Chapter 13
Stephanie nursed the second Painkiller. The rum and pineapple slid down easy after the sharp bite of nutmeg grated across the top.
The bar’s low lights softened every edge, turning the cracked leather booths into warm shadows and the mirrored backbar into a haze of reflected glasses and quiet laughter.
Casey sat so close her tan pants brushed the rung of Stephanie’s stool, the black halter top leaving a strip of sun-darkened skin visible above the waistband every time she shifted.
Stephanie’s own chinos suddenly felt ordinary next to that effortless confidence, and the green blouse clung damply to her back from the humidity, a small reminder that she had tried tonight.
Nico had been exactly what Casey described: handsome, friendly, moving through the courtyard like every table wanted a piece of him.
Stephanie had watched him from a distance, appreciative but detached.
No racing pulse. No stirring low in her stomach.
Gary had never pulled that from her either, not in twenty years, but she had always told herself marriage simply settled passion into something quieter and more reliable.
Now the indifference stung sharper. Something was missing in her wiring.
Casey leaned in, voice low enough to stay just between them under the low base of the music.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen, but Nico kind of assumed we were together.
Then you came back from the bathroom, and I didn’t want to blurt out that we weren’t actually on a date.
I’ll make sure to correct it next time I see him though. ”
The words brushed warm against Stephanie’s ear. Heat flashed across her chest. Her fingers tightened around the sweating glass.
The idea that Casey had let Nico believe they were on a date should have embarrassed her. Instead it bloomed low and alive, pushing warmth down her arms until even her fingertips felt it. She had no name for the feeling. It made her want to laugh and disappear at the same time.
“Because I’m older?” The question slipped out before she could catch it.
Casey’s mouth curved, not quite a smile. “Well, yes. And…” Her hand moved in a single easy sweep from Stephanie’s face down across the green blouse and chinos, casual as breathing. “I may have a type.”
Stephanie’s stomach dropped, a warm, sudden plunge that left her breathless for two full heartbeats.
The gesture had been so offhand, yet it landed somewhere behind her ribs and stayed there, pulsing. Her pulse beat too hard against her throat while the mirrored backbar blurred at the edges of her vision.
Nico had done nothing to her all evening. Handsome, kind, successful, everything a woman her age was supposed to want, and her body had answered with perfect, polite indifference.
One sweep of Casey’s hand sent heat spiraling through her like she had swallowed sparks. So many years of telling herself this was how desire worked...
Something was wrong with her. A cold, sharp certainty settled in her stomach, opening a space inside her chest she hadn’t known existed.
Casey took a sip, eyes drifting across the room before returning. “Oh. Um… there’s a woman across the room who’s interested in you.”
The words hit her with unexpected force. Stephanie’s breath caught. Her stomach tightened in a quick, involuntary clench. Another woman. Interested. In her.
The phrase should have felt absurd.
Instead it sent a strange adrenaline racing under her skin, making her fingers tremble against the cold glass. She lifted it fast, the sweet burn of rum sliding down before she could reconsider. She drank again, needing the alcohol to blunt whatever this feeling was becoming.
“She’s wearing all white. Corner table with the redhead. Black hair.”
Stephanie’s gaze flicked that direction before she could stop herself. Her heart gave a hard thud. “How do you know she’s not interested in you?”
Casey’s mouth curved into something dry. “She’s my ex.”
The floor seemed to tilt beneath her sandals. Stephanie’s chest squeezed tight, a visceral punch that left her short of breath. The rum buzzed louder in her ears. Casey’s ex.
The words dragged the memory of that first night flooding back, the warm evening light on the pool, the easy kiss she had told herself she had forgotten. Heat climbed her neck. She set the glass down too hard.
Adrenaline surged, strange and electric, pushing words out before her better sense could stop them.
“Maybe we should stick with people thinking we’re together.” Her voice came out raw. “That way no one will approach me.”
Casey’s blue eyes widened, shock flashing clear in the low light. The expression made Stephanie’s stomach drop again, sharper this time.
