Chapter 2
Two
Poppy
“What’s it gonna take to get a refill around here, Pop?” Tommy shouts over the din of the crowd.
Saturday night at Sully’s Bar is always busy.
Probably because there’s not much else to do in Cedar Hollow on any given night, but most especially on at Saturday night.
Funeral black is all around me but the dark clothing does nothing to dim the spirit of the room.
Norm Harrison wasn’t well-liked.
Not by me.
Not by anyone in this town.
And now that he’s in the ground, we can all move on.
I, for one, will be happy to never have him glaring at me from the corner of the bar, silently—and sometimes not so silently—judging me for taking too long to serve him.
I will miss his monthly tab though.
No one drank as much as Norm Harrison.
“Yeah! I’ll take another too, Pop!” Roger calls.
I raise my hand to silently tell them I’ve heard the requests then fill a glass with soda water for Tommy, pull Roger’s lager, and mix up a couple of cocktails for the group of ladies in the corner.
“Did you hear that Storm pitched a fit when Rain told him he had to stay around for the reading of the will?” Roger says.
My ears prick up, tuning out the dozens of other conversations in the bar and dialing in to the only one that interests me.
And the only one I should be avoiding.
It’s just…I figured Storm would be long gone the moment his dad was in the ground.
Or maybe hoped.
“Yup,” Tommy says taking a deep draw on his soda. “I sure did hear that.”
“Surprised every window in this town didn’t rattle with all the thunder he bellowed out,” Roger mutters.
My stomach twists and I’m so distracted, I end up giving one of my best friends, Clementine Murphy, a double shot of whiskey.
She won’t mind.
But my bottom line will if I continue giving away free alcohol.
I add a few dashes of bitters and my patented (not really, but still yummy) maple simple syrup, then make short work of finishing her drink, dropping in ice and topping it with a thin slice of orange.
“That for me?” Clem asks.
I nod and set a coaster in front of her.
“Thanks,” she says then gets a familiar glint in her eye. “Are you still coming to the planning meeting next week?”
The Home Ice Classic is coming up, and the charity hockey game is the town’s biggest fundraiser of the year, providing the capital for many of the youth programs in Cedar Hollow.
It’s important, and as thus, takes a lot of volunteer manpower to put together.
It’s me—I’m the volunteer.
(Or one of many Clem has roped in, anyway).
“Of course I’ll be there.” I set her drink on the coaster.
“Good.” An approving nod before she picks it up and sips…then winces. “Oof. Trying to soften me up so I con you into less work?”
The game—and many of the programs that run out of the Pioneer Museum—are her babies. And Clem can be obsessively protective about them…much to the chagrin of my many voluntold—er, volunteer—duties.
“Maybe I am,” I hedge, not copping to the fact that instead of being worried about the hard work that comes with planning her events, I’m fixated on a certain broody hockey star who left an indelible mark on my life…and whose presence has chased me in my dreams for far too many years.
Of course she sees right through me.
Her hand finds mine, squeezes. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Brown eyes locking onto mine and I brace—Clem is nothing is but stubborn when she wants answers.
But she doesn’t appear to want them tonight.
She just squeezes my hand again, picks up her glass and murmurs, “I’m here if you need me.
” Then she goes to join Clover, Blossom, and Daisy at a table in the corner.
Laughter rings out from my besties, and my lips twitch, but I don’t get to focus on whatever debased conversation they’re likely having.
Because the door to the bar swings open and…
He walks in.
Everyone goes quiet—or maybe it’s just that everything inside me is silenced as our eyes connect across the room…
And just like that, seven years disappear.
I feel the breeze on my skin, the sticky drip of melting popsicles on my fingers, the sand between my toes. Wet kisses, eager hands, and pleasure. So much pleasure—
For such a short amount of time.
And after that…it was pain.
So much pain.
Storm’s shoulders go stiff, but he ignores the many pairs of eyes on him as he approaches the bar and sits on a stool in front of me. “Hey,” he murmurs.
My hands are mixing a drink for him before I process what I’m doing, even though I’ve never made him anything before, even though we were too young to drink anything except for cheap beer and shitty tequila that fell out of someone’s parents’ liquor cabinet before he left.
I add bourbon and gin to a copper mug. Lemon juice. A dash of bitters. Ice. Ginger beer. Stir gently.
And suddenly, I’ve made…a Storm Warning.
Created by my uncle Sully, the man who raised me, the man who owned this bar back when he was alive, who willed it to me in death, and who…
Apparently, had the powers of foresight.
I slide the drink over to Storm, know instantly that it’s a fitting namesake.
Bold and bitter and impossible to ignore.
“What’s this?” he asks, his trademark scowl in place.
A flicker of anger blooms in my belly, those seven years flashing through my brain on warp speed, and I open my mouth—
“Yo! Pop!”
I jerk, nearly upending a stack of glasses, then exhale slowly, tamping down my rage. “On it!” I call to Tommy without looking, instinctually knowing that his glass is empty, that Roger’s will be as well.
I make the rounds, feeling steadier by the normalcy of mixing drinks and schlepping empties and conversations taking place all around me.
By the time I make it back behind the bar, Storm’s glass is empty.
“Another?” I ask.
He nods.
I make him his drink, slide it in front of him, and then I pause, a hundred thoughts whirling through my mind. Anger and hurt aside, there are so many things I need to tell him…and so many more I don’t know how to say.
So, I just stand there like an idiot, clocking all the ways he’s changed.
Gone are the lean muscles he’d had as a teenager, the spotty mustache he’d been desperate to grow in, and there’s definitely no sign of the smile that used to grace his face on the regular.
In its place is…
Anger.
No. Rage.
I can feel it battering at me.
And it calls to my own.
Especially when I set a third drink in front of him and he’s finally unfrozen enough to smile at me.
Only it’s not his smile.
Not the smile that coaxed kisses from my lips, the smile that stole my heart, the smile that—
He reaches over, wraps his fingers around mine. “You look good, Pop.”
Flutters in my belly…anger in my heart.
And beneath it all? It’s fear so heavy it suffocates, so sharp it slices deep, leaves me to bleed out right here in Sully’s Bar.
Bile burning the back of my throat, I pull my fingers free, barely resist the urge to toss that third perfectly mixed Storm Warning right in his face.
“You okay?” he asks, his smile fading, the slight glaze in his eyes reminding me of that night—
No.
I slam the door on those thoughts and lift my chin.
“I’m not sure you get to ask me that after leaving like you did.”