Chapter 14
Devyn
W hy didn’t you tell me they transformed Cowboy’s Paradise into a badass nightclub, Shay?” Shana’s curly brown hair bounces in waves down her back as I follow her to the dimly lit booth on the dining side of the new… rave hall, it seems.
Cowboy’s Paradise used to be a hole in the wall bar that only locals knew about. The seats were that sticky kind of plastic that you try not to think too hard about if you’re gonna eat without barfing.
This? This is not Cowboy’s Paradise.
But it is.
There’s the cowboy boot the original staff hand-signed when the bar opened years ago, under a glass display by an axe throwing station that used to be the rusted gumball machines that routinely stole your quarters. This is more what paradise should look like than the alternative I keep recalling. Looking around for merely a few minutes already tells me a ton of money went into the renovations here. There’s an entirely new sound system, new flooring, paint, beautiful glass panel roofing over the center of the building lined in petite fairy lights just above the dance floor, and the most spectacular difference I spot is the life.
There are locals, yes, but also professors and students from the college an hour north of us, and other random faces I can only imagine must be tourists.
Tourism was shot when we were growing up. The railroad line that used to go through Pine Forest was out of commission for decades, and there wasn’t much to bring folks out to our little town aside from those who traveled in the rodeo or racing circles.
This place must bring in bank for our town.
“Wow, Shana. This is insane!”
We’re seated and given actual menus. They used to be crumbled and grease-stained card stock. “Who funded all of this? What happened here?”
Shana’s cheeks redden. Her complexion is a lot like Bella’s from Classy Country, aside from the red hair, that is. Shana’s is a deep, silky brown, but she’s just as pale as Bella, and all her emotions tend to show when she blushes.
“All right, what aren’t you telling me?” I level, but we’re interrupted by—
“Lemon?” I don’t mean to sound mortified, but I’m taken aback. The last person I thought I’d run into today was my childhood nemesis serving me food. Wasn’t an ex-boyfriend enough for one week?
“Hey, Devyn!” Lemon says, much too cheerily for being, well, Lemon. It’s not normal.
I clear my throat. It’s just Lemon , I remind myself. I’ll deal with her, and then get back to why Shana is being weird.
“It’s good to see you,” I force out.
I eyeball Shana awkwardly, but she’s just smiling brightly like this isn’t super uncomfortable. What the heck ? I turn back to the strangely welcoming Stepford Lemon and clear my throat again. “We’ll just take water, thanks.”
I smile and turn back to Shana, effectively dismissing Lemon.
Or so I think.
But she doesn’t leave. She and Shana share a wide-eyed look before they both burst out laughing, and then Shana scoots over for Lemon to— sit.
With us.
I’ll wait. Surely, they will explain their…closeness.
But they just stare at me and smile. They smile like they’re—
“You two are friends now, aren’t you?” But I already know. I moved away, and I was replaced. By Lemon Perkins.
And Shana doesn’t know how to tell me.
First Hunter, now Shana.
Lemon probably lives in the spare room and that’s why I can’t stay . My skin prickles and my fingers toy with my wrist to find the hair-tie I know will be there. The one I put there for purposes like this. I find it and pluck, the sting that usually calms me doing quite the opposite right now. It spurs me on.
“You could have just said something on the phone when we were talking, you know?” I spit out, before I can remind myself of Step One of the Bitch Program—not saying everything I think right when I think it. “You didn’t have to lie to me. I thought something horrible happened.”
I suck in a quick breath, trying to calm myself down, but failing, my mind spinning circles of words around on a wheel that only seems to grow larger with time and never ceases to slow down. Words like unworthy, fake, bad friend , bitch .
I swallow, my eyes swerving between the two of them and landing on Shana like a dart. Meant to pierce.
“You sounded like you were going to cry on the phone, Shay. And I was all worried about you. You made it seem like someone was dying.” Shana’s face sours, and Lemon’s eyes widen, shifting back and forth between us, as if she’s concerned.
I’m aware, as my tear ducts burn with promise, that much of my anger is laced with emotions entirely unrelated to Shana and Lemon and more assuredly stemming from my dealings with Hunter, my learning of Clara’s passing just another pin in the cushion. I wipe my hand across my eyes, hiding any evidence of imperfection.