“Oh shit. Sorry.” Heat flooded her cheeks. “That would also keep women away from you. I wasn’t thinking.”
Casey studied her for a long second, the shock softening into something gentler. A small smile touched her lips. “No, it’s not that.”
Stephanie’s pulse refused to settle. The bar felt smaller, the air thicker, every sound and scent amplified.
She had come here to breathe, to figure out who she was without Gary, without the life that had slowly stopped fitting.
Instead she sat beside a woman whose easy confidence made her wonder if she had ever truly known herself at all.
The thought terrified her.
It also made her want to lean closer. She took another drink, letting the sweetness chase the fear down, wondering how much longer she could keep pretending this was only the strangeness of being somewhere new.
Casey kept talking, voice soft. “I’m just surprised. And relieved. Because I really thought I’d screwed up by not correcting Nico sooner. Not that I think you’re homophobic or anything, but… I’d hate for anyone to think I’m straight so…”
The word landed hard. Homophobic. Stephanie turned it over while her stomach twisted.
She wasn’t. She had marched in every pride parade Gary’s firm sponsored. She had supported every policy at work.
So why did her chest feel tight?
Why was sweat gathering at her hairline while the rum sat bitter at the back of her throat?
What was wrong with her?
The question opened something that had stayed closed for decades. Forty-six years of assuming everyone felt this way. Passion dulled by time and routine.
Now this warm confusion that refused to settle, that moved inside her like a second pulse, low and insistent.
Each breath came shallow, failing to reach the bottom of her lungs.
Life-altering. The word flashed behind her eyes, huge and terrifying, a shape that could not possibly fit inside the person she had spent forty-six years becoming.
She couldn’t be. The sheer impossibility of it felt like a physical law, something as fixed as gravity.
She had been married.
She had built an entire life on straight, sensible lines drawn with a ruler, a blueprint for contentment.
Panic crept at the edges of her vision, a greying static that made the room tilt. The warm, low lights of the bar swam, blurring into golden streaks against the dark wood.
Her gaze lifted to the mirrored backbar and caught their reflections side by side.
Casey’s sun-streaked hair fell loose over one shoulder, blue eyes bright with that effortless confidence.
Stephanie sat up straighter beside her, dark waves framing a face that suddenly looked foreign, hazel eyes too wide, mouth parted like she had forgotten how to close it.
They looked good together.
The weight of it landed like something heavy and physical low in her belly, a deep twist that stole the air straight from her lungs before she knew it was gone.
She had to look away from the mirror, tearing her gaze from that unsettling image of the two of them framed together, her own reflection a stranger in the glass.
Her pulse was a frantic drumming against the cage of her ribs, so loud in her own ears she was sure it must be visible, a frantic flutter at the base of her throat.
“I need the restroom,” she said, and the words came out breathless and rushed, a single unthinking jumble that felt too loud in the warm noise of the bar.
She slid off the stool before Casey could do more than glance up, her legs betraying her with a tremor as her feet touched the floor.
She moved between the tables without looking back, her sandals skimming over the worn wooden planks which felt oddly uneven, like the whole world had tilted slightly on its axis just for her.
In the small bathroom she braced both hands on the sink and stared at the woman in the mirror who no longer made sense.
Her reflection looked flushed, eyes too bright from the cocktails.
She ran cold water over her wrists until the chill bit deep, then cupped some and pressed it to the back of her neck. The shock helped. A little. Not enough.
She dried her hands on the rough paper towels, breathing in the faint generic soap, trying not to think about the way Casey’s halter had looked against her tanned skin or how Nico’s smile had left her completely cold.
The panic still simmered, a nervous flutter that made her want to run back to the cottage and hide beneath cool sheets.
She pushed open the bathroom door, the damp paper towel still clutched in one fist, and stepped back into the low hum of the bar.
The air felt thicker now, heavy with salt and yeast and the faint sweetness of spilled rum that clung to every surface.
Her pulse had not quite settled. It drummed against her ribs in an uneven rhythm that made the simple act of walking feel like something she had to negotiate with her own body.
