. I’ve served him beers and sat across from him at McBride family dinners. I even sat practically shoulder to shoulder with him in a tiny candy-colored exam room while he balanced Eden on his knee, his stethoscope pressed to her chest. I tried not to stare at the little V that always formed between his brows when he was listening to her heartbeat or the way his face lit up when she giggled at his silly faces.
I did not realize how many pediatrician visits a baby has in the first four months of her life.
And each time I saw him, my mind replayed our parking lot encounter like my own personal porn film. Anytime I was near Owen McBride, I wound up pressing my thighs together, simultaneously trying to stem the tide of arousal and chasing the feeling toward the cliff.
I really wish we had just fucked in the parking lot that night. Then I’d have this out of my system.
I feel like the ghost of Owen McBride has been edging me for weeks.
Ernie, the owner, pushes through the swinging door from the back and drops a box of limes on the bar. His gray hair is shaggy and curls at the ends, and he shakes it out of his eyes, the neon beer signs reflecting off the silver hoop in his ear.
“Ernie, will you step in if—” Mrs. Eberle begins, but Ernie cuts her off with a snort.
“I’ve been married twice already,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m out of the game.”
“C’mon, third time’s the charm,” I say with a wink.
Ernie rolls his eyes. “How about you shut your smart mouth and go grab us another keg of that cherry IPA. We’re almost out, and this crowd is gonna want it,” he grumbles, but his eyes are glittering. He’s always sort of been my surrogate father, and even though he’s got all the warmth of a dying cactus, he’s always been there for me when I needed it. I’ve worked at the Half Pint since I moved back to Cardinal Springs eight and a half years ago. Ernie’s second ex-wife, Margo, used to sit with Hazel when I worked nights. Every year on my birthday, Ernie makes sure there’s a strawberry cupcake waiting for me on the bar with one lit candle for me to blow out.
He’s remembered far more of my birthdays than my mother.
About six months ago, Ernie dislocated his shoulder trying to heft a keg, no small feat for a man in his late sixties. He’s been going to physical therapy entirely against his will, and I’ve taken over keg duty. Not an easy task. I like to think of myself as small and mighty, but a full keg weighs more than 160 pounds. Luckily, I’ve got a system.
I head through the kitchen and into the back storage room where the full kegs wait. There’s a rusty old red wagon waiting beside it that Ernie found at Goodwill, and I drag the keg off the shelf inch by inch until it lands in the bed of the wagon with a riotous clatter. Then I head out the back door, because there are a few wonky steps and tight turns in the kitchen, and the wagon does better bumping through the alley and in the front door of the bar.
Unfortunately, the safety light in the alley is out, and I don’t see the pothole I usually navigate around with ease. The front wheel of the wagon disappears into it, the bed tipping and the keg rolling out onto the ground.
“Fucking great,” I mutter. I stare down at the silver behemoth. I have no chance of lifting it back into the wagon, which means I’ll have to resort to rolling it down the alley and through the front door like a rogue pirate.
I bend over, feeling the cold February air on the bare skin above the waistband of my jeans, and wish I’d thrown my coat on over the cropped T-shirt I’m wearing. I assumed I’d have this damn thing inside in no time, but as I struggle to turn the keg on the asphalt, I realize this is going to be a slightly longer journey than I anticipated.
“Come on, you stupid beast,” I say to the keg, which has no response other than a metallic scrape as I wrestle it into position.
“Wyatt? You okay?”
I jerk to a standing position and spot Owen at the end of the alley. As if his presence carries an actual electric current, the alley light buzzes and flickers on.
The man looks like he’s bathed in heavenly light, an actual angel in powder-blue scrubs, his tan Carhartt jacket over top. He’s tall and solid, and he looks warm .
I shiver.
“I thought you weren’t supposed to wear those out of the office,” I say, nodding at his scrubs. I say it to keep inside the sloppy moan that wants out at the sight of him.
He glances down and chuckles. “They’re clean. A patient tossed her cookies all over me about an hour ago, so it was this or go naked,” he says.
Oh. Fuck. Me.
And that shitty lamplight is just enough to show off the blush flooding his cheeks.
“No shirt, no shoes, no service,” I croak.
He laughs, then drops his eyes to the keg at my feet. “Need help?”
“No, I’m just going to roll it—” I start, but before I can even get the words out, he has walked over, gripped the handles with those strong, sure hands, and lifted the keg into the wagon. He doesn’t even grunt.
It makes me wonder about all the ways he could throw me around.
He takes the handle of the wagon and says, “In the front?”
All I can do is nod and follow after him and the squeaky wagon like a lost puppy.
Inside the bar, Mrs. Eberle actually squeals at the sight of Owen before handing him an index card and a name tag. I watch his face closely as he listens to her explain the rules of speed dating, and the slight furrow of his brow tells me this is not what he had in mind for tonight. But Owen’s too good of a guy to make any trouble. He nods and smiles and agrees to whatever Mrs. Eberle wants. He even gives her a twenty-dollar bill and tells her to keep the change.
Everything he does makes me want him, and everything he does reminds me why that is a terrible idea.
But nothing makes that more clear than the tight fist of irritation in my gut as I take my place behind the bar and watch Owen sit down with Felix and Keeley Wentworth. That’s when I realize that I’m going to have to stand here for two hours and watch Owen flirt with a bunch of women.
And I’m jealous .