Chapter 16
Ethan
I got into the truck and drove without thinking about where I was going. The roads were familiar in a way that made my chest ache. My hands remembering the turns before my mind did. Houses I’d passed a thousand times growing up. Fields that hadn’t changed much at all.
The quiet inside the cab felt heavy.
I told myself I was fine. That this was normal. That anyone would feel overwhelmed after the last few days. That lasted a few minutes.
Then I saw the pub.
It sat just off the road, squat and unassuming, wood siding dark with age. Warm light spilled through the windows, it made the inside look warm and inviting.
I slowed without meaning to.
I hadn’t planned on drinking. I knew better than that. I knew exactly who I became when alcohol stopped being casual and started being necessary. I’d found the bottom of that road once, and I wasn’t interested in going back.
But today felt different, I told myself.
Today wasn’t about escape. It was about taking the edge off. One beer. Just enough to quiet the noise.
I turned into the gravel lot before I could talk myself out of it.
The pub was busier than I expected for a Wednesday. Groups at tables, a few people at the bar, conversation overlapping in that comfortable way that meant no one was paying too much attention to anyone else.
The place smelled like old wood, beer, and fried food. The walls were dark, the lighting low but warm. It felt lived-in. Familiar. Like it had been there forever and planned to stay that way.
My shoulders loosened a fraction.
I slid onto a stool at the bar and kept my gaze down. I didn’t want small talk. I didn’t want to be recognized. I just wanted to forget.
The bartender came over after finishing with a group of guys down the counter. He looked about my age, maybe a little older. Long dark brown hair pulled back, a thick beard, solid build. He wiped his hands on a towel as he stopped in front of me.
“What’ll it be?” he asked.
“I’ll take whatever’s on tap,” I said.
He nodded and turned away without comment, which I appreciated.
I listened to the room while I waited. The clink of glasses. A burst of laughter. Someone arguing half-heartedly about sports. It grounded me in a way that nothing could.
The bartender came back and set the beer in front of me. As he did, he paused.
Stared at me.
Then his mouth curved into a slow grin.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “Is it Lethal?”
I took a long swallow at the same time.
And promptly choked.
I coughed hard, nearly knocking the glass over as I sucked in air. “What the hell.” I croaked, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
No one had called me that in more than twenty years. I looked up properly this time.
The grin widened.
“Mikhail?” I said, disbelief cutting through the haze in my head.
He stepped back from the bar, arms opening wide. “In the flesh.”
I stood before I fully realized I was moving. He came around the counter in two long strides and wrapped me in a hug so forceful my feet nearly left the ground.
“Jesus,” I laughed, half-winded. “Put me down.”
He did, still grinning like he’d just found something he thought was gone for good.
Mikhail.
My chest tightened unexpectedly. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been eleven years old, all elbows and knees, shorter than everyone else. He’d vanished halfway through the school year without warning. One day he was there, the next his house was empty.
I’d been wrecked.
Now he towered over me, easily the tallest man in the bar. I’d have put him well over six-three. Broad shoulders. Different face. Same eyes.
“You look like hell,” he said cheerfully.
“You look like you swallowed a basketball player,” not my best comeback.
He laughed loud enough to turn a few heads.
A man at a nearby table stood up then, beer in hand, and walked over. I recognized him instantly.
Ben.
We’d gone to school together. Spent enough time in the same orbit to know each other well, even if we’d never been close.
He stopped short when he saw me. “Ethan?”
“Hey,” I said.
“Well, damn,” Ben said. “Didn’t expect to see you.”
Mikhail clapped a hand on each of our shoulders. “Perfect timing. Drinks are on the house.”
He slid two fresh beers toward us once we were seated together.
“To old ghosts,” he said.
“Lethal?” Ben asked, frowning. “What’s that about?”
Mikhail’s face lit up with unmistakable delight.
“Oh, you don’t know?” he said.
I groaned. “Please don’t.”
But he was already laughing, eyes bright. “When we were little, we often had sleepovers,” he said. “Sometimes we would share a bed. And Ethan here would let these farts rip, long ones. Lethal ones. I swear I haven’t smelled anything like it since.”
“Stop,” I muttered.
“They were biological weapons,” Mikhail continued, nearly crying with laughter.
Ben chuckled drunkenly. I shook my head.
“You’re both idiots,” I said.
The tension in my chest eased despite myself. And for the first time in days, I felt something close to normal.