Chapter 43 Georgia
Georgia
I waft the bourbon under Eddie’s nose, then stop when I realize I’m getting too close to him. I hold it out to him instead.
“Here, you do it.” He takes it but doesn’t sniff. “Oh, come on. Just take a whiff—you can’t tell me this stuff’s not quality.”
He does as he’s told. “Smells like gut rot and regret.”
It turns out bourbon is Eddie’s I-can’t-drink-that-without-bad-flashbacks liquor, but it doesn’t quell my efforts to convert
him. “It’s really hard to hang out in this place if you don’t drink bourbon.”
“So you’re telling me if Junie quits bourbon, she’s out of the fold?” He moves closer to me, and I can practically feel the
warmth radiating from him. He seems to realize it and shuffles back.
“Of course not. As they say, ‘A Louise is free to do as she pleases.’ No one’s checking her cup.”
“Ah, so you’re purely talking non-Louise, I see?”
I watch his lips curl into a grin I used to know so well, with lips I once had memorized. A little place inside me aches for
that kind of closeness to him.
I step back and tip up the liquor in my cup. “You and I both know the Louise name doesn’t have to be on a birth certificate for someone to qualify.”
Ted Brunson, longtime cashier at the Piggly Wiggly across town, strolls up, a five-dollar bill in hand.
“Mr. Ted,” Eddie announces. “What’ll you have, sir?”
“Hold your horses, rookie.” I shuffle in front of Eddie. “I’m the barkeep here.”
He smiles and holds his hands up as he retreats. “Y’all two decide to give it a go again? Always thought you were a sweet
couple. Anyway, bourbon neat for me, please.”
I blush as I pour. I thought we were doing a good job at keeping this platonic, but if Ted assumes we’re a couple again, I
worry others are thinking the same. I didn’t feel like I was flirting; in fact, I’ve been intentionally biting back the flirty
comments that bubbled up in my mind. I look up and scan the crowd for Junie. I smile when I see her rocking back and forth
in her seat to the beat of the song playing over the speakers. She raises her fists and pumps them, and as a customer approaches,
he dances up to her. Junie jumps up and does a quick booty pop before sliding back down into her chair, looking like she’s
pulled a muscle.
I grin. Could this be the happiest I’ve ever seen her? Possibly.
Once Ted leaves, I turn back to Eddie. He’s already looking at me like he’s been waiting.
“Want to dip out? Get some air?” he asks.
Suddenly I’m thinking about all the other times we dipped out. From a movie night with friends to his grandfather’s lake house
to sit on the dock under the stars, slurping milkshakes from the drive-thru. From his mother’s Fourth of July barbecue to
a roadside stand a few towns over for fireworks of our own.
But we don’t get to dip out like that anymore. Not when he’s clearly moved on.
I want to be with him. Alone. But it would be a horrible, terrible idea.
“The bar needs to be stocked, and there’s stuff in the back of Junie’s truck,” he says.
“Ah, ok.” Part of my heart deflates when I realize he wasn’t asking for my company alone, that this is purely task related,
but alas, having a task to accomplish makes it acceptable that I head for the door at his suggestion.
Eddie swipes a bottle of wine and two plastic cups from underneath the makeshift bar. “I think we’re also legally mandated
a fifteen-minute break from this unpaid gig.”
I laugh as I follow him out, leaving a good buffer of space between us.
“It’s been forever since we really talked,” Eddie says after the front door shuts behind us.
“Just for a few minutes,” I say. “I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea.” I am a rule follower by default (unless we’re
counting outrageously difficult science labs that push me to the very brink), but I’m even more faithful to rules that protect
my Junie.
We set up on the curb out front in plain sight, a good three feet apart.
Eddie cracks the screw top on the wine and balances the cups on the concrete ledge.
“Here,” I say. “I’ll hold. You pour.” I move closer to help.
“You don’t want the Michelin-star-restaurant treatment? I was going to let you swirl it and sniff it before you send me back
to the bar for something less tragic,” Eddie says, looking up with a grin.
My insides curl in delight. It’s like seeing him again for the first time, him like this, so him, no walls, beside me.
Oh my God, I’ve missed him.
“And you think there’s anything better at the bar?” I ask.
He lets the wine glug into the cups. “Fair point.”
I take one and slide back into a safe zone along the curb.
Eddie raises his cup. “To illegal gambling and the wild ways of the Louise women.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Bless you, Eddie Rigsby, for bearing with us.”
I don’t realize until a moment later that we’re still staring right at each other, cups raised, untouched. A hum pulses between
us like its own life force, and I remember: I was always at my best when I was with him. Even so, it has to be ignored, so
I bite the inside of my cheek and look away.
Up until now, I’ve mostly avoided Eddie, keeping a wide berth and keeping my mouth shut. Sitting here beside him highlights
just how difficult it will be to interact with him in a new way.
But for Junie, I’ll figure it out.
The age-old bell on the front door of June’s clatters, then footsteps approach.
Eddie and I whirl around in unison, and there stands Junie, agony painted across her face.