Twenty-One
It’s Christmas Eve. I’m flat on my back in the dark, staring at the ceiling and counting all the ways a life can go wrong.
Valentina is in Tuscany. It’s Christmas morning there by now. She was supposed to be here. Instead, she’s with some guy named Rafael because she stopped waiting for me to show up. I don’t blame her.
The press release is still on the kitchen counter. Unsigned. The courier came by twice. I let the buzzer die both times, unable to shake the image of a particular redhead.
Since leaving the arena last night, I’ve missed twenty-two calls, three team texts, and one voicemail from Coach. The group chat has moved on to sauna and cold plunge plans and chirping each other. Nobody’s tagging me anymore. Fair.
My phone buzzes against the nightstand.
I grab it without looking. Could be Holt, ready to rip me a new one. Could be Westfield, done pretending this is a request.
It’s Brock.
THOMPSON: Penalty Box. Midnight. She’ll let you in.
I sit up and text back.
Why?
THOMPSON: Not my business, bro. Just go.
I stare at the screen.
If this were a joke, he’d still be typing. If it were a warning, he’d lead with that. Someone asked him to send this, and there’s exactly one person who makes sense.
Ivy.
Last night she kissed me like she was trying to prove a point and then threw me out before either of us could figure out what it was. But now she wants me there, which means she’s decided something. Maybe she wants to finish the conversation. Maybe she just wants to finish me.
Either way, I’m already getting dressed.
I don’t rehearse what I’ll say. I’m going to tell her the truth.
Then she can decide if I walk out of there whole.
Snowbanks choke the curbs when I pull up on the street outside The Penalty Box. The plows have been through, but Whistler never really looks clean this time of year. Piles of dirty ice. Slush in the gutters.
The big neon sign over the door is off.
I kill the engine and get out. The cold slaps my face. My boots crunch over the salt on the sidewalk.
The front door is unlocked. I step inside, the heavy wood thudding shut behind me.
Distorted bass vibrates through the floorboards. The volume is dialed down, but the beat is a slow, arrogant thud, growing louder as I approach. The lyrics crystalize, Dave Bayley singing about setting the ground rules.
A single pot light burns over the back bar, leaving the rest of the room in shadow. Tables stacked. Chairs flipped. The place looks smaller without bodies in it.
Ivy stands behind the wood of her bar, facing away from me. The overhead light catches her from behind, throwing her into a silhouette: shoulders squared, hair twisted in that messy knot, the curve of her jaw sharp.
The mechanical wolf in the corner is dead where it sits, a fraying Santa hat slumped over one ear and yellow caution tape looped around its middle. Its plastic eyes are black. Unlit. Just two dead discs staring past the room.
Ivy doesn’t say a word. Just tips her chin toward the middle bar seat.
I lean against the stool without sitting.
She reaches for a bottle without even glancing at the shelf. Top row, whiskey I’ve had here once before, during that blizzard. Two fingers into a rocks glass. Clean pour. No ice. She slides it across the bar.
Ivy’s fingers pass an inch from mine on the wood. Close enough I feel the heat off her skin. Her knuckles are pink, scraped raw. There’s a tiny tremor when she pulls back.
She catches me looking.
Her hand vanishes under the bar. Comes back with a towel. She wipes the already clean patch she slid the glass over, like erasing proof of both of us from the grain.
I wrap my fingers around the glass.
Silence lays down between us.
I stare at the whiskey until my reflection blurs in it. “You could’ve just texted me yourself.”
Her towel moves in a perfect line, back and forth over a spot that already shines.
“Wasn’t sure you’d come if I did.”
“I would’ve.”
The towel stills. She finally looks at me. A few burgundy strands are loose near her neck. There’s a ridge on her lower lip where she’s been chewing.
She takes me in—face, jacket, the way I’m half on the stool like I’m not sure if I’m staying—then flicks her gaze to the glass in my hand.
“Then drink your whiskey and sit down.”
Dropping onto the stool, I lift the glass. The whiskey hits my tongue, a sweet burn racing down my throat. It anchors me.
I set the empty glass down. The ring it leaves matches the one she just wiped up.
Her eyes snag on the bruise high on my cheekbone. One heartbeat. Two. There’s a question there—and then she looks away, like she regrets giving a shit even for that long.
She pours another for herself this time. Single finger. Tips it back, throat working as the light catches the red in her hair.
I watch her move and hate myself for noticing how good she looks. How fluid she makes the simple motion of lifting a bottle.
My gaze drags off her. I turn the empty glass under my fingers. Feel the scrape of the rim.
“Ivy, I need to—”
Her hand comes up, palm out, not even looking at me. “Don’t bother.”
