Chapter 2
COLE
The whisky burned on the way down, but I welcomed the sensation. The sharp heat sliding down my throat reminded me that I could still feel something, even if it was only the sting of alcohol, which had now become my crutch.
The restaurant used to be full of life.
Now it was mostly empty.
I sat at the far end of the bar with the glass in my hand, staring out at the dining room.
The tables were still arranged the way Eva had always insisted they should be. The napkins were folded neatly into precise triangles. The silverware was perfectly aligned beside each plate. Small vases sat carefully centred on every table.
Eva had always loved those little details. She used to say they were what made people feel welcome.
Now the flowers in those vases were plastic. Real ones had become expensive months ago, and replacing them every few days had turned into a luxury the restaurant could no longer afford.
Five years ago, Eva had opened this place. She had poured every ounce of her heart into it. I could still picture her moving through the dining room, adjusting table settings and greeting customers with that warm smile that made people feel like they belonged here.
Chloe used to spend hours here. She would sit at one of the corner tables colouring pictures while Eva worked, or she would run around the dining room pretending to take orders from imaginary customers.
Sometimes she even dragged a small notepad around like a real server and scribbled nonsense orders in it.
It had been Eva’s dream.
Now it was just another thing I was slowly destroying.
“You’re going to kill yourself at this rate.”
Jack’s voice broke through my thoughts as he wiped down the bar in front of me. The rag moved slowly across the polished wood while he watched me with the kind of concern that had become far too familiar over the last two years.
I glanced up at him briefly before lowering my gaze back to the glass in my hand. “Good evening to you, too.”
Jack set the towel aside and leaned against the counter.
He had been my friend for nearly five years.
We met not long after Eva opened the restaurant, when he came in looking for work, and Eva decided she liked his attitude.
Since then, he had become more than just an employee.
He had become part of the place. When everything fell apart two years ago, Jack had quietly stepped in and helped keep the restaurant running when I stopped caring whether it survived or not.
Without him, the doors probably would have closed months ago.
“You’ve had four already,” he said.
I lifted one shoulder in a careless shrug. “Then pour the fifth.”
Jack stared at me for a long moment before finally reaching for the bottle. The amber liquid glowed beneath the dim bar lights as he tilted it over my glass. He poured the whisky without saying another word.
That was the thing about Jack. He knew when arguing with me was pointless.
“You know the bank called again today,” he said after a moment.
I took another drink before answering. “I figured they would.”
“They’re not going to keep extending the deadline, Cole.”
“I know.”
Eva’s restaurant was drowning in debt. And I had neither the energy nor the desire to save it.
It was not as if I lacked the money. The company I worked for and helped build was running successfully despite my increasingly detached involvement. My brother had stepped in and taken over most of the decision-making, which suited me just fine. He handled the business.
I handled… nothing.
But every time I thought about investing money into this place, something inside me resisted.
Saving the restaurant meant accepting that Eva was gone. It meant admitting that her dream had become mine to protect. And I had already failed her once.
Jack rubbed the back of his neck as he glanced toward the kitchen. “Will says we’re low on supplies again.”
“Then buy more.”
“With what money?”
I did not answer.
The kitchen door swung open, and Will stepped out with a dish towel thrown over his shoulder.
He was a quiet guy in his mid-twenties with a permanently serious expression around me and the kind of focused demeanour that made it clear he cared far more about cooking than conversation.
Jack had hired him a year ago after our previous chef quit when we missed two months of paycheques.
Will had stayed anyway. I still was not entirely sure why.
“You should eat something,” Will said.
“I’m fine.”
“You said that yesterday, too.”
“I was fine yesterday.”
He studied me for a moment, his blue eyes narrowing slightly as if he was deciding whether the argument was worth the effort. After a second, he shook his head and disappeared back into the kitchen.
The faint clatter of dishes drifted out from the kitchen.
I looked around slowly across the empty tables, the faded paint along the walls, and the bar where Eva used to sit beside me after closing.
“Maybe it should just close,” I said finally.
Jack’s head snapped up. “You don’t mean that.”
“Why not?” I asked as I finished the whisky in one swallow. “It’s already dying.”
