25. Twenty-five
“I was a dick,” Ethan says as he clears dishes from the bar.
I laugh under my breath but don’t look at him as I wash glasses in the sink.
Over the last hour and a half, it has become painfully obvious he’s a good-looking man. Fine, a very good-looking man. His thick hair looks as if he’s been running his hands through it all day, and the few strands of silver that sweep through it somehow add to his appeal. I’ve never liked facial hair, but the way the slightest stubble covers his jaw is borderline delicious.
I’m not even going to think about his eyes. Or forearms. Or the low timbre of his voice that combines with the faintest of Maine accents.
The realization this man is, in fact, hot, makes heat crawl up my neck.
What the hell is wrong with me?
The shift that happens is instant and destructive. Gone is Nel, the confident bartender. In her place is a teenage girl who’s only recently discovered the opposite sex.
“Well, the bar is a disaster. I would be a dick too, probably. You know, it just happens like that sometimes.” When I think I”ve finished talking, my voice lifts to a strange throaty sound and unfortunately adds, “You never know when a dick is going to fly out of the woodwork.”
He laughs at what I’ve said at the same time I cringe.
“Yes, those dicks do just fly out of the woodwork, don’t they,” he jokes, and for the first time, directs one of his deadly smirks toward me.
“I’m Ethan Mills, by the way. Officially.”
He reaches out a hand.
An introduction—the moment I’ve been dreading.
His outstretched hand has me gaping and blinking.
“This is where you usually shake my hand,” he teases, moving his hand just slightly through the air.
“Ha! Right!” I say, reaching out my hand to shake his. “Well, officially, Ethan, I’m Nel. Penelope, really, but also just Nel. Or Nelly if you’re my dad.” My mouth decides to make some kind of deep voice that it’s never made before, saying, “Which you are definitely not my dad.” I wave my hand up and down, gesturing to his torso and flush instantly.
“Penelope,” he says with a knowing pause.
A pause that says he’s putting pieces together. I see recognition strike him like a hammer to a nail before I look away.
He clears his throat. “Well, Penelope, I’m sorry. You saved my ass tonight. I was just…” he looks around the now half-empty bar and dining room. “A disaster.”
I nod through my discomfort.
“So, are you from around here? I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” Ethan asks like he doesn’t already know as he pulls a beer out of the cooler and sets it on a tray.
“No.” I pause as my mouth fills with cotton balls. “I’m a widow, so…”
I’m a widow?
A line forms between his eyebrows.
I close my eyes and push a palm to my forehead as I release a slow breath.
“No, I’m sorry. That was awkward. I don’t know why I said that. I’m not local,” I say, pretending he doesn”t already know that.
Thankfully, a woman sits down at the nearly empty bar that ends the conversation and steals our attention.
I drop a napkin on the bar, smiling at her. “What can I get for ya tonight?”
She returns the smile, but her eyes latch onto Ethan. “Hi, Ethan,” she purrs.
The man is like a lighthouse calling to everyone with ovaries in the state of Maine.
“Brooke.” He nods. “What are you drinking tonight?” he asks coolly, leaning a hip against the edge of the bar.
“Hmmm. That sounds like a loaded question.” She bats her thick eyelashes at him. “But why don’t you surprise me with something special.”
“As enticing as that sounds, I recently was informed my drink-making skills are pretty horrible. Nel here is helping me out, and she’s some kind of wizard behind the bar. She can whip up something great for you, I’m sure.”
Her face puckers in disappointment.
“Nel, how about you make Brooke here one of your famous daiquiris?”
The look he gives me is pure evil and smug as hell.
He knows. He knows that I know he knows.
I want to die.
My mouth hangs open.
“That doesn’t ring a bell,” I lie. “Do you like blueberries?” I ask her.
“Whatever, that’s fine.”
She doesn’t pull her eyes off Ethan. He doesn’t pull his eyes off me.
Every butterfly on planet earth flaps from my stomach to my throat as I grab mint leaves, blueberries, and start muddling them together then mix them with gin and tonic.
I plug the end of a straw with my finger before lifting it to my mouth and getting a drop off the other end to taste. Even just drops, the subtle freshness of the mint blends with the sweetness of the berries and the juniper bite of the gin to play like a symphony across my taste buds.
I smile, pleased, and stick a fresh straw in the drink before sliding it across the bar to Brooke.
“So, Ethan,” she says as her lips curl into a smile. Without warning, she takes the straw in her mouth and provocatively twirls her tongue around it. Repeatedly.