And right now, the hair-tie and the other stupid tricks are not enough. I should stop myself before I say something I shouldn’t, but I’m a fully-fledged bitch, remember?
“I was so worried about this mystery of yours, and here you were just afraid to tell me you have a new best friend. Or maybe roomie?”
Who also happens to be the worst, most evil version of myself. Someone who made life a lot harder than it needed to be when we were younger.
Shana knows all about my issues with Lemon, too.
That’s what hurts most. How could she?
She furrows her brow, like she’s disappointed in me. Maybe I deserve it, but I don’t know. I’m too sad to know. I don’t have a place here, any more than I did in the city.
I breathe through it because no matter what, there’s nothing I can’t handle. Strong women don’t give up. That’s what Miss Clara used to tell us girls. If I’m going to have a change, I must make the change myself. I wipe the tears from my cheeks and stomp away before I can say more bitchy things. Before I’m too close to them to hide my feelings. I really am trying to be a better person, despite how I behave when emotions take over.
“Devyn, you don’t understand. It’s not even about Lemon. You’re being dramatic,” Shana shouts. She keeps going on, something about me never listening and always making everything about myself, but I can’t hear her over the pounding in my ears. I’m so angry, but it’s not even at Shana.
It’s at myself. I’m so fucking sorry for myself, and I hate it.
What right do I have to feel sorry for myself?
I made myself this person.
Tears bead like glass over my eyes as I think about the girl with the long, unbrushed hair, who used to ride horses barefoot through the dandelions as a wannabe cowboy chased behind her with a water pistol on his hip. I won’t give up. I’m still that girl, aren’t I?
Storming through the dining halls, I push open the double doors underneath a blazing Exit sign. But it isn’t to the parking lot.
It’s to the bar.
I don’t normally drink, but I’m damn sure drinking tonight.
I click my hot pink Jimmy Choo kitten heels across the floor and march straight for the bartender. He holds his head back and checks me out, but not sexually. I know that look; he knows me, somehow. But not like people in the city do. Not because I’m micro - famous, or whatever people are calling it these days. Their word, not mine.
No, he probably knows me from here. Home. I squint, scanning my memories. He does look familiar, but also not.
“Devyn?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, waving whoever-he-is off, “good to see you again, too. Look, what’s a super strong drink?”
What’s-his-face hesitates but finally answers me, “Whiskey?”
“I’ll take that,” I say confidently, even though I’ve never had whiskey before. “And keep ‘em coming.”
I hand him my card to start a tab, and he takes it, but super-duper slowly, still eyeing me the whole time like he’s waiting for something.
Weird.
I swivel around on the stool and watch the crowd. I recognize half of these people, and it’s so damn awkward as their eyes take turns picking me out, the look of discovery on each one of their faces like old wounds cut back open. Their knowing stares are half the reason I left this place. I wanted to be alone.
You are never alone in a small town. Everyone is so damn nosy. A few are pointing and whispering. Some are flat-out staring at me. This used to happen in the city too, but it was because they recognized me from TV, not because I was some blast-from-the-past car crash that made local headlines and gossip trains for years to come.
Someone clears their throat. I turn my head a bit to see it’s just Jeremy, returning with my drink.
Wait, Jeremy?
“That’s who you are!” I say, spinning around with a smile. The first genuine smile I’ve felt all day. “You’ve changed so much, Jer Bear!”
He places the whiskey in front of me and wrinkles his nose, much the same way I’m doing to him.
“I was about to be offended if you didn’t realize it soon, babe.” Jeremy makes his way through the opening of the bar and pulls me in for a bone-shattering hug. He may have lost a hundred-something pounds, but he still hugs like he hasn’t, squishing me in his tight embrace.
“What the heck happened to you, Jer? Someone kidnap you and feed you a liquid diet?”
He gives me a sassy look and rolls his eyes as he goes back behind the bar and makes work of sorting receipts. “It was honestly a lot like that, yeah. My partner, Corbin, and I did this healthy booty camp thing. It was mad expensive, but his company paid for half of it as some sort of health insurance write off.” He sets up a pirouette and ends it perfectly with a cock of his hip. “As you can see,” he gestures down his body, “it totally worked, and I look irresistible.”
“You looked perfect before the weight loss, too.” I really mean it. Jeremy is a beautiful soul inside and out. He was the best male cheerleader in our high school, even if he was the only male cheerleader. He emceed all the county pageants, and he was also in every one of my classes since kindergarten and was there for me when not a lot of other people were. We used to share loads of gossip. And anyone would be lucky to be with him, no matter what he weighs.
You know that one friend you have that you can just exist around, but it never feels forced or planned? And when you catch up, it’s on a deeper level than most? It feels like old and new coming together. Effortless.
I tell him about Lemon and Shana, and how Hunter screwed me over with the pageant, and he tells me all about his honeymoon in Cabo, which sounds like everything you could want and more. But after a while, he has to help some customers, so I turn back around and sip my whiskey, feeling slightly better than before.
Whether that’s because of Jeremy or the whiskey, I’m not sure.
But the longer I sit by myself, staring into the lights reflecting off the metal jukebox across from me, the longer I think maybe it’s the whiskey. And maybe I’ll just rehash my entire night and pick it apart obsessively.
I might have been wrong about Shana. I might have been a bitch.
Okay . Upon further inspection of my words and actions, I was a bitch. To her and Lemon.
So what if they’re friends? I should be fine with that. Am I really so insecure that it would bother me for my friend to have someone to confide in and hang out with? I don’t even live here. I haven’t been home in ten years.
Of course, they’ve all moved on.
It’s just…why Lemon? I whine internally, thanking God that at least in my own thoughts, I’m allowed to be mopey about it without anyone knowing. I’ll have to apologize to them both if I want to be the better person I claim I’m trying to be, though.
Just as I’m thinking about closing my tab and finding Lemon and Shana again, someone taps my shoulder. I’m feeling pretty good from just the one drink…was it one?
And someone smells pretty good too, as I turn around to face him.
H i,” I beam. Hmm, I think I’m beaming, I might be tipsy . But he’s beaming.
A man, five years or so older than me, I don’t know…maybe more—tipsy age is questionable—anyway, he’s right here in front of me.
“Hey, there, lood-gooking,” I say. And then I face-palm. “Ohmygosh, I mean good-looking.”
His eyes crinkle at the edges when he laughs at my joke. I bite my lip, embarrassed by my slip-up, but also taken aback by how handsome this man is. He smells nice too, like fresh linen and mint. He holds his hand out to shake. There’s something familiar about him.
“You’re lood-gooking, too, Devyn Campbell.”
I offer him my hand, but instead of shaking it, my body heats all over when he presses my skin to his hot lips. Things are a bit wobbly as several thoughts rush into my head in one single stream.
Have I had too much to drink?
Wait, how did he know my name?
Maybe I should leave and find—
“There you are!” I hear from beside me. And like some sort of magic, Lemon Perkins is perched on the stool beside me, smiling at Mr. Someone, but I don’t think it’s sincere.
“Isssnot sincere, is it Lemon?”
“Excuse me,” she says to the stranger who might know me, “I have some personal business to discuss with my associate here. Will you please leave us?” She bats her long eyelashes at him.
She’s so pretty. And I feel really bad about earlier, so I just have to tell her.
“You’re really pretty. I didn’t drink lemonade when we were kids because I hated you so much, but I actually love lemons. They’re yellow and bright, like your haaaaair! Ooh! Is that why they named you Lemon?”
“Oh, my God, Jeremy!” she shouts, climbing over the bar like she owns the place. Maybe she does? “How much did you give her to drink? Jesus, she’s drunk as a skunk!”
“I am not! I had one whiskey.”
“Three,” Jeremy interjects. Lemon and I shoot him a glare, probably for different reasons, but he just shrugs and sips his water through the straw.
Lemon huffs and throws her hands in the air. “Well, there ya go!”
“I jusss don’ drink much.” I shrug, searching the room for the handsome man in plaid who Lemon just scared off. He did look familiar, but doesn’t everyone here?
“She’s a lightweight. It makes sense now,” Jeremy says, giving Lemon another reason to swat his shoulder.
“Ow! It’s not my fault. She asked for something strong.”
Lemon sighs and turns to me, rubbing her temples. “This was probably my fault. She never did get to order any food before I ran her off.”
“What did you want to say to me?” Now that I’ve had a moment, I’m feeling a lot more lucid. I take the water she shoves my way and sip it. “Can I have some French fries, Jer?”
“Cheese?” he asks me with a sympathetic smile, and I nod. He’s a good man. There are good people here I forgot about. And that makes me sad again.
“Look,” Lemon says, twirling a straw in her own water glass from across the bar. I remind myself to ask her if she does, in fact, work here later. “I’m sorry we bombarded you. Shana was afraid you’d hate that we’ve become close, but I told her we were just kids back then. It was a stupid pageant rivalry. I don’t even do pageants anymore. I mean, I know you did for a while there and all. Congrats on the whole Miss American Rodeo thing, by the way. And Devyn?” she says, biting the edge of her lip and looking away. “I’m sorry I shared your secret with everyone way back when. It was wrong of me to use that against you for the pageant. Blaming it on being a bratty teenager feels like a cop-out, but I hope you’ll give me a chance to show you I’m not that girl anymore.”
I look up at her from under my bangs and see she’s genuinely smiling.
“Thanks, and I’m sorry for throwing a tantrum like a child. I was wrong. Shana’s allowed to have friends who aren’t me.”
“Shana’s been through a lot lately, you know? Becoming friends was just a bonus, but being able to stay at her place and help take care of her dad is the only way she isn’t drowning.”
Lemon’s going on, but I stopped listening.
“Wait, what do you mean, take care of her dad ?”
Lemon’s face pales. “You don’t know. She hasn’t told you yet?”
I’m mad right now. I’m really mad. And I’m worried. I don’t like how tight my chest is. How out of control I feel. And I definitely lose my shit a bit when my stupid hair-tie snaps in half with the force of my tug and falls from my wrist to the floor.
I’m the last person in the room to know what’s going on with my own best friend.
“What is going on, Lemon? Tell me straight.”
“Ugh, this is awkward and HIPPA-violation-y now, but shit .” She blows out a huge gust of air, her words rushing out like a wave. “Randall has cancer. I’m a nursing assistant. I moved in to take care of him. He’s stage four, Dev. That’s…” Her eyes shift to the ground. “He’s not doing well.”
“What?”
I don’t know what to say. I’m not super close to Randall, but it’s still Shana’s dad. I grew up with him always being there. Being fine. Spitting lines of Shakespeare to us over breakfast pancakes when I’d stay the night. Vibrant. Alive.
Not dying.
My sorrow right now is wholly for my best friend who has been dealing with her father’s declining health, in her own home, for who knows how long.
“He has a year or less. She didn’t want you to think she needed you. Kept saying you had enough problems.”
“Lemon, what I said to Shana about someone dying…I didn’t know. I feel so—”
“I know.” She places her hand on my shoulder, coming around the bar to sit beside me. “Shana is fine. She went home after she sent me in here to check on you.”
“She did? Why you?” I stumble on my words. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just—she knows how we used to be.”
“Because I understand what it feels like to be isolated and misunderstood. After what I did to you in junior year, I lost a lot of friends. All my friends.” She turns away slightly, maybe not wanting to meet my eyes. It’s not exactly an apology, but I can’t be sure with Lemon. Not this new, strange, different Lemon who honestly seems like someone I wouldn’t mind being friends with.
“I deserved to lose friends after what I did. I’ve never been proud of kicking you when you were at your lowest.”
I hold up a hand to stop her. Not because I don’t accept her apology, but because that past, the one I thought was scarred over and covered up, keeps getting poked and prodded and reopened the more time I spend here in Pine Forest, and honestly?
It’s exhausting feeling sorry for myself.
I shove the twentysomething French fry into my mouth. They’re so warm and crunchy. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was.
Maybe it’s time to put rivalries in the past. I could use someone on my side right now. Lemon twirls a straw in her clear, plastic water cup that I’m pretty sure she just stole from behind the bar and filled up herself, and I find myself entranced by her, in awe of what time can do to people and relationships alike.
“If Shana thinks you’re good people, you probably are,” I say, earning an ear-to-ear grin and a squeal of delight from Lemon, who is bouncing up and down on her toes.
