Chapter 4
Elias
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Silas says as he smacks the bar top with one hand and slides an icy-cold IPA bottle my way. “Someone’s been a hermit lately.”
I grunt before taking a long, satisfying swig of my beer. “I have my reasons.”
Silas, unlike his sheriff brother, doesn’t press or interrogate. He knows me well enough to wisely back off when I’m not in a talkative mood. It’s what makes him a great bartender. Keeps the drinks coming and the questions light.
“Where’s Reverie?” I ask, changing the subject to his daughter. “She around here?”
Silas is a decade older than my ripe old age of thirty. His daughter was a surprise baby that landed on his doorstep twenty-one years ago. She keeps him on his toes.
“Since your brother hasn’t shown up yet, she’ll be scarce,” Silas says, grimacing. “I told her he’s a knucklehead.”
Corbin Cove is definitely a knucklehead. But he’s not the worst. Problem is, the two of them grew up together. I’m pretty sure he sees Reverie more like a sister or a cousin than a love interest, though I’m not going to be the one to point that out.
I follow Silas’s gaze over to the bay window seating area that is perpetually reserved for The Flock.
Currently, all six of their usual drinks are sitting and waiting for them to arrive.
They’re not celebrities or anything. Just a local group of friends who meet up here every night of the week.
Even Corbin, coming in reeking of smoke from fighting fires, never misses.
“Where’s Monroe?” I down the rest of my IPA and don’t even have to ask for another before Silas is popping off the cap. “He called me to meet him here. I figured he’d be waiting on me.”
Silas shrugs and then saunters over to a table of tourists.
I know they’re tourists because they’re wearing the stupid, commercialized shirts and hats from one of the shops over at the Festival Flight Market.
They order that crap in bulk. If they wanted something unique, they’d have better luck hunting in the bargain bins at the Molt Mercantile, probably spend a lot less too.
Goldie loved BudgieFest. That old woman forced me into going to the festival every year since I moved in next door. In her later years, we even rented a scooter for her to move about more easily. If she knew I was hating on the generic gear of the tourists, she’d get on to me.
I miss her lectures.
My throat tightens and I force my gullet back open by downing another beer. If I don’t slow my roll, my sheriff best friend will have to drive me home. Silas returns, eyebrow arched when he notices my empty bottle.
“Grab me a Coke, yeah?”
He gives me a small nod and heads for the small fridge on the back wall. Seashells clatter together as someone opens the front door to the bar. I swivel around on my stool to see if it’s my brother or his “flock”, the grumpy cop we all know and love, or another sunburned BudgieFest enthusiast.
Unfortunately, it’s the latter.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful Silas’s business does so well this time of year. However, I like it when it’s the usual folks around here. I don’t like to feel like I’ve been invaded by strangers.
My phone buzzes and I ignore it to thank Silas for the Coke. After a refreshing swallow, I pull my phone from my pocket to check to see who it is.
Tate: Dad around?
Me: Should be soon. Meeting him here at The Icehouse. You coming?
Tate: Nah. Tell him to text me. Trudy’s in a mood. Maybe he can talk to her while he’s there.
I shoot him a thumbs up. Tate’s a good friend of mine.
We went to high school together and played football.
So that’s why it’s strange I ended up becoming best friends with his dad.
Monroe just fits my personality better. We’re both chill and satisfied with doing nothing.
Tate would rather die than sit around drinking beers with his dad at his uncle’s bar.
The seashells clatter together again and, unfortunately, Branson Harker strides in. At least I know why Trudy’s in a mood. He’s an arrogant bully who knows how to push all her buttons. I’m still perplexed why Corbin and the gang are friends with him.
Branson smirks at me before sauntering over to their reserved table. Silas only needs to put the reserved sign up during BudgieFest. All the locals know who that table belongs to.
Monroe finally enters the bar and I’m grateful. There’s a calmness about him that always takes the edge off me. And, after today’s doozy with Nora, I could use my friend right about now.
“Uniform is off,” I say with a grin. “Someone get this man a drink.”
Monroe claps a massive hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “Good to see you out in the real world.”
“That’s what I said,” Silas adds, setting an old fashioned in front of his brother. “You’re later than usual. Preoccupied with tourist drama?”
Monroe and the other police officers stay busy in June. Crime spikes when the visitors are here. It’s mostly public drunkenness, but it keeps them on high alert.
“Thought so,” Monroe says with a grunt, “but turns out, I was wrong.” He cuts his eyes my way and lifts a brow as if I’m keeping something from him. “Right, Cove?”
Silas, sensing good gossip, leans forward on the bar top, bright teeth gleaming with a wicked grin. “Do tell.”
I roll my eyes and keep my focus on the crumpled straw wrapper pinched between my fingers.
Something about Nora leaves me completely unsettled.
Maybe it’s because she reminds me of a younger version of Goldie.
Maybe it was all the tears and snot. I’m not good with criers.
Or maybe it was just because she’s genuinely not a good person and I don’t have time for people like that.
“Nora Everhart’s here,” Monroe blurts out. “It’s why our buddy here is all up in arms.”
I grumble and shoot him a glare. “How in the Helsinki could you come to that conclusion?”
Silas sniggers at my dodge of saying another “bad” word. Goldie whipped me into shape with my language and it’s going to be difficult to break. I feel like I’m thirteen years old again, replacing stupid words for curse words just to feel like I’m being cool.
“I ran into her at the post office just now,” Monroe reveals, side-eyeing me. “I connected the dots. She’s ruffled your feathers somehow.”
To say the least.
