Chapter 7
Justin noticed things. It was part of the job.
He noticed when Ed's whiskey sours started going down faster than usual, which meant something was bothering him at home.
He noticed when Dottie wore her turquoise blouse, which meant she was feeling confident and would probably flirt with his grandfather a little harder than usual.
He noticed when the fishermen switched from beer to bourbon, which meant someone had caught something worth celebrating.
And he noticed Merritt watching Ray.
She probably didn't realize she was doing it. She'd be wiping down a table or refilling water glasses, and her eyes would drift to that corner where Ray sat. Not staring. Just checking. Like she was keeping track of him without meaning to.
It had been almost two weeks since she arrived, and she'd settled in faster than anyone he'd hired before.
She learned quickly, worked hard, and the regulars loved her.
Ed and Margie asked for her by name now.
Even the fishermen, who weren't exactly known for their manners, treated her like one of their own.
But this thing with Ray worried him.
He'd seen it before. Not with employees, but with customers.
Well-meaning people who thought they could help.
Who saw Ray sitting alone night after night and decided he needed saving.
They'd try to strike up conversations. Ask him questions.
Invite him to join their table. And every time, Ray would shut down even further.
Pull deeper into himself. Sometimes he'd leave and not come back for days.
Justin had learned to head it off when he could. A quiet word to the well-meaning stranger. “He likes his space. Best to let him be.” Most people got the message.
But Merritt wasn't a stranger. She worked here. She saw Ray every night. And there was something in the way she looked at him that told Justin this wasn't casual curiosity. It was recognition.
He'd felt it too, that first day when she walked in for her interview.
The way she carried herself. Polite, capable, but with something underneath.
A weight she was trying not to show. She'd told him about her mother during the Zoom call, and he'd understood immediately.
She was a caregiver. Had been for years. That kind of thing shaped a person.
Empaths, his mother used to call them. People who felt other people's pain like it was their own.
She'd been one herself. It was part of what made her so good at her job, and part of what made her so tired at the end of every day.
“It's a gift and a curse,” she'd told him once.
“You can't turn it off. You just learn to manage it.”
Merritt had it. He could see it in the way she noticed things. The way she remembered that Margie liked extra lemon with her water, the way she softened her voice when someone seemed sad, even if she didn't know why.
And now she'd fixed that same attention on Ray.
Justin wiped down the bar and glanced at the clock. Almost nine. Ray had been in his corner for two hours, his Jameson untouched as usual. Merritt was finishing up her side work, folding napkins near the window. But every few minutes, her eyes drifted to that corner.
She wasn't going to let this go. He could feel it.
He thought about Paula.
Ray's sister came in maybe once a week, usually on Tuesday afternoons when the bar was quiet.
She'd order a glass of wine, ask how Ray was doing, and sit with that information for a while before she left.
She never pushed. Never asked Justin to intervene.
She just checked in, like she was monitoring a situation she couldn't control.
Justin didn't know the whole story. Nobody did, except maybe Paula.
He knew Ray was a veteran. Marines. He knew something had happened overseas, something bad enough to change him.
He knew Ray had been married once and had a daughter somewhere.
He knew the marriage ended and Ray had pulled away from everyone, including his own family.
But the details? The specifics of what Ray had seen, what he'd done, what haunted him? Those were locked away somewhere Justin couldn't reach. And he'd never tried. That wasn't his place.
What he did know was that Ray came to Shorebirds because it was safe. Because nobody bothered him here. Because Justin and Crocker had an unspoken agreement to let him be, and the regulars had learned to do the same.
If Merritt disrupted that, even with the best intentions, Ray might disappear. And Justin wasn't sure he'd come back.
He pulled out his phone and scrolled to Paula's number. He'd saved it years ago, back when Ray first started coming in. “Just in case,” she'd said. “If anything ever happens. If he ever seems worse than usual.”
He stared at the screen for a long moment.
What would he even say? “Hey, Paula. There's a new bartender here who keeps looking at your brother like she wants to save him. You might want to come talk some sense into her.”
