Twenty-Five
The bar sits in silence.
Since its launch, The Penalty Box has never once closed its doors on New Year’s Eve. Dad always used to say that the first drink of the year should be with people you trust. He'd give free nachos to anyone who showed up before nine, and he called it “a tax break for good judgment.”
Chairs perch upside down on tables, black rubber feet aimed at the ceiling. The fairy lights Dad strung along the beams hang limp and dark. I cross my arms over my chest, shivering. The air in here feels colder than it should.
“Happy fucking New Year, Dad,” I say, my voice echoing off the walls and coming back small.
My fingers pinch the laminated CLOSED sign hard enough to leave a dent in the plastic.
We keep it shoved behind the register with the old coupon book and the spare batteries for the TV remote.
It only comes out when someone crashed their car into the hydro pole and half the village goes dark, or when the pipes burst and the place smells like a wet dog for a week.
And one other time. The week Dad died. I closed early and put this sign up. People knocked until their knuckles turned pink. I didn’t open. Couldn’t.
I set the door notice on the bar top and stare at the grain in the wood. Dad’s hands run through it in my head—sanding, staining, cussing when a board doesn’t sit right. Me, sitting and spinning on the bar stool, giggling whenever he’d use a bad word.
My phone buzzes on the bar top, the sound jerking me from my thoughts.
Delilah: You sure you don’t want me to come back and run it solo tonight?
My stomach does a hollow, sour flip. Exhaling through my nose, I type: I’m sure.
Three dots appear. Vanish. Reappear like she’s pacing with her phone.
Delilah: You sure about the OTHER thing?
I swallow. No, not even close.
Definitely.
I lock the phone before I can backspace my own spine.
The silence in the bar instantly presses against my eardrums, suffocating and heavy. I can’t do quiet right now. I walk over to the jukebox and punch in the code I know by heart. A second later, the heavy, defiant guitar riff of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Breaking All the Rules” rips through the empty room.
The bass vibrates up through the floorboards into the soles of my boots. Perfect. Let Ozzy wail about crossing lines; that’s exactly what tonight is for.
Fortified by the song, I pick up the CLOSED decal again and walk to the front door, my boots thudding in time with the drums. My pulse beats in my throat, warbling the lyrics.
The glass reflects me back—black jeans, a “The Penalty Box”-branded crewneck, wine-colored hair scraped up in a messy bun, eyes wild and bare.
Work Ivy, wondering if this is the stupidest idea she’s ever had.
I peel the adhesive backing off the laminate. The strip curls away with a slow, stubborn pull. My thumbs press the sign to the center of the glass.
CLOSED.
It looks wrong. Like a gash in the middle of the door, and in the middle of my chest.
Sucking in a breath, I flip the bolt, and then I turn and walk behind the bar, pausing by the control panel. My gaze flicks to the electric blue glow through the window.
My fingers hover.
If I kill it, it’s real.
I press the switch.
The neon dies. The blue buzzing tube goes black, the room dropping into a different kind of dark. For a second, my balance shifts, like the floor tilts under me. Gripping the bar top, I feel the grooves in the varnish. My pulse bangs behind my teeth, warring with the mist coating my eyes.
I stand like that, waiting until my breathing comes out steady. Then I head for the office and grab my coat from the hook. I swallow another lump and force air in and out of my nostrils.
On my way out, I glance at the mechanical wolf.
Yellow caution tape still loops around its middle, trapping its crooked knit scarf against its dead flank.
I remember the sharp burst of triumph I’d felt the day they wheeled it in—how certain I was that this ridiculous monstrosity would satisfy the Wolves’ mandate for an ‘interactive fan engagement experience’ and secure our future.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I mutter.
I feel stupid talking to a broken pile of metal and gears, but the nape of my neck still prickles, a cool numbness squeezing the breath from my lungs.
I pull the door shut behind me and lock it. The key turns with a heavy scrape.
I stand there a beat, staring at my bar’s dark windows.
Then I get in my car and drive.
Outside, Whistler Village glows. Strings of lights. Snowbanks in neat piles. Tourists in puffy jackets hurry past with champagne in paper bags like they’re on a mission.
In the rearview mirror, The Penalty Box shrinks until it disappears behind a bend and the trees swallow it whole. Five minutes down the Sea-to-Sky Highway and Creekside slides into view in white and yellow streetlight.
My hands squeeze the wheel.
I don’t let go.
The garment bag hangs on my bedroom door.
