Chapter 1 #2
I picked up the bottle. Before I could tip it, the man beside me laid two fingers lightly over the neck and stopped it.
“Napkins first,” he said.
I stared at his hand on my whiskey. “You always put your hands on strangers’ liquor?”
“Only when the stranger is bleeding on a public surface.”
The bartender turned away to grab another glass, but I caught the edge of his grin.
“That means yes,” he said.
I should’ve yanked the bottle away on principle. Instead I pressed the napkins against my palm, because both of them were looking at me and apparently my pride had stopped driving this thing.
The bartender set a water glass down on my other side.
“I didn’t order that.”
“You also didn’t order a concussion check, but here we are.” He nodded toward my collarbone. “You’re holding yourself like that belt got you good.”
My fingers twitched against the glass.
The man beside me looked at the bruise starting under the edge of my shirt. “What happened?”
I kept my voice flat. “I had a bad ten minutes.”
The bartender’s eyes dropped to my shoulder, my cut hand, then the gravel dust on my boots. He straightened a little. “You hit something?”
“Almost.”
That answer was there between us.
The bartender stopped smiling. The room noise went on around us, but it felt pushed back a little.
The man beside me removed his hand from the bottle and folded both of his around his pint glass. “Did anyone get hurt?”
“No.” I swallowed. “Not because of good judgment.”
The bartender took that in without filling the space with anything fake. He looked once toward the front windows, once toward the line of regulars at the far end, then back to me.
“You need food before that whiskey gets any louder,” he said.
“No.”
“Liar.”
I cut my eyes at him. “You taking statements now?”
“Just figuring out how much trouble you’re planning to be.”
The man beside me finally took a bite of his burger, chewed, swallowed, and said, “If she starts throwing things, cutting her off won’t save you.”
I turned to him. “Look at you. Dry little joke under all that doctor face.”
He stilled for half a beat. The bartender looked from him to me and grinned.
“Doctor face,” the bartender repeated. “That’s sticking.”
The man beside me gave me a level look. “And what face do you think he has?”
I let my gaze flick to the bartender and back. “Bad judgment. Good forearms. Town liability.”
The bartender laughed, low and easy and way too pleased with himself.
“Town liability,” he said. “Fair.”
“You asked.”
“I didn’t. He did.” He jerked his chin toward the man beside me. “I’m just enjoying the violence.”
The man beside me took another drink of his beer. “That tracks.”
It should’ve felt ridiculous, trading lines with two strangers when Logan’s voice was still under my skin and his jacket was still in my back seat.
Instead, it woke up something I should’ve left alone.
They were different enough to make the contrast obvious and close enough to each other that I could feel the shape of it before either one said anything.
One watched details. One watched motion. Neither of them had looked away.
I pointed at the man beside me with my glass. “What’s your damage?”
The bartender made a quiet sound in his throat, the kind a person made when he was trying not to laugh again.
He looked straight at me. “You first.”
I smiled without any warmth in it. “Cheating boyfriend. Bad coping skills. Real low standards when I’m pissed off.”
The bartender winced. “Honest, though.”
The man beside me set his glass down. “You should stop at one.”
“See, that,” I said, “is exactly the kind of sentence that makes women lie to you.”
For the first time, his mouth gave in and curved. It changed his whole face in a way that felt unfair.
The bartender caught it too. “Look at that. She got Kevin to smile.”
I turned to the bartender. “And you?”
“Jackson.”
Jackson set a small dish of pretzels in front of me. Kevin slid his burger plate a little out of my reach before I could steal a fry without asking. Jackson saw it and snorted. Kevin didn’t even glance at him.
I looked between them. “You two rehearse this, or does the judgment just come naturally?”
“Only on weekends,” Jackson said.
“He means always,” Kevin said.
Jackson pointed at him with the rag. “See? History.”
A camaraderie and playfulness between them that probably came from years of friendship.
I took a drink. The Jameson went down smoother than the Jack had, which irritated me on principle. I wanted something that bit back.
Jackson nodded at the broken chain still looped around my wrist. “That from tonight?”
I glanced at it. “You doing intake now?”
“Nope. Just deciding whether to keep the glassware away from you.”
Kevin’s gaze dropped to the chain, then to my hand. “Let me see that.”
I blinked at him. “Wow. Drinks first used to mean something.”
“Your palm.”
His voice stayed even, but he held out his hand and waited. No smile. No coaxing. Just a plain expectation that I was going to do the sensible thing whether I liked it or not.
Jackson was already bent, grabbing something from under the bar. When he came back up, he had antiseptic wipes, fresh gauze, and tape.
I looked at the little pile, then at them. “You keep a whole clinic under there?”
Jackson set it down between us. “I keep a bar in a town full of people who think bleeding is a personality.”
Kevin didn’t take his eyes off me. “Hand.”
I should’ve laughed at him. I should’ve told him to mind his own business, poured another drink, and taken my chances on the road.
Instead, I put my hand in his.
His fingers closed around mine with careful pressure, warm and dry.
He turned my palm up under the bar light, and heat pulled low and stupid in my belly so fast it almost pissed me off.
Jackson moved closer without crowding, bracing one hand on the counter while Kevin peeled away the red-soaked napkin.
“That’s deeper than barely,” Kevin said.
“I’m getting judged by a man named Kevin in a blue button-up at a bar in Fairview. I’ve had more erotic surprises, but not many.”
Jackson choked on a laugh.
Kevin looked up at me once, brief and unreadable, before he cleaned the cut. “Hold still.”
There was that control again, quiet enough to pass for care and steady enough that I felt it everywhere, hot and unwelcome and not unwelcome at all.
Jackson glanced toward the far end of the bar, where two women looked over and bent their heads together. He set a basket in front of me, then shifted his body so he blocked half the room from the angle on my face.
“Eat something,” he said. “Or at least look busy while Fairview writes fan fiction.”
I let out a breath that nearly turned into a laugh. “That your official town slogan?”
“It should be.” His eyes dropped to my untouched glass. “How much did you have before you got here?”
“Enough to know this is a terrible fucking idea.”
Kevin wrapped gauze around my palm with efficient fingers. “You are not driving anywhere tonight.”
I looked at him. “You don’t know where I’m going.”
“I know enough.”
Jackson held out his hand across the bar.
I stared at it. “What.”
“Keys.”
Just like that. Not a question, an assumption. Kevin was finishing the bandage on my hand, Jackson’s hand still out. Both of them already sure.
The room felt closer all at once, with the country music, the neon buzz, the glass against wood, and people not looking at us with too much care.
I could feel the shape of the story taking hold around the edges.
The drunk stranger who walked in a total mess.
Jackson behind the bar with his hand out. Kevin with my palm turned over in his.
“I can call a cab,” I said, and heard the thinness in it.
“From Fairview?” Jackson asked.
Kevin smoothed the tape down and finally let my hand go. “Give him the keys, Lauren.”
Hearing my name in his mouth did something sharp and hot to my pulse.
Jackson was still there, patient now.
I could’ve lied. Could’ve made a scene. Could’ve grabbed the bottle and proved Logan right about every dumb thing he’d ever said about me.
Instead, I reached into my purse with my good hand, found my keys by feel, and slid them across the bar.
Jackson caught them before they made a sound. Kevin set the last of the gauze snug against my palm. At the far end of the room, somebody looked away too late.