38. Colt #2
“Good man.” Grant hits my chest once more.
“My, uh… My folks will be here tomorrow. They were pricks, alright? But they’ve had time to think about it, and they know that now.
Also, because I’ve told them repeatedly that they were pricks.
” Grant pauses. “Maybe give them a chance to redeem themselves? For Alice’s sake? ”
“Grant?”
“Yeah?”
“Frank is taking money out of the register.”
“Yeah. I’m on it.”
I follow Grant over, deciding to hang the Employees Only sign on the swinging door that leads to the kitchen. Mostly because it’ll allow me to keep an eye on both Frank and my brother.
“I remember you,” Frank says when Grant approaches him. “You’re the football kid.”
“Hey, Frank,” Grant responds, taking the cash from Frank and putting it back in the register.
“Oh, I wasn’t gonna…” Frank begins, before trailing off and putting his hands on his hips, belly protruding as he examines the room. “This gonna be a bookstore, huh?”
“Nah,” Grant replies, shoving the register drawer shut. “A titty bar.”
Frank barks a laugh. “See, now that I’d patron.”
“Tell me about it,” Grant responds.
I shake my head, biting back laughter as I apply Command strips to the sign.
“You know, I went to Dallas once,” Frank declares. “Awful city, but they had this place called The Milk Bar. All the cereal you wanted. Different kinds.”
“That’s dumb,” Grant says.
“It is dumb, Grant. It is dumb. But I liked one thing alright. The name. The Milk Bar.”
Grant nods to this.
“Got me thinking about titty bars.”
My head snaps to the side in confusion, but Grant just says, “Yeah.”
“I started wondering…what if there was a titty bar that featured older women.”
“Older?” Grant asks.
“Yeah.” Frank picks up a book, examines it, and promptly puts it back down. “We got plenty of younger titties. What about the older ones? That’s where the money’s at. Niche business.”
Grant cracks open a Dr. Pepper, considering this. “Would people pay to see older tits?”
“Oh, my god,” I mutter to myself.
“Hell, yeah, they would!” Frank looks at me like Who is this kid? “Older women, they got them seasoned titties. Them seen the world titties.”
Grant’s gaze slides toward the ceiling, and I can see that he’s thinking hard. Perhaps for the first time in his life. He opens a hand and arches it over his head like a rainbow. “Seen the world…titties.”
Warren pipes in from his place near the floor. “It kind of makes sense.”
Frank whistles from the corner of his mouth and points aggressively at Warren, as if he just proved his point.
“Alls I know is that as a woman ages, her hips get bigger.” Frank opens the glass jar and pulls out a cookie, waving it at Grant before biting into it.
“You ever heard a man complain about a woman’s hips being too big? ”
Grant shakes his head. “No, sir.”
“Damn right, no sir!” Frank bellows.
Frank and Grant continue strategizing their strip club, managing to complete at least some work while they talk, and by midnight, the impossible has happened.
The books are shelved. The floor is swept.
The POS system is operational. Even the coffee station has been stocked.
The shop isn’t just complete; it looks like it’s been a Holly River staple for thirty years.
Alice stands in the center of the room, looking around with exhausted, teary eyes. She waves a black Sharpie and raises her voice above the cacophony. “Before we hang the sign, I want everyone to sign the back of it.”
People file over to sign the large wooden sign leaning against the wall. They scrawl their names as Maggie films, and when Alice notices that Warren doesn’t move from his spot in the corner, she strides over and flips a second pen toward him, eyebrow raised playfully.
Warren looks at her, surprise opening his face.
He smiles and takes it, and Alice gives him a playful shove toward the sign.
If I could want that woman anymore than I already do, I would. But I’m afraid that’s impossible. So I just walk over and wrap my arms around her, pulling her against me. “Thank you,” I whisper in her ear.
Alice gazes up at me, emotion raw in her eyes. “Your turn, cowboy.”
I lower my head to kiss her and—from across the room—I hear people cheering.
My head pops up and I spot Alice’s followers celebrating the fact that we’re kissing. I glance at Alice and she laughs, shrugging as she calls out, “It’s true. We’re dating!”
They whip their phones out, no doubt posting the news that every Birds Bookstore follower suspected—or at least hoped for—thanks to Maggie’s social media strategy.
As I walk toward the sign, Grant catches my gaze and puts two fingers beneath his eyes and then points at me, like he just saw me kiss his sister. I laugh and sign my name, then toss the pen and hoist the board.
“Alright,” I say. “Let’s get this baby up.”
Grabbing the ladder, I head outside. Alice follows me with the mounting brackets. I position the sign directly above the entrance, and Alice climbs the ladder to hold the other end.
“Six inches,” I say under my breath.
Alice laughs, a sound I will never tire of.
I bolt the brackets into the header above the door, then slide the sign into place, locking it down.
Everyone streams off the porch and into the front yard.
The early morning air is freezing, our breath hitching in white clouds.
Maggie hands out champagne flutes and raises her phone to record Alice’s moment of triumph.
“Ready?” Alice calls out, her hand on the light switch.
“Wait!” Maggie shouts. She runs back inside, and a second later, the opening chords of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” blast over the newly installed speakers. She sprints back out, so focused on capturing Alice’s achievement that she misses the last step.
She stumbles, arms pinwheeling, a second from face-planting when Warren catches her.
Maggie crashes against his chest, and for a second, neither of them moves. But then Maggie says, “Let go,” and Warren releases her, an annoyed look on his face that says he wants no part of women right now, and especially not that one.
Maggie brushes herself off and turns back to Alice, phone raised. “10, 9, 8…” she begins.
The crowd joins in. “7, 6…”
I lean toward Alice, lips brushing her ear. “Look around, kid. This is your moment.”
“...3, 2, 1!”
Alice flips the switch.
The Birds Bookstore sign erupts in light. It’s backlit with a warm, golden hue that silhouettes the letters against the white house. The sign shines impossibly bright, throwing an amber glow across the scattered pumpkins, illuminating the faces of those who helped make this possible.
The crowd cheers, and June dabs at her eyes, laughing.
Even Frank claps. Alice beams, her face upturned toward the sign, the light reflecting in her eyes like stars.
And it’s in this moment—with the music swelling and Alice smiling at our friends and family—that I know something pivotal in me has changed.
And that before me lies a future paved with good things, if I’m brave enough to believe I deserve them.
If I’m willing to admit that life isn’t one thing or another.
It’s just that—life.
Hard and ugly, but also beautiful and surprising just when you’ve counted yourself out.
And if you’re lucky—if you’re really fucking lucky—you can experience all of it, the good bits and the bad too, beside someone who loves you.
Who will hold you and say, Look there. There’s a bit of good right there on the horizon.
And you’ll do the same for them, time and again.