Delilah dropped it off at The Penalty Box yesterday with her mouth set in that line she gets when she’s decided something and the rest of us can either cooperate or get dragged. She didn’t give me time to argue. Just left it in the office before dashing off to Squamish for her heels dance class.
I unzip the bag, its teeth rasping loudly. A sticky note clings to the inner flap, her handwriting big and bubbly: If you’re walking into hell, don’t go in jeans ;) xo, D
I snort once. “Yeah, thanks, Boss.”
I slide the dress free.
Black silk. Fluid. It spills through my fingers like water, but it has weight.
The back drops into a severe V. I run my thumb along the hem, the fabric gliding over my skin.
I don’t just see the dress. I see Westfield’s face when I walk through his doors.
I see Braxton’s eyes widening when he realizes I didn’t crawl into a hole and die like he expected.
I step out of my clothes and pull the silk on. It settles against me, clinging where it should. It skims my hips, hugs my waist, the slit climbing high on the left thigh.
Moving to the bathroom, I scrape my hair back into a high ponytail and secure it tight enough to hurt. No loose strands to hide behind.
Then the eyes. I sweep gold shadow into the corners and draw a line of black ink across my lids, flicking it up at the ends like a blade. Two coats of mascara turn my lashes into jagged spikes.
By the time I’m done, my face is all angles and edges.
I lean closer to the mirror, elbows braced on the porcelain sink. My hands stay steady. Hockey hands. Bar hands.
Lipstick last. Dark red. One swipe. Blot. The color stains deep; I cap it and set it down.
My reflection stares back, familiar and not.
I turn sideways in the mirror. Lift my chin.
The freckles across my nose still show through.
My eyes are still gold-flecked hazel. But everything around them has sharpened.
I don’t look like someone you bring home to meet your mom.
I look like someone you call when you’re ready to torch your own life and want company.
Good.
My chest tightens at the thought of Gabriel seeing me like this.
My body remembers him. Remembers his hands on my waist in the dark. Remembers the wall at the Box, his mouth, the way I shoved him off like I’m trying to save myself from a past that won’t stay buried.
My phone buzzes from my bedroom. I stride towards the dresser and glance at the text.
Gabriel: Outside.
My heart kicks. I take one last look at my reflection before snagging my clutch and tossing my phone, keys, and lipstick within its folds. Shrugging into my long black coat, I step into my rarely used black pumps, my palms going damp. I wipe them on the coat.
“It’s just adrenaline,” I mutter to myself as I step into the hallway and lock my door.
At the bottom, I pause with my hand on the exit door.
One breath. Two.
I push the door open and step out. Cold air waits on the other side like a slap.
A black SUV idles at the curb, windows tinted, exhaust puffing into the cold like it’s alive. The back door hangs open already.
Gabriel stands beside it in a charcoal suit. White shirt open at the collar. Burgundy tie knotted but tugged loose. The bruise on his cheekbone fades to a dull yellow shadow. It makes him look tired. Human. Still dangerous. That part doesn’t leave.
His eyes catch on me. For a second, neither of us moves.
He looks at my legs first—sheer nylon in December, because I’m stubborn and this is a war, and you don’t go to war in jeans or thermals.
His lips quirk, barely. “You look—”
“Don’t,” I cut him off.
His gaze slides up to my face. Something flashes across it, fast and hot, and then he locks it down.
“I was going to say ‘like you’re about to ruin someone’s life.’”
“Good. That’s the plan.”
He shifts aside and holds the door open like a chauffeur.
I hesitate for a heartbeat. My brain supplies a quick highlight reel of worst-case scenarios: cameras, Westfield smiling while my bar dies, Gabriel turning on me at the first sign of conflict. Then I blink away the visuals and climb in.
The seat is cold against my thighs where the slit rides up. The car smells faintly of leather conditioner. Gabriel folds in after me and pulls the door shut.
The outside world drops away, cocooning us in the dark with the soft idle of the engine and the tinted partition.
I feel the warmth radiating off him before he’s even settled.
His cologne fills the back seat, carrying notes of cedar and cardamom, wrapping me in a false sense of comfort. I cross one leg over the other.
The driver pulls out smoothly. The Sea-to-Sky Highway opens ahead, the road glittering under the headlights. Snowbanks are pushed high on both sides, trees pressing dark and heavy against the sky. It’s that specific January-Eve cold where everything looks brittle, like the air itself might crack.
“Seatbelt,” he murmurs.
I clip it in without looking at him. “You sound like my dad.”
“I sound like a guy who doesn’t want you going through the windshield.”
“Romantic.”