Chapter 5
Declan
If you’d asked me a year ago where I would be right now, sitting in a dark, dusty old bar in a tiny little town on the coast of Maine wouldn’t even be in my top hundred guesses.
“We really gonna do this, man?” Sean asks, idly spinning a beer bottle between his hands on the bartop.
“Guess so.”
I can feel his eyes on me but I don’t look up. After a few moments of silence, he asks, “You’re sure about this? Settling down in a small town and all?”
I stare down at my glass of Coke, watching the condensation drip down the sides. The thought of settling down – anywhere, really, but especially in a town like this – makes me want to start sweating, too.
“I’m sure.” It doesn’t quite feel like a lie, but it’s not exactly the whole truth, either.
It’s nothing Sean hasn’t asked me already.
As much as he’s always dreamed of opening his own shop in his hometown, and as many times as he’s told me I need to come work for him when the time comes, I don’t think he ever really expected me to say yes.
He can’t wrap his head around the why of it all.
I know it’s eating at him, wondering why I agreed to coming here in the first place and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I don’t want to get into the details. The reasons I’m willing to settle down in a place like this. A town just a short drive from Portland, the place where I grew up and, until this past year, only returned to once or twice a year if I could help it.
“Wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t sure,” I add.
I meet Sean’s eye and watch him nod once, picking up his beer to chug half of it.
He sets it back down with a thunk. “I really don’t mean to be a pain in the ass.
I just want to make sure you’ve thought it all through.
If you need an out, this is it. You can walk right now and I won’t hold it against you. ”
“I don’t need an out.”
“Good,” Sean nods. “I’m still hoping I can convince you to be my partner.” Noticing the apprehension on my face, he raises his hands. “Not right now,” he assures me. “I’ll give you the few months we agreed on.”
The idea of Sean and I being partners started with a few offhanded comments here and there.
Once he realized his dream of opening up his own place was soon going to be a reality, though, he asked me seriously if I’d ever consider it.
He knows I’m skittish about finally settling down, so he never made me a formal offer or anything.
We talked about it a bit and agreed on a trial period of sorts.
He’s going to involve me in some of the decision making and give me some time to make sure I’m really going to stay.
If a few months in, I’m happy with how things are going and plan to make Port Myles my home long-term, we’ll talk a bit more seriously about adding me on as his partner and part owner of Immortal Ink.
To be honest, I don’t know what I’d say if he were to ask me right now.
Moving to a small town and working at a new shop is one thing.
Being part owner of said shop, and being tied to this place permanently, is another.
Sean knows it, too, which is why I’ve had to assure him I’m not going anywhere no less than forty-five times.
And I get it, I really do. I haven’t exactly been reliable over the years.
I never had a stable home life growing up and that’s continued into adulthood, but at least it’s by my own choice now.
When I stay in the same place for too long, things start to feel off.
I get agitated and antsy, like even after all these years, I know that the peace can’t last too long before disaster strikes.
So before it can happen, I do what I do best.
I run.
I ran from Portland all those years ago, nineteen years old and thinking I knew everything I needed to know about the world. I’ve been making my way through the big cities in the northeast ever since – Boston, New York, Philly and so on.
Sean doesn’t know that I didn’t just decide on a whim that I want to settle here, in a small town close to home.
He knows I grew up in Portland but doesn’t know why I left and stayed gone.
Definitely doesn’t know about the years of therapy it’s taken me to get to this point, ready to plant some roots and finally let them take hold for once.
And it’s no coincidence that I’m doing it here, in a town just thirty minutes from the apartment my mother rents in Portland.
I can hear my therapist’s voice in my head now. It’s okay to let people in, Deja would say. She would want me to tell Sean what’s going on. Hell, he’s the closest thing I have to a best friend.
Something stops me, though. Rome wasn’t built in a day, isn’t that how the saying goes? And apparently, an entire childhood worth of shit isn’t undone with six years of therapy.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I finally tell Sean.
I know he’s going to need me to prove it to him, but for now, my words will have to be enough.
“I know you have no reason to believe me, because I haven’t given you one.
But trust me on this – I’m sticking around.
Next town barbeque? Sign me up. The library needs some cookies for their bake sale?
I’ll bake some fucking cookies. Whatever you need me to do to show you I’m here to stay, I’ll do it. ”
Sean studies my face for a moment, then bursts out laughing. “I’d pay good money to see you in an apron baking cookies.”
“That a fetish of yours?” I joke with a wink.
“Not if your ugly mug is the one wearing it.”
“Fuck off,” I mutter, taking a sip of my Coke.
