Chapter 2 #2
Instead I stayed where I was, an empty beer in front of me, Lauren at the corner table with the whiskey bottle, looking like trouble I could identify in exact, clinical detail and still not avoid.
“You live alone?”
I glanced over. “Yeah.”
“That’s all I get?” She tipped her head. “Just yeah?”
A smile tugged at my mouth before I could stop it. “Big place. Ten minutes out.”
“That sounds peaceful,” she said, then narrowed one eye. “Or like the opening scene of a murder documentary.”
“Depends who’s asking.”
“I am.”
“It gets quiet,” I said.
She held my gaze a beat longer than she needed to, then looked down at the bottle in her hand. Jackson had been sliding her water in between her pours for the better part of an hour. She’d been drinking them. She wasn’t slurring. She wasn’t steady either.
A little slower now. A little looser through the shoulders. Still sharp enough to get herself hurt if I let the moment slide too far.
She poured a small splash into a plastic cup and gestured with the bottle. “You’re from here, right? Fairview born and bred?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She shot me a look. “Call me ma’am again and I’m going to assume you think I’m forty.”
“I don’t.”
“So what do you think?”
That felt like a trap. I kept my voice even. “I think you’ve had enough to start asking loaded questions.”
She laughed under her breath. “That wasn’t a no.”
A cue cracked against a ball behind her. Someone let out a whoop that died fast. I kept my attention on her.
“What brought you here?” I asked.
“Here like Fairview, or here like sad-girl booth with a bottle and a life crisis?”
“The second one.”
“Fair.” She took a smaller drink this time. “My ex turned everything into a fire drill. Lies, drama, cheating, tears, big apologies, same loop. I got tired of living somewhere that always felt like it was already burning.”
It wasn’t dressed up. Just flat and tired and real.
“So you came looking for quiet.”
“Not dead quiet.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to die in a floral armchair at forty-two. I just want less daily bullshit.”
“Reasonable.”
“Thank you. Nice to know one man in this town won’t tell me to manifest better energy.” She made a face. “I’d rather bite a battery.”
That pulled a laugh out of me.
She caught it. Of course she did.
“There it is,” she said, softer. “You do smile.”
“Sometimes.”
“Selective?”
“Very.”
She leaned on her elbow and studied me like she’d decided I was a locked thing worth picking at. “And what does a selective-smile man do around here?”
“I’m a doctor.”
Her brows lifted. “That’s annoying.”
“Being a doctor?”
“Being attractive and useful at the same time.”
I didn’t answer.
“What about you?” I asked.
“I’m a graphic designer. Remote now, thank God. I can work anywhere there’s Wi-Fi and enough caffeine to fake stability.”
“You don’t sound like you hate it.”
“I hate clients who call themselves disruptors and then panic over fonts.” She pointed at me with the cup. “Anybody who says synergy should be taxed.”
“I don’t disagree.”
“God, don’t flirt with me by being reasonable.”
My pulse kicked once, hard.
Jackson passed by and set another water down without talking. She gave him a lazy two-finger salute, then looked back at me.
“You tell me, doctor.”
She leaned in and set her hand on my thigh.
Not high, but not accidental.
Everything in me went precise.
I closed my hand around her wrist before she could move any farther. Her skin was warm. Fine-boned. My voice came out steadier than the rest of me felt.
“Lauren.”
I hadn’t said her name all night. The second I did, her eyes lifted.
“You’re drunk.”
She looked offended on instinct. “I’m charming.”
“You’re also drunk.”
“Those things can coexist.”
“Not for this.”
Her gaze dropped to where my hand circled her wrist. Neither of us moved for a beat. I was aware of every point of contact, every inch I wasn’t letting myself take.
Then she pulled back slowly.
“Wow,” she said. “You always this noble, or is this a special occasion?”
“It’s not a performance.”
“That’s worse.”
She poured herself another drink.
I watched the slight miss in the pour. The extra second it took her to set the bottle down square. The way she kept her eyes on the table instead of me.
Part of me wanted to stay exactly where I was. Another part wanted to stand up and put three feet of polished wood between us. Neither option felt especially clean.
“Do you have someone taking you home?” I asked.
“I’m fine, tough guy.”
She reached for the bottle again, then paused with her eyes closed for a second.
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Okay. It’s catching up.”
I checked the clock. A few minutes to midnight.
At the pool table, Derek started stacking cues. Tommy peeled away from him with the kind of lazy swagger that usually meant somebody was about to regret it. Derek said something low. Tommy ignored him and headed straight for Lauren.
My shoulders tightened before he got there.
He planted a hand on the table and leaned into her space. “Hey there. You look lonely.”
Lauren didn’t bother looking up. “Then look again.”
A couple of heads turned.
Jackson straightened behind the bar. “Tommy, leave her alone.”
Tommy grinned without taking his eyes off her. “Just being friendly.”
“You’re bad at it,” Lauren said.
A few guys laughed into their beers. Tommy’s face flinched when he heard them.
He leaned closer. “Bet I could improve your night.”
She looked up then, expression flat enough to shut a door. