Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
NOW
J ason’s celebration of life is happening at the Wild Coyote, the only dive bar in Saddlebrook Falls. Though ours is a conservative town, the people here aren’t without their vices. Even on weeknights, the Wild Coyote is filled to the brim with local townsfolk eager to take the edge off.
I’m able to snag an open parking spot along the side of the old brick building. My mom and Barry decided to stay home with Annie, but they let me drive the Mercedes here myself so I wouldn’t need to find a ride. I think they knew I needed a few quiet minutes alone, away from all the eyes on me, waiting for me to break.
I’m well aware that my face is swollen and raw from another day spent crying, but I don’t care. I don’t even look at my face in the mirror—none if it matters. Nothing in the world matters anymore without Jason. And I’m terrified that nothing ever will again.
Stepping out of my mother’s car, I follow the path to the front door of the bar. The temperature outside has plummeted, but I hardly feel the chill. I didn’t even bother grabbing a jacket when I left my house. I welcome the cold against my skin, hoping that it might be enough to make me feel something.
Inside, my heels clack loudly against dark hardwood floors, drawing unwanted attention from everyone who’s already here. I keep my head low, my eyes locked on the ground as they trace the knots in the long wooden planks. The melancholic din greets me—so different to what the inside of this bar usually sounds like.
I can’t help but notice how dark it is the farther I get, like the lights might not be turned up all the way. Or maybe that’s just what it’s always like. I’ve only been here once—Jason’s best friend’s grandfather owned it up until he passed a couple of years ago. I’m not sure who owns it now, but I imagine someone in Wells’s family is still running things.
It struck me as an odd place for Jason’s celebration of life, considering he’d probably never spent much time here either. We were too young to be in a place like this before we all left for college. Well, not counting the night Wells used a spare key to score him and Jason another round of beers after their graduation party. I’d been anxious that night, caught up my own prickling dread that they were both about to leave for college, and I’d be stuck here for another two years alone.
I imagine Jason and I would have come in here someday, long into our future, as we fought against some irritatingly warm summer night in our small first home together. Jason would throw his arm around my shoulders, holding me close as we ordered the coldest beer they had. But now it’s nothing more than a daydream—a sharp, painful realization that the future I always imagined would never unfold.
Forcing myself back into the present, I wonder if maybe this was the only place that could hold so many people on such short notice. Lord knows the whole town will show up for Jason, as they did for his funeral. Everyone in Saddlebrook Falls loved him, thanks to his success on the field every Friday night and the success of his father as mayor. The Moores were practically town royalty.
I take a measured breath, finally lifting my gaze to take in everyone already here, and my eyes immediately snag on a man sitting at the bar. He’s wearing a black collared shirt with the buttons undone at the neck. His hair is tousled, like he’s been winding his fingers through it all day. Thick clumps of it fall across his brow, and his eyes . . . Even from here I can see the unyielding pain they carry.
But there’s a flicker of . . . something, when he turns his head and those eyes find mine.
Wells.
I haven’t seen him in about a year. He looks . . . different. Older. Like his edges have been sharpened, his boyish features honed into the shape of a man.
Wells has always been a force, standing well over six feet tall with a body like a brick house. It’s what made him a powerhouse on the football field—he’s the best offensive tackle to ever represent our team, slamming against the brute force of the defense to protect his quarterback with a wild, untamed power.
He never let anyone get past him. Never let anyone touch Jason.
A sigh spills out of my lungs as I stop walking. I didn’t see him this afternoon—had he been there? There’s no way he missed his best friend’s funeral, right? I resume my steps, slowly making my way toward him, noticing the way the corners of his mouth fall as I approach.
“Wells,” I say, watching as he takes a long pull on the bottle of beer he’s holding on to for dear life. A black cowboy hat rests atop of the bar next to him.
He turns to look at me again, the red glow from a nearby neon light reflecting in his brown eyes. God, the effect is damning—he’s liquid smoke. “Layla,” he says back, his voice gruff and throaty.
“I didn’t see you earlier.”
“Yeah?” he grumbles. “Well, I was there.”
He sounds annoyed. Like, of all the things he’s dealing with today, he doesn’t want me to be one of them. An ache pulses through my chest at his biting tone. It’s old and familiar—a wound from a past life. After being so wholly numb for the past few days, I’m surprised by it.
“I haven’t seen you in a while,” I try.
He grunts, his eyes falling to the mouth of his bottle. “Yeah. Not since New Year’s.”
