1. Lynne （Now） #2
A part of Lynne wished that this year he’d just gone home with the pirate.
Or any other character for that matter. She needed some act of God to stop this train as it barreled down the tracks toward closing.
It had been a rough enough year already, starting with her dad’s death, and they were just two months from closing it out.
But as Leo lingered at her bar and the crowd thinned down to just him and the staff around 2 a.m., she wondered if she’d have to add him to her growing list of all-tricks-no-treats.
“The blonde not to your liking?” she snarked.
“Hmm?”
There was a tiny delay in his reaction, and when he looked up at her, his dark eyes were a bit glassy but not unfocused.
She sighed. “Never mind. Just came to tell you it’s time. We’re closing.”
“Great. Then I can finally go home and get out of this thing.” He pulled at the fabric of his disco suit. “She’ll be back in twenty, Ruby!” he called across the bar.
“You two better take longer than that,” Ruby teased him.
Lynne shook her head. “Leo, you’re not impaired. You’re just tipsy. And your apartment is only two blocks away. I need to stay and close. So don’t forget your cherries.” She pushed them into one of his hands.
He frowned. “You mean I don’t get my birthday walk this year?”
Jesus. Her patience was wearing thin. “You got birthday drinks. You got a birthday jar of cherries. There is no such thing as a birthday walk home, Leo.”
Beside her, Ruby laughed to herself. “Aww, just help the guy home, boss. It’s not that far. I can close.” She winked at Leo.
“Have I told you how much I appreciate you, Ruby?” He winked back at her. “If Autumn Ridge ever builds a statue, it should be dedicated to you.”
Lynne felt her cheeks growing hot. “Chrissake. Two against one. I should dock your pay for that, Ruby.”
“Not possible in the state of Massachusetts, boss,” she quipped back. “But I’ll settle for a thank you if all goes well.”
Leo’s dimples reappeared just above his stubble.
“Fifteen minutes,” Lynne repeated, almost like a warning. “And the clock starts now, while I grab my coat.”
She shimmied into her black faux-leather moto jacket and out into the cold night air, Leo following close behind her in his disco suit.
The moon above them was full and almost orange instead of yellow.
Her breath fogged in front of her face as they wordlessly marched down the back alley together, past trash bins and doors with signs reading “Employees only.”
Finally, they were standing in front of the back entrance to Leo’s apartment complex. Lynne still refused to speak, crossing her arms as if she was waiting for a kid to go to their room for a time-out.
“You really hate tonight, don’t you?” he asked.
“You have no idea.”
“It’s because of my disco suit, isn’t it?” he joked.
She tried not to laugh. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“I kind of like it,” he said. “But not just because it’s my birthday. I like any night that ends with just me and you.” He leaned against the door, extending his feet toward hers until they almost touched.
Her pulse jumped before she could stop it. And that was the problem. Her body hadn’t gotten the memo that she’d sworn him off.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his ridiculous jumpsuit. His bare, tan skin was prickled from the cold.
“Tell me something you remember about my dad?” Leo asked.
And there it was. The match-strike. The annual threshold question that could either guide them both to his bedroom in a haze of nostalgia or have them keeping their distance for a whole year.
Technically, they’d only ended up in bed the first year he’d asked.
But lately this one simple, sentimental trip down memory lane felt less like romance and more like relighting something she’d sworn she couldn’t survive twice.
“Goddammit, Leo.” Lynne felt her hands ball into fists.
“You always ask that. Every year on your birthday, like I owe it to you. And this time I can’t even talk about my own dad, let alone yours.
” Her voice rose, too sharp even for her own ears, but it was that or let the grief crack her wide open.
“So why don’t you tell me something you remember about my dad instead. Huh?”
She was surprised that, instead of apologizing or snapping back at her, Leo just shifted closer, his voice lower now.
“Whenever you were having a bad day, he’d pretend he found a peppermint behind your ear,” he continued.
“And there was his coat. He’d always put it over your shoulders when you got cold in the bar.
It was way too big. I remember you swimming in it. But I think that’s why you liked—”
“Stop. Stop!” Lynne found herself saying.
“I could go on forever,” he murmured. “Your dad was a great man, Lynne.”
“Well, just stop it. Okay? I—I changed my mind.” She pulled her coat tighter, as if it was a suit of armor.
Her mind flashed back to the bar and her apartment above it.
Her dad’s old coat still hung on the coat rack beside the front door.
It still smelled like him, all smoke and whiskey.
Every afternoon before she walked down to the bar, she’d touch it.
Tears started welling in her eyes. “Look, Leo. You try to recreate that night we had together every Halloween. Why?”
“Because that was the best night of my life,” he blurted out. “That night with you.”
She groaned and rolled her eyes.
“I’m not joking,” he insisted. “Not about that. I wish you’d take me seriously.”
“Maybe you are drunk. Maybe you won’t remember any of this tomorrow.” Lynne crossed her arms over her chest.
“Do you not want me to?” He swallowed hard.
The look on his face ripped her apart. “I know you’re mad, and I probably shouldn’t say this, but I just miss who we were, Lynne.
We were friends. We hung out after book club.
We met up for breakfast when I got off my shift.
I don’t know what I did to mess things up, let alone how to get it back.
It’s like everything changed after…” He pulled a frustrated hand through his hair. “After your dad died.”
Her features hardened. “Of course they did,” she snapped. “Haven’t you noticed? Everything changed, Leo.”
For a split second she felt cracked open, fragile as an egg, her exterior so easy for him to pierce. Only this time, instead of desire slipping through the crack like it had years ago, it was grief that threatened to pour out. Hot. Unwelcome. Impossible to contain.
She stormed off, frustrated and shaking, then remembered something her therapist had told her once. Patterns keep you safe until they don’t.
Well, this pattern—with Leo, with Halloween—was now several fire extinguishers deep.