I huff out a breath. “Don’t bother what? Apologize? Try to explain—”
“I know what you’re going to say.” Her voice is flat.
She lines the bottle up with the others, label perfectly straight, then finally meets my eyes again.
“You were eighteen. You were scared of Westfield. You figured staying quiet was the only option. You regret it. You’d take it back if you could.”
She doesn’t blink.
“Am I close?”
The words I rehearsed in the truck, in my head, under the shower where no one could hear me—every one of them turns to dust.
“Yeah. Pretty much.”
“Good.” She reaches for her glass again. “So we can skip the part where you bleed on my bar and I pretend it makes me feel better.”
She drinks. Sets it down.
Her gaze dips to my mouth. Just a flick, a half?second flash like a glitch in otherwise smooth footage. Then it jerks away toward the bottles.
“And I’m definitely not interested in rehashing whatever the hell you thought you were doing last night.”
There it is.
The kiss. Our kiss.
“Whatever we were doing.” I hold her gaze. My ribs ache like she shoved me again. Or maybe that’s just my shame finding somewhere to sit. I blow out a breath through my nose. Lower. Rough.
Ivy crosses her arms over her chest, lips pursed.
“Then why the hell did you call me here, Ivy?”
She doesn’t argue. Instead, she reaches under the bar. Her fingers come up with a folded sheet of paper, the edges soft from handling.
“Because whenever shit burns down, you’re in the middle of it,” she says. “I thought I’d try aiming you at the actual blaze for once.”
She slides it across the bar. To do that, she has to lean in. Elbows on the wood, shoulders dipping into the light. She smells like bar soap and pine cleaner. Darker shadows live under her eyes than I remember. She hasn’t been sleeping either.
The paper comes to rest beneath my hand. Her fingers pull back before we touch.
I unfold it. Municipal letterhead. Black block font. I skim words I’ve never had to care about in my life. Electrical panel replacement, backflow preventer installation, certification. Line items that all sound like expensive bullshit.
Bottom right. A subtotal is scrawled in Sharpie: $75,428.56. Fourteen days to comply underlined in red ink.
My gut tightens. I read it again.
Issue date: December 22nd.
“Two weeks over the holidays?” I lower the paper.
Ivy’s mouth twists. “Gold star for reading comprehension.” She grabs the bottle and tops up both our glasses. “Contractors are booked. Inspectors are on vacation. Even if I had the cash tomorrow, I can’t conjure permits or parts out of thin air.”
“Have you tried anyone outside of Whistler?”
“Five contractors. Two referred me to the same company—apparently the only one certified for this kind of electrical work in the corridor right now.” She sets the glass down without a sound. “Convenient timing.”
It is. Suspiciously, specifically convenient. The kind that gets engineered.
“Ivy.” I set the paper down. “What do you know about the Sin Bin Lounge?”
She doesn’t move. Studies me.
“I know Braxton Hicks is their Media Director,” she says carefully.
That name snags on something. Hicks. I turn it over in my mind, drawing a blank.
The envelope in my jacket pocket feels heavier than it did when I grabbed it off my kitchen counter.
I’ve been carrying it since I killed the engine of my truck, the paper pressing against my ribs like a physical weight.
Showing it to her crosses a line I can’t walk back.
It torches the captaincy. It breaks Westfield’s direct orders to stay the hell away from her.
I don’t answer. Instead, I count the bottles behind her head. Fourteen.
“Hicks is just the mouthpiece.” I reach into my jacket and pull out the envelope. “Martin Westfield is the primary financial backer. The Sin Bin is his.”
Her focus sharpens. “You’re sure.”
“Yes.” I set the envelope on the bar, Westfield’s letterhead prominent.
Sliding the document out, I rotate it so she can read.
“Courier delivered this press release to my place yesterday. A quote prepared for me to sign with my name underneath. All bullshit.” I glance between the notice and the press release, then back at her.
“I haven’t signed it. I’m not going to.”
Silence.
Her eyes track across my features. “He wants you as the face of the place that buries me.”
“Yes.”
“And you said no.”
“I ignored the courier twice. Same difference.”
“If I lose this bar, I lose my dad’s legacy. I lose everything,” she says. Determination settles in her hazel eyes. “That’s why you’re here. Because you asked what you could do, and this—” she taps the notice “—is what needs doing.”
Without thinking, I reach across the bar. Toward her knuckles. Toward the paper. Toward anything closer to her.
I stop halfway.
Ivy’s gaze drops to my outstretched hand, then climbs back up to my face.
I curl my fingers into a fist. Feel nails dig into my callused palm.
Throw money at the problem. Fix it fast. Make the mess disappear.