That’s right. Last year, the three of us drove out to the beach and made a bonfire to celebrate. We got drunk on Pbr and a bottle of whiskey and slept under the stars. My mother about had my head for it.
His eyes move to my cheek and I reach a hand up. I don’t even realize I’m crying until I feel the dampness beneath my fingertip. I’ve cried so much in the last three days, I almost don’t know what it’s like not to. “Shit,” he says, handing me a napkin.
“So,” I continue, as if I’m not a broken fucking mess, “how have you been?”
He narrows his eyes at me like I’ve asked a ridiculous question. And I suppose I have, but seeing Wells here—it feels like something I can hold on to. Something of Jason’s. Something from . . . before. And now that I have it, I don’t want to let go.
He turns his gaze to focus straight ahead of where he sits, and I find myself cataloging the side of his face. It’s only now, from this new angle, that I see the faint purple shadows beneath his eyes that match my own, the days’ worth of stubble along his cheek. He looks like he hasn’t slept since . . . well, since.
“Kasey, get me a shot,” he calls out to the man behind the bar, and I look over. Sure enough, it’s Wells’s older brother.
Kasey gives Wells a hard look. “I think you’ve had enough today.”
Wells scoffs. “I don’t give a shit what you think. Pour me a fucking shot.”
Kasey frowns but relents. He pours a finger into a lowball glass and slides it in front of Wells. His eyes are kind when he slides his gaze to me. “Layla, it’s good to see you, sweetheart. You want one?”
Wells scoffs again. “Layla doesn’t know how to drink whiskey.”
Flashes of passing the bottle around the fire swim in my head. Wells said the same thing then, and I’d tried to prove him wrong—until I was bent over puking into the ocean, shoulders trembling from the force of it.
I ignore him, nodding my head. “Yes please.” I watch as Kasey pours a second shot then places it on the bar for me. “ Thank you,” I say, before I pick it up and down the whole thing.
Wells stares at me for a long moment before he picks up his own glass, spilling the contents into his mouth. His throat works as he swallows. “Layla,” he starts again. “We don’t have to pretend to like each other now, okay? I know we tried for Jason, but . . .” He scrubs his hand over his face. “We don’t have to anymore.”
I feel the insult like a knife to the chest. Wells and I didn’t exactly have a conventional friendship; like oil and water, we never mixed well. But I do care about him, and he damn well knows it. Just like I know he cares about me.
“I wasn’t aware my dead boyfriend was the only thing keeping our friendship alive, but point taken.” I slide my empty glass back toward Kasey. “May I have another, please?”
“Of course,” he says, watching me carefully as he pours me a second shot.
I refuse to look at him, but I feel Wells’s gaze stuck on me as I tip this one back, too. I try not to react to the burn as it erupts in my throat—a welcomed pain to distract from the daggers Wells is throwing at me.
Something abruptly crashes behind us, and I turn to find a blonde-haired woman at the bar’s entrance. She’s sobbing, thick tracks of mascara running down her face, and she looks . . . disoriented. I try to place her, try to figure out who she is. Saddlebrook Falls is a small town, after all, and even though it’s been a year and a half since I left for college, I’m still pretty sure I know everyone here. Plus, she looks to be about my age—so I should definitely know who she is.
Her eyes sweep the room until they land just behind me. And then her knees almost buckle. “Wells!” she howls as she begins to run toward us. I turn back to face him, surprised to find that his eyes are full of what looks a lot like . . . fear.
“I’m so sorry, Layla,” he whispers, just as the woman collides into him.
Her crying turns into wails, loud and raking through my ears as she buries her face in his chest. Everyone else in the bar is quiet as they watch her fall apart, and I don’t have to look at any of them to know they’re just as confused as I am.
After a long moment of hesitation—his eyes still firmly planted on mine—Wells lifts his arms up and wraps them softly around the girl. “Hey, Emma,” he soothes.
So, Wells has a girlfriend then? I mean, I’m not exactly surprised. If there’s one thing I know about Wells—one thing the whole town knows—it’s that there’s always a girl within his reach. None of them last very long, but that’s the way Wells prefers things. He’s non-committal. Or rather: he chews up and spits out women for sport.
Why would he apologize to me about this one?
It doesn’t make sense.
“I-I don’t know what to do.” The woman—Emma—continues sobbing into his black long-sleeve shirt. “Wh-what am I supposed to do without him?”