Sean grins, the tension gone now. “Alright,” he concedes. “This is the last you’ll hear of it from me. If you say you’re in, let’s do this.”
“Yeah?”
“Fuck yeah.” He holds his hand out and we shake on it.
Sean still needs to meet with George next week to hammer out the details, but it sounds like half of the first floor of the building is his, if he’s willing to lease instead of buy it.
The upstairs even has a couple apartments that will be livable with some fixing up, so that answers the question of where I’ll be living.
George said if I want one of them, he’ll rent it out to me.
Ready or not, here we go.
“Sounds like he’s going to lease the other half to the woman he showed it to before us,” Sean says offhandedly as he taps out a text on his phone. “Can’t remember what her name is.”
“Elsie,” I reply automatically.
He pauses his typing for a beat, studying my face. “Yeah, that was it. Seems like a sweet girl, the way George talks about her. Be nice to her, yeah?”
“Be nice to her?” I scoff, as if I haven’t thought of at least six different ways I’d like to defile her. “When will I even have to talk to her again?”
“We’re going to be working in the same building, plus we’ll have a shit load of renovations to do over the next couple months,” Sean reminds me. I had promised to help him with whatever he needs to get the shop up and running. “I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of her.”
I can’t help the way my jaw clenches and my hand tightens around my glass at that idea.
I only met her for a few minutes, but I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t given a second thought to that long dark braid she tossed over her shoulder when she was pissed off, or the sweet smile she tossed Sean’s way when they were introduced. The glower she reserved for me.
“I promise not to bite. Unless she asks for it,” I add with a wink.
Sean shakes his head but doesn’t respond, distracted by his phone again.
“Frankie doing okay?”
“She’s good.” The hard lines of his face smooth at the mention of his wife and a smile takes hold.
It’s second nature, like he can’t not smile when it comes to his wife.
I’ve never had the itch to find my person and settle down or whatever, but if anything could tempt me, it would be watching those two.
“I’m trying to talk her off the ledge,” he explains. “She seems to think our kitchen and living room need to be open concept all of a sudden, and she’s about to take a sledgehammer to our walls, by the sounds of it.”
I can picture Frankie, five-foot-nothing with almost as many tattoos as her husband, wielding a sledgehammer half her size. She’s small but mighty, and my money’s on her inflicting some real damage if she wants to.
“You want to head home and play interference?” I suggest.
“I probably should.” He slides his empty bottle across the bartop and tosses down a few bucks, even though he already tipped the bartender when he got his drink. “You headed back to the city tonight or staying in town?”
“I’m headed back.” Some people hate riding on a motorcycle at night, but I love it. Especially heading back to the city. There’s nothing like the Boston skyline lit up at night, welcoming me home.
“Drive safe, will ya?” Sean claps me on the back. “I won’t remind you again that you’re welcome to stay with Frankie and I anytime.”
“You just did,” I point out. “But thanks, man.”
The bar is a lot more crowded than when we arrived.
There’s a band setting up in the corner and most of the tables are full.
It’s a mix of twenty- and thirty-somethings, the usual bar crowd, but also some older folks.
I’m used to the bars in cities, where different bars draw different kinds of crowds.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the only one in town.
We say our goodbyes and I watch as Sean heads out, weaving through the crowd and saying hi to a few people as he goes.
He moved back here about two years ago, just before he and Frankie got married.
I thought he was crazy when he told me he was moving back to his hometown to work at a shop in Portland and wait for an opportunity to open up here, but his patience paid off.
Had he still been living in Boston, he probably wouldn’t have found George’s place.
It was listed in the local paper and I think that’s it.
He said he wanted to keep it offline so that the only potential buyers would be from here.
I’ll say this about the town – they’re tight, and they take care of their own. Makes me wonder how they’ll handle an outsider like me, showing up to work at a brand-new business. A tattoo and piercing studio, no less. You never know how something like that will go over in a small town.
“Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
I look over my shoulder to see two women hovering near the barstool Sean just vacated. I glance down the bar, noting two empty stools toward the end they could have chosen instead.
“Nope.” I slide off my stool and grab my leather jacket off the back. “You can have this one, too.”
I note the disappointment in the blonde’s eyes, the one who asked if the seat was taken.
Her lower lip pouts just slightly, and in any other place, I might be tempted to take her home and find out what that lip tastes like.
But if I’m going to adjust to small-town living, first on my list is not hooking up with someone I might run into at the grocery store or the post office, or wherever the fuck.
I head toward the door and don’t look back. If there’s one thing I’m sure about, it’s that I won’t be hooking up with anyone in Port Myles.