“This place is the last piece of Eva you have left.”
I stared down at the empty glass in front of me.
Jack reached for the bottle again but hesitated before pouring. “You ever think maybe drinking yourself into the ground isn’t what she would have wanted?”
A bitter laugh slipped out of me. “Eva doesn’t get a say anymore.”
Jack’s jaw tightened. “She would if you stopped pretending she doesn’t matter.”
I finally looked up at him. Really looked at him. “Everything that mattered to me died in Nepal.”
Jack did not flinch. Instead, he simply poured another drink and slid the glass toward me. “Then maybe it’s time you stopped burying yourself with them.”
I stared at the whisky for a long moment before picking it up again.
Because the truth was, I did not know how to do anything else.
And somewhere deep down, a part of me did not believe I deserved to.
The front door opened, and a rush of cool air swept inside along with the soft sound of rain tapping against the floor just inside the entrance.
Jack glanced toward the door automatically.
At first, I barely looked up. I assumed it was just another customer stopping in for a quick drink before leaving.
But then I heard a small, familiar voice.
“Mama, are we allowed to sit anywhere again?”
My head lifted.
The same woman stepped into the restaurant holding her son’s hand. It was the third time she had come in this week. And somehow, I had noticed every single time.
Rain clung to the edges of her dark hair, dampening the shoulders of her coat. The boy beside her shook his sneakers slightly against the mat near the door, trying to shake off the rainwater the way kids always did when they had been told not to track mud inside.
She glanced around the restaurant briefly before giving him a tired but patient smile.
Jack straightened immediately. “Evening, Jiya!” he called out. “Pick any table you like.”
“Thank you, Jack,” she replied softly.
They moved toward the small table near the window like they always did. The boy climbed onto the chair across from her while she helped him settle in, brushing a few drops of rain from his hair before sliding the menu toward him.
“You’re doing it again,” Jack muttered beside me.
“Doing what?”
“Staring.”
“I’m not staring.”
“You absolutely are.”
I ignored him and lifted my whisky to my lips, but my eyes drifted back toward the table anyway.
The boy was talking animatedly now, pointing at something on the menu while Jiya listened with patience. I wondered what the name Jiya meant. Every so often, she smiled at him in that distracted way parents did when they were exhausted but still trying to give their child their full attention.
Something tightened in my chest.
The scene across the room felt painfully familiar.
Eva used to sit exactly like that while Chloe babbled endlessly about school or the cartoons she had watched that morning.
I forced my gaze back to the bar and finished the whisky.
Jack poured another without asking. “You should probably stop looking over there,” he said quietly.
“Why?”
“Because you’re starting to look like someone kicked your dog.”
“I don’t have a dog.”
“You know what I mean.”
I did not respond.
Across the room, the little boy laughed at something his mother said.
The sound cut through the restaurant like a blade.
For a moment, the world around me shifted.
I was no longer standing behind the bar. I was sitting at one of those tables while Chloe swung her legs beneath the chair, telling Eva and me about a drawing she had made at school.
I blinked.
The memory disappeared.
The boy was still laughing. Jiya was still smiling.
And I was still sitting here with a glass of whisky in my hand, trying not to remember a life that no longer existed.
Jack followed my gaze across the room before looking back at me. “You okay?”
“No,” I said flatly.
He nodded slowly. “That’s what I thought.”
A few minutes later, Jiya stood from the table and walked toward the bar. The boy remained in his chair happily colouring something on a paper placemat that Jack must have given him.
She stopped beside me while Jack reached for a bottle behind the counter.
Then she turned slightly.
Our eyes met.
Up close, I could see the exhaustion in her expression more clearly. It was not the kind of tiredness that came from a long day of work. It was something deeper. Heavier. The kind of burden people carried when life had knocked them down too many times.
Something about it felt painfully familiar.
For the past two years, I had convinced myself that nothing in the world could break through the walls I had built around myself.
Yet the moment I looked into Jiya’s eyes, something shifted.
I did not know her.
I did not know anything about her.
But I knew one thing for certain.
She understood pain.
And for the first time in two years, that realization shook me more than the whisky ever had.