In a single, rapid second, my heart jumps up into my throat. I look at the girl, at the side of her face, still trying to connect the dots that I feel are right in front of me. My gaze jumps back to Wells, who’s looking at me like I’m a bomb. Like he’s waiting for me to detonate. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, my voice lost somewhere in the confusion. “Who is this?”
His brows bunch together, all evidence of his earlier hostility gone. He looks on the verge of breaking. “This is Emma,” he says, carefully .
I nod. “I gathered that already, thank you.” I can hear the venom seeping into my voice. “Who is she, Wells?”
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he expels a long breath as he simply stares at me. Eventually, Emma pulls her face out of his neck, wiping her eyes. She sniffs, sucking strings of snot back into her nose as she finally looks at me. Genuine curiosity flares in her eyes. “Who are you?”
Everything tilts. My vision nearly blacks as it tunnels on the two of them standing there, and the only thing I’m conscious of is the lungful of air that Wells pulls into his stupid fucking lungs. “Wells, who the fuck is she?”
Emma’s eyes narrow in offense as she pulls herself back into a standing position, disentangling from him. “I’m Jay’s girlfriend. Who the fuck are you?”
My eyes bounce between them. My chest begins to heave as acid bubbles inside my stomach, and the edges of my vision blur enough to make me feel dizzy. I can’t stop what comes next as I lean over and vomit all over Emma’s white shoes.
She looks at me, shock radiating from her face. I straighten and swipe the back of my hand across my mouth, looking back to Wells and finding his features twisted in pain.
Everything in my body feels like it’s disintegrating. Like I might be melting right into this dirty bar floor. I turn around, begging my legs to cooperate with me as I break through the crowd.
But when I push through the doors and step out into the cold, I still can’t find air, can’t for the life of me catch a breath. I make it only four steps down the sidewalk before I fall to my knees, the concrete cutting into my skin.
“Layla, wait!” I hear Wells boom from somewhere behind me as the bar door slams open. “Fuck,” he says when he finds me on the ground. “Layla.” He shakes my shoulders. “Layla, fucking breathe.”
I don’t even realize that I’m on my side until he wraps two strong hands around my arms and effortlessly pulls me back up into a sitting position. “Layla, look at me. You have to breathe.” I hear his words but they don’t register. Nothing is registering. Nothing makes sense—I’ve been shoved into an alternate reality, thrown inside some big cosmic joke.
Jason has a girlfriend?
But I’m his girlfriend.
“Layla, goddamn it, look at me!” The bite of his words pierces through the fog, and my eyes snap to his. The only thing I can get myself to focus on is the panic lancing them. “Take a breath,” he commands. “Come on—like this.” And then his chest fills as he pulls in a deep breath through his nose before he pushes it out through his mouth.
I try to mimic him, but instead I choke out a sob. He gently places a hand on the back of my head as his thumb sweeps along my ear. “Come on, sunshine. Try again.” Again, he demonstrates. And though the sobs are still ripping through me, I’m finally able to suck down a solid breath. “That’s it,” he whispers, his eyes softening. “Breathe.”
We sit there for what feels like hours, though I’m sure it’s only minutes. He continues to move his thumb along the side of my face, and I hang on to that touch like it’s a lifeline. Because without it, I might just slip into the darkness and disappear forever.
“How long?” I finally ask. His body stills, but he doesn’t answer me. I look at him, really look at him, and press again. “How long, Wells?”
He sighs, wiping away a tear as it falls. His lips are pressed in a firm line, and worry lines his eyes. He looks so . . . tired. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, Layla. But not here. You’re freezing. Let me get you out of the cold—let me take you home.”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t want to go home. I can’t . . . I can’t.” I can’t face this alone. And I sure as hell can’t take any of this to my mother.
He gives me another long look before he dips his head. “Give me thirty seconds,” he says, pulling me up to my feet. He nudges me so I’m leaning against the brick wall and, after a brief moment of hesitation, he disappears back inside.
Sure enough, he’s back before I can count to twenty-two. His cowboy hat is on his head and he wraps a black Carhartt jacket around my shoulders that smells just like him, like leather and the Texas wind.
He steers me to where his old Chevy truck is tucked into the corner of the parking lot, where I hadn’t noticed it earlier when I’d walked in. Unlocking the door with a long silver key, I barely feel his hands on me as he guides me into the front seat and leans in to buckle the seat belt around my body. I don’t fight him—instead, I simply sink in, resigned to let him take me wherever he wants to go.
As long as it means I get the truth when we get there.