I watch like a deer in the headlights. She’s clearly on a mission to get laid and doesn’t care who knows it.
The amount of time she spends licking her straw has me flabbergasted—like at any moment, the drink itself might start to moan.
I clear my throat to remind her I’m standing there. “Ethan, I think you can handle what’s left. I’m famished and…” I look at the almost empty dining room, then Brooke. “I could use a drink.”
“Stay,” he insists. “Let me get your food.”
He nods to an empty stool on the other side of the bar, and I hesitate. I do not want to stay. On the contrary, I want to run back to Idaho and undo this whole plan.
But, like the fool I am, I do as he says.
I browse the menu while Brooke giggles with Ethan. When she flirts, he leans closer.
A curdling feeling twists my stomach at the scene.
I know how it feels to have someone look at me the way they look at each other. The way he laughs, the way she smiles. They interact in a way I never will again, and I feel all my aloneness as I watch them.
After the last guests leave—including Brooke—Ethan brings me a salad and a glass of wine and stands across the bar from me washing glasses. Watching me.
“So,” I say. “She was really getting weird with that straw, huh?”
He chuckles.
I point a salad-filled fork at him. “Are any of those women your girlfriend or what? You have quite the revolving door situation going on.”
“That’s a personal question, isn’t it, Penelope?”
I snort. “It seemed pretty public with the way they came in here ready to burn their panties for you.”
“That is an interesting visual.” He dunks another glass into the soapy sink. “They’re all friends. Some of them I dated a couple times. Nothing serious. And Brooke is just...” He blows out his breath. “Persistent.”
“Persistent is one way to describe what she was doing with her tongue.”
Another laugh rumbles in his chest as he tosses a couple empty bottles in the trash.
“So,” he says as he leans over the bar, too far into my space.
“So,” I say, looking at my salad like it’s the most fascinating food ever made.
“What do I wear when I sleep, Penelope?”
There is an amused fire in his eyes that makes my fork drop and eyes close.
My face might actually be on fire, and he laughs.
Bastard!
“You are bad at keeping secrets,” he says, resting his ropey forearms on the bar, smirking. Again. I don’t have to know him long to know Ethan’s smirk is like the heat of the desert or the coolness of the Pacific: it just is.
“It’s not what you think,” I argue, braving a look at him. “I’m here because my husband died, not because of you. Or the nakedness. Or whatever.”
“Your husband died, so you came to Bethel, Maine?” He laughs incredulously and shakes his head, sliding a clean wineglass onto the rack overhead.
“In so many words, yes. My kids and I fixed up an old RV and planned to drive it around the country this summer. So, I could, I don’t know, fix myself or something. After a very unfortunate day with dinosaur bones last week, I decided I’d always wanted to see Maine, so we will be here the rest of the summer. Specifically, the coast, Bethel, is just a stop for the night. So, yes. My husband died, grief turned me into the island recluse, and here we are in Maine.” I raise my glass at the confession. “And maybe I noticed that Bethel could be on the way, so we stopped here for the night so I could…”
I don’t even know the ending of that sentence. And yet, I lift my chin in defiance.
“Anyway. I fell in love with experimenting with flavors and the combinations that came from fresh ingredients behind the bar. Markets are my muse—or were. My husband died in a plane crash, and that part of me shut down. I was intrigued by you, I guess. About how you centered a restaurant around that same concept. And tonight was… fun.”
“When did he die?” he asks.
“Umm… well, almost a year and a half ago.”
I shift in my seat, suddenly uncomfortable.
“Did it work?”
My eyes pinch in confusion.
“Did you fix yourself?”
I’m stripped bare by his question. “Maybe?” A small laugh puffs out of me.
I finish my last bites of dinner as he finishes cleaning the bar, and he takes a seat next to me, topping my wine off before pouring himself a glass.
Our arms rest next to each other without touching as the music plays softly over the speakers through the empty dining room. For the first time in nearly eighteen months, I’m not a sad widow or failing mom trying to mend bridges.
I’m a woman in a bar with a man.
It feels like the first breath of air after being held underwater for too long.
“Penelope is an unusual name,” he says over the rim of his wineglass before taking a sip.
“Ahh, yes. Well, to know my mother would be to understand it all. She’s an artist and has gone through many phases in life. I was named during her phase of Greek appreciation, and my brother, Gabe, was named during her devout Catholic phase.” I laugh. “It’s all very inspired.”
“Which one was Penelope? I don’t know Greek mythology.”
“She was married to Odysseus and stayed loyal to him while he was gone for years and years in the Trojan War. Apparently, she was beautiful, so beautiful she had over a hundred suitors in that time, but she stayed faithful for twenty years until he returned.”
I zip the ring on my necklace. “Sometimes I wonder if my name sealed my fate in life,” I say softly.
“Because of the beauty?” he asks with a nudge.
“Something like that.” A small smile tugs at my lips.
“What kind of art does your mom make?”
“That is a fascinating topic. My mom is a painter. Until recently, she painted landscapes with lots of color, but now she paints nudes. Of my dad. Still with lots of color.” My eyes widen to emphasize the trauma of this.
I shudder. He laughs.
I look around. The restaurant is empty, and almost every light is off. Even the staff has left.
“Ethan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize the time. I’m sure you would rather be anywhere but at work.” I start to stand, but he stops me with a hand on my arm.
His eyes meet mine and crinkle in the corners as he smiles.
“I actually can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be. And I owe you dessert. And a tour of the kitchen.”
He slides off his stool and disappears before returning with a thick slice of carrot cake and two forks.
“Oh my God!” I put a hand over my mouth after my first bite. “How is this so good?”
“Maine carrots,” he says seriously before putting a fork full of cake in his mouth.
A loud knock cuts off anything I want to say next, and my head snaps toward the sound. Behind a large window, a woman in a pair of skintight jeans and a low-cut top smiles as she waves through the glass.
“Do you know her?” My wide eyes bounce from her to Ethan.
“Damn. Yeah. Zoey’s my date tonight. I didn’t notice the time, I guess.”
He avoids my gaze as he gets up to let her in.
Date?
Every emotion that makes no sense ricochets through me. Disappointment. Anger. Jealousy. Embarrassment… more disappointment. Apparently, every single woman in Bethel, Maine, has perfect boobs and Ethan’s number.
He doesn’t get the door fully open before Zoey has her arms around him and attacks his mouth with hers like a snorkel. I choke on a bite of cake, shocked. Her manicured fingers claw at his chest like she’s performing an animal mating ritual.
Ethan’s eyes widen and meet mine across the room before he scrapes her off him.
“Zoey,” he says, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I lost track of time. I’m almost finished up.”
He gestures to the bar and where I sit like a frump.
I stand up awkwardly and try to gather my thoughts. When my purse keeps dropping, I consider just leaving it. A casualty of my stupidity.
“What kind of date starts at 11:30?” I want to take the question back as soon as I ask.
Zoey smiles like a Cheshire cat. “The kind where nobody sleeps, I hope.”
Ethan smirks, and dammit if I don’t hate them both for it.
“Of course. Right.” I force a smile that physically hurts my mouth. “Well, it is late, and I was just going anyway, so this is perfect timing, right? And I love your outfit. So cute. Very...” I clear my throat. “Tight.” I wince. “I mean, it looks great on you.” I wave my hand around. “I have to go.”
Die.
I have to go die is what I mean.
“Penelope.” Ethan’s voice interrupts the actual crash and burn that’s happening right in front of him.
“Hmm?”
I look at him as I fumble, again, with my purse.
“Thank you for your help tonight. I wouldn’t have survived without you.”
I hate how handsome he is at that moment, and I hate more that I notice his arm is around a pretty woman named Zoey, who doesn’t want to sleep all night while I wear a stupid cowboy t-shirt and rubber boots.
“Of course. I had nothing else going on. Glad I could help. It was great meeting you both.”
I bow like an awkward karate student, and Ethan bites back a smile.
Bastard!
Zoey takes a seat at the bar where I had been sitting as if signaling my dismissal.
“Well, bye. You two have a fun night. Not sleeping and all.”
I smile weakly before I walk across the empty dining room, my rubber boots squeaking loudly against the floor the whole way.
The instant the door opens, the cool night air blasts my hot face like a fire extinguisher to a flame. I don’t take a full breath until I get to the inn, where Finn and Marin are dead asleep.
I go to the bathroom and splash water on my face, searching my reflection for an explanation. My gold wedding ring swings through the air like a pendulum as I bend over the sink.
I grab it.
Just like the fluorescent lights don’t hide all the places of my complexion I wish they would, I can’t hide what had just happened from myself. I was attracted to a man, albeit an extremely off-limits man who possibly invented the red flag, who wasn’t Travis.
I blot my face with a towel.
Whatever is happening, I’ll figure it out tomorrow when we drive very far away from Ethan and this town.