The thin fabric of her blouse stuck lightly to the small of her back where the cold water had dripped from her neck.
Every step reminded her how unsteady she still was.
A woman in white moved directly into her path.
The motion was smooth, almost choreographed, as though she had been waiting for the exact moment Stephanie reappeared.
Dark hair swung forward with the turn of her shoulders, catching the low light from the Edison bulbs overhead and throwing soft shadows across the hollow of her throat.
She looked to be in her late forties, with lines at the corners of her eyes.
Those eyes were a startling, pale blue that locked onto Stephanie with open, unhurried appraisal.
The look slid over her shoulders, her waist, the slight tremble she could not quite hide in her fingers, and the appraisal did not feel casual.
It felt deliberate. Interested. The kind of interest that left no room for misinterpretation.
Stephanie’s stomach flipped, a sharp, confusing lurch that had nothing to do with the cocktails and everything to do with the way this stranger’s gaze seemed to peel back a layer she had not offered. Her skin prickled under the attention.
She wanted to step sideways, to disappear back into the crowd of mismatched stools and low conversation, but her feet had forgotten how to cooperate.
“Hey,” the woman said, voice low and smooth like she had already decided they were past introductions. “I was wondering if you’d like to join us.” She tipped her head toward a small table tucked against the cracked red leather of the far booth. A red-haired woman waited there, wineglass in hand.
She felt the heat rise again in her cheeks, the same flush the mirror had shown her moments ago.
Part of her registered how straightforward the offer was, how flattering it might have been on any other night, in any other version of her life.
But tonight the proposition only tangled with the image that had been lodged in her mind since she left the stool.
Casey’s sun-streaked hair. Those sea blue eyes.
How much she’d been enjoying spending time with Casey.
It all crashed against this new woman’s confident stare and left Stephanie’s throat tight.
She opened her mouth to refuse, but the words wouldn’t come.
Those blue eyes held hers, direct and unflinching, and for one suspended second she wondered what this woman saw.
What part of her had sparked that interest?
The thought sent another sharp jolt through her ribs.
It tangled with the rum’s slow burn in her stomach and the lingering image of Casey’s fingers tracing condensation down her glass earlier that evening, all of it combining into something raw and unnamed that made her pulse flutter unevenly against her collarbone.
Then Casey was there.
Her arm slid around Stephanie’s waist like it belonged there. The contact burned through the thin blouse, a tingling rush that spread up her sides and down her thighs in a warm wave. Her breath caught.
The solid pressure of Casey’s palm against her hip sent sparks across every nerve ending. Stephanie’s knees nearly gave out.
This was something vast and terrifying opening inside her, and the rum only made it louder, loosening every careful boundary she had tried to keep in place since the first night she had looked out that upstairs window.
“Sorry, Ash,” Casey said, voice smooth but edged with something protective. “We’re actually together.”
Ash raised an eyebrow but backed off with a knowing nod, the kind of look that left Stephanie wondering exactly how much had shown on her face.
In the next blur of motion Casey had taken her hand, fingers threading through hers with gentle certainty, and led her back to their spots at the bar.
The contact sent a fresh wave through her already unsteady system.
Stephanie’s palm tingled where their skin met, the sensation traveling up her arm and straight into her chest until her heart felt like it might crack open.
She kept her eyes on the polished wood of the bar, on the faint condensation ring left by someone’s glass, on anything that might steady her, even as the rum hummed louder and the truth of the evening pressed closer.
She gripped the fresh drink Casey had ordered for her. Tipsiness hummed in her blood now, loosening her tongue while sharpening every feeling.
She wanted to pull away.
She wanted to lean in.
The contradiction left her dizzy, the bar tilting softly around her while Casey’s thumb brushed once across her knuckles, accidental or not. Nothing made sense anymore. Not Nico. Not Gary. Not the life she had left behind in Charleston.
Only the steady warmth of Casey’s hand in hers felt true.
And that truth scared her more than anything had in years.