“Jeremy,” she yells, “we need a round of truce shots.”
“You don’t mean to tell me that Lemon Perkins and Devyn Lynn Campbell are calling a truce? This is worthy of Paradise pinkies!” Jeremy shouts the name of the drink into a megaphone, and the whole bar erupts into applause, chanting, “Pinkies! Pinkies! Pinkies!”
“What’s a pinkie?” I ask. But nobody tells me. They just smile and nod, like they can’t wait for the fun to begin.
I’m suddenly regretting remembering Jeremy.
Looking out into the crowd is always how I’ve grounded myself, and this time as I look out, I see that man. The one from before who I called lood-gooking . I mentally roll my own eyes at myself. He really is, though. That isn’t whiskey goggles talking. The French fries seem to appreciate him, too. He’s built, with broad shoulders and tanned skin. Blue eyes, like someone else I know.
He sees me, and my heart skips.
“He looks just enough like him.” I don’t mean to say it out loud, but I’m thinking that didn’t work out how I intended because Lemon’s looking at me like I have three heads.
“What?” She whips her head in the man’s direction. “You mean Garrison?” Lemon shakes her head. “No, that is the worst idea possible for you, babe. Trust me.”
“That is Garrison ?” I rub at my eyes, thankful for smudge-proof setting powder and waterproof mascara, as I squint for closer inspection purposes. “There is no way that pimply heap of skin and freckles grew up to be that. ”
He looks like Hunter on steroids.
The crowd rumbles as Jeremy comes out from the back with two pitcher sized goblets on a silver, mirrored platter. “What do you mean, he’d be the worst possible decision for me?” I ask as I watch Jeremy work.
He’s fancy with his bartender moves, slicing strawberries and popping bottle caps into the air.
Casting another quick glance in Garrison’s direction, our eyes meet, and he cocks his head at me in invitation.
“He seems good enough for a one and done to me.”
“You’re bad!”
Lemon slaps me, like we’re friends. Maybe we are? I smile, but only just a little, keeping up my walls and all.
“Still, can’t you find someone else? He’s—” she pauses, “well, let’s just say I know stuff about him. He’s battling demons within his soul that no woman can fix. He’s broken, Dev. And he just drinks his days away. Barely even takes care of his farm.”
“Who cares when it’s a one-night stand?” I argue. “Did he kill anyone?”
“No.”
“See! It’s fine. Besides, he has to look right for me to get this out of my head and move o—”
Whoops, I’ve said too much.
“Has to look right for what?” Lemon eyes me suspiciously, but of course she already knows. I try to avoid the subject either way.
“The pinkies!” I say, changing her focus to the obnoxiously large beverage before us. I’m sort of confused why they aren’t, well, pink , but the cheers from the crowd get louder, and I certainly can’t ask Lemon over the noise.
We each have a giant blue drink that’s a mix of rum, grenadine, and fruit. Jeremy lights the liquid on fire then throws a handful of cinnamon on each drink, making the flames spark up around us and the crowd roar.
It reminds me of the Fourth of July. The display of lights and colors, while the whole town surrounds one another and cheers for the sake of cheering.
The crowd whoops and hollers before they break off into a mix of line dancers and table minglers, and finally, it’s just Jeremy, Lemon, and me as our drinks light the bar. And when we pour the lemon juice Jeremy gives us into our drinks, they turn from blue to bright pink before the fire is extinguished. We clink our giant glasses together and chug them down.
Then, Lemon Perkins and I do something we’ve never done before.
We hug. And it feels right.
I peer into the sea of tables resting beneath the neon lights, and somehow, I already knew who I’d see in the far-right corner beside the pool tables. He doesn’t look my way, and that annoys me. He knows I’m here. The whole bar was just chanting our names so loudly, he couldn’t have missed it.
I shouldn’t care. I won’t care. He didn’t care when he tricked me with the pageant.
I continue to feed myself lies, but we all know I do care. It’s Hunter. And I have some lessons to teach him. Then a light bulb sparks as I realize Garrison might be able to help me teach those lessons. But first, I’ll need bait.
“Hey, Lem? Wanna dance?”
Lemon smiles at me and links her arm with mine.
“I thought you’d never ask.”