That sounded ridiculous. And maybe it was premature. Merritt hadn't actually done anything yet. She'd respected the boundaries he'd set. She hadn't pushed, hadn't tried to force a conversation. She just watched.
But watching was how it started. He'd seen it before.
He put the phone away and decided to wait. Maybe Merritt would figure it out on her own. Maybe she'd see that Ray didn't want to be reached and she'd back off. Maybe he was worrying about nothing.
But if he saw her start to cross that line, he'd call Paula. Better to have the conversation sooner than later. Paula knew Ray better than anyone. She'd know how to explain it in a way that would make Merritt understand.
The front door opened and a group of tourists came in, loud and sunburned and looking for margaritas. Justin pushed off the bar and went to greet them.
The night went on. Orders came and went. The fishermen told their stories. Dottie said goodnight to Crocker, who almost smiled. Ed and Margie held hands across the table while they watched the last of the sunset.
Merritt worked efficiently, moving through the room with ease. She'd gotten good at this. Natural. Like she'd been doing it for years instead of weeks.
Around ten, Ray stood up. He left a few bills on the table, same as always, and walked toward the door. He didn't look at anyone. Didn't say goodbye.
But as he passed the bar, he paused. Just for a second. And he glanced at Merritt.
She was across the room, clearing a table, and didn't see it. But Justin did.
It was quick. Just a flicker of something in Ray's eyes. Awareness, maybe. Or curiosity. Then it was gone, and Ray was out the door, disappearing into the warm night air.
Justin stood very still, processing what he'd seen.
In two years, Ray had never looked at anyone. He came, he sat, he left. He was a ghost who happened to drink Jameson.
But tonight, for just a second, he'd noticed Merritt.
Justin didn't know what that meant. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.
He picked up his phone again and looked at Paula's number.
Not yet, he decided. But soon.
He put the phone away and went back to work.
The bar closed at eleven on weeknights.
By eleven-thirty, the last customers were gone and Merritt had headed upstairs. Justin finished wiping down the bar while Crocker counted out the register, his reading glasses perched on his nose.
They worked in easy silence, the way they always did. No need to fill the quiet with words. That was one of the things Justin appreciated most about his grandfather. The man knew when to talk and when to just be.
“Good night tonight,” Crocker said finally, closing the register. “Busy but not crazy.”
“Merritt's getting the hang of it.”
“She is.” Crocker took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “She's got good instincts. She reads people well.”
Justin thought about the way she watched Ray. “Maybe too well.”
Crocker looked at him. “You worried about something?”
“Not yet.” Justin hung up his towel. “Just keeping an eye on things.”
Crocker nodded slowly. He didn't push. That wasn't his way. If Justin wanted to say more, he would. If he didn't, that was fine too.
“You heading out?” Justin asked.
“In a minute. Thought I'd sit on the deck for a bit. Clear my head.”
Justin knew what that meant. Crocker would sit in his usual chair, the one facing the water, and he'd talk to June. Tell her about the day. The customers, the food, whatever was on his mind. He'd been doing it every day for twelve years, ever since she died.
“I'll lock up,” Justin said.
“Appreciate it.” Crocker put a hand on his shoulder as he passed. “You're doing good, son. Your mother would be proud.”
The words hit Justin harder than he expected. He swallowed and nodded. “Thanks, Grandpa.”
Crocker headed out to the deck, and Justin watched him go. Eighty years old and still going strong. Still running this place, still making pottery, still talking to his dead wife like she could hear him.
Maybe she could. Justin didn't know. But he envied the certainty Crocker seemed to have. The faith that love didn't end just because someone was gone.
He finished locking up and stepped outside. The night was warm and quiet, the moon hanging low over the water. He could see Crocker on the deck, silhouetted against the silver light, his lips moving in a conversation only he could hear.
Justin walked to his truck, parked at the far end of the lot. He'd bought it when he moved here, trading in the sleek sedan he'd driven in Boston. The sedan had been his father's idea. “You need to look the part,” Glen had said. “People judge you by what you drive.”