“Wait,” Silas says, humor fading. “As in Sandy’s Nora? Goldie’s granddaughter?”
I grit my teeth, not wanting to say anything, but end up blurting out my words in anger anyway. “One and the same. Can you believe the nerve she has showing up a week after we buried that woman? Who doesn’t show up to their grandmother’s funeral?”
“Sandy said she was stuck in Europe for work,” Monroe explains as if this somehow fixes everything. “Not saying it’s a great excuse, but it’s a reason.”
“I still don’t know why you didn’t ever hook up with her,” Silas says to his brother, spinning off subject per usual. “You two were literally Mr. and Miss Budgie Bay your senior year of high school.”
Monroe shakes his head in exasperation. “She was my friend, Si. Plus, I was with Wren. Sandy and I were never into each other like that.”
There’s a pregnant pause as we acknowledge a moment of silence for Wren. Tate lost his mom when he was just five, and Trudy, having been born as her mother was dying, never even got to meet her. It wrecked Monroe to his core losing his wife twenty-five years ago and he still hurts to this day.
“Sorry,” Silas mutters. “Sometimes I speak without thinking.”
Monroe shrugs it off, but he rapidly drums his fingers on his thigh. His never-ending heartache over his deceased wife reminds me a lot of how Goldie was whenever she’d speak of Amos. Again, I can’t imagine the pain they went through.
Luckily, our somber conversation ends when a group of loud tourists—also wearing the same dumb generic shirts—waltzes in, oohing and ahhing over the “clever” decor in The Icehouse.
Silas, dialing his charm up to a ten, makes his way over to greet them, no doubt eager to escape the bomb he detonated a minute earlier.
“So, what’s really bothering you about this girl?” Monroe asks, turning to face me. When he stares at you dead-on, it’s hard to evade or lie to him. He goes into interrogation mode and there’s no avoiding it.
I down the rest of my Coke and then let out a frustrated sigh. “She shows up out of nowhere, man, and just…”
His eyebrow inches up. “Chaps your hide?”
“Yes!” I blurt out and smack the bar top. “She yelled at me and threw out accusations. I’m not the one who abandoned my family. I’m not the villain here.”
Monroe holds up both hands in surrender. “No one is vilifying you.”
I rub my palm over my face and nod. “I know, I know. Sorry. I’m still shaken up over, you know.”
Losing my roommate. My friend. A woman who was every bit a grandmother to me as my own.
“I know,” Monroe says, voice raspy. “Grief sucks. It’ll make a man crazy.”
Silas shows up a bit later with a peace offering. I snatch up a beer-battered onion ring and devour half of it in three seconds’ flat. Monroe is right behind me. No one makes onion rings like The Icehouse. Not even The Budgie Café. They’re top notch and we were just gifted a beloved basket of them.
“She’s not going to be able to stay at that cottage,” Monroe murmurs around a mouthful of greasy goodness. “You and I both know that.”
“Not my problem.”
Monroe ignores my comment. “I sent her over to Mom’s, but I already know she’s booked out for the entire summer. Probably won’t have much luck at Harbor Heights Hotel either.”
Again, not my problem. I don’t voice it this time since he’s not in a listening mood anyway.
Our conversation is interrupted when one of the tourists whistles. I swivel around, half expecting to see Reverie, because she’s a beautiful young woman and turns heads wherever she goes. When I see Trudy, instead, I cringe on behalf of the tourist.
Big mistake.
The tourist in the tight white T-shirt that shows off his bulging belly catcalls the sheriff’s daughter. She scrunches her nose and then flips him off. Yep, definitely in a mood.
“Come on, baby,” the beer belly guy croons. “Don’t tempt me with a good time.”
I expect Monroe to pounce on this guy, but he doesn’t get the chance. Branson storms away from his barstool at their table and takes a swing at the belligerent newcomer. As soon as his fist connects with the guy’s ruddy face, chaos erupts in the bar.
Branson yelling at the guy. The guy threatening to sue him.
Trudy spouting off sassy words of her own.
Silas yanking Branson away before he can land another punch.
And, finally, Monroe stepping in and putting a stop to all of it by threatening to take everyone to jail.
Branson, Trudy, all the visitors, me and Silas too, and I didn’t even do anything. Everyone.
“Zero stars on Kelp!” the guy barks out as he soils his white T-shirt by using it to sop up a trickle of blood under his nostril. “I’ll tell everyone this place sucks! You’ll be ruined for letting this happen!”
Silas shakes his head in irritation as he tosses the guy out of his bar. As annoying as it is for Silas to get punished, we all know a bad review on Kelp won’t do anything to keep people from swarming The Icehouse.
Monroe, breathing heavily and silently fuming, actually takes a swig of his old fashioned.
Usually, he just holds the glass, jiggles it around as the ice melts, and eventually abandons it without having taken a swallow.
This evening, between the tourists, talk of Wren, and having to defend his daughter’s honor, I think he’s reached his limit of what he can handle.
A moment later, Monroe pins his stern gaze on me.
I’m reminded when I was a teenager at a party with Tate and he showed up with his cop buddies, scaring the living crap out of every single one of us who shouldn’t have been drinking underage.
Why do I feel like I’m going to hate the next words that come out of his mouth?
“You know what you need to do, Cove. You know where she needs to stay.”
I was right.
I do hate the words that came out his mouth.
“And if I don’t?” I challenge, feeling like I’m in high school again, bowing up to a parent.
Monroe shoots me his practiced, disappointed dad look. “We both know Goldie would have something to say about that.”
He’s not wrong.
This flunking sucks.