People judge you. That was Glen's whole philosophy. What people thought, what people saw, what people expected. It had governed every decision he'd ever made, including the decision to take Annette away from this island and build a life she never wanted.
Justin climbed into the truck and sat for a moment, not starting the engine.
He thought about his father. They hadn't spoken in six months.
Not since the funeral, really. They'd exchanged a few texts, awkward and formal, but nothing real.
Glen had made it clear he thought Justin was wasting his life down here.
“Running a bar,” he'd said, the disappointment sharp in his voice.
“After everything we gave you. After all the opportunities.”
Jared was still in Boston, still doing what Glen wanted. Working at the same firm, wearing the same suits, driving the same kind of car. The good son. The one who stayed on the path.
Justin had been that son once. For years, he'd done everything right. The right schools, the right job, the right apartment. He'd even dated the right women, women his father approved of. Women who fit the image.
And he'd been miserable.
It wasn't until his mother got sick that he started to question it.
Sitting by her bed in those final months, watching her slip away, he'd had too much time to think.
She'd never said it outright, but he knew she'd been unhappy.
She'd missed the island, missed the life she'd left behind.
She'd loved Glen, in her way, but she'd given up too much to be with him.
“Don't make the same mistake I did,” she'd whispered to him once, near the end. “Don't let someone else's idea of success become your prison.”
After she died, he couldn't stay. Couldn't pretend anymore. He'd quit his job, broken up with Kira, and driven south until he ran out of road. Crocker had been waiting for him, like he'd known Justin was coming.
Maybe he had.
Justin started the truck but didn't put it in gear. He sat there, thinking about Merritt.
He'd overheard her talking to her father on the phone a few days ago. She'd been on the deck during her break, laughing about something, her voice warm and easy. “I miss you too, Dad,” she'd said. “I'll send more pictures, I promise.”
There was no tension in it. No weight. Just love, simple and uncomplicated.
He'd felt something twist in his chest, listening to that. Envy, maybe. Or longing. He couldn't remember the last time he'd talked to his father like that. The last time they'd just been easy with each other, without the expectations and the disappointments getting in the way.
Maybe it was too late for that. Maybe too much had been said, too many choices made. Glen had never understood why Justin left, and Justin had never been able to explain it in a way that made sense to a man who measured success in dollars and titles.
But sitting here now, watching his grandfather talk to a woman who'd been dead for twelve years, Justin wondered if it had to be that way.
Crocker and June had loved each other fiercely, openly, until the very end.
His mother had never had that with Glen.
She'd had compromise and obligation and a nice house in a nice neighborhood.
Justin didn't want that. He wanted what Crocker had. What Merritt seemed to have with her father. Something real, even when it was hard.
He thought about calling Glen. Picking up the phone and saying…what? “Hey, Dad. I know you think I threw my life away, but I'm actually happy for the first time in years. I know that doesn't mean anything to you, but I wanted you to know.”
He could imagine Glen's response. The long silence. The carefully controlled voice. “I just want what's best for you, Justin.” Which really meant “I want you to be what I think is best.”
Justin put the truck in gear and pulled out of the lot.
Not tonight. He wasn't ready for that conversation. Maybe he never would be.
But as he drove to his small rental cottage a few blocks away, he made himself a promise. Whatever happened, however his life unfolded, he wouldn't become his father. He wouldn't let fear and expectation turn him into someone who couldn't say I love you without attaching conditions to it.
He thought about Merritt again. The way she laughed on the phone with her dad. The way she talked about him, the pride in her voice when she mentioned his books, his work, his love of birds.
She was lucky. She probably didn't even know how lucky.
Justin parked in front of his cottage and sat in the dark for a moment, listening to the night sounds. Frogs and crickets and the distant murmur of the Gulf.
Tomorrow, he'd go back to work. He'd pour drinks and tell stories and keep an eye on Merritt and Ray and whatever was brewing there.
He'd talk to his grandfather, avoid thinking about his father, and try to figure out who he was supposed to be.
He accepted the reality that these were the only things he had any control over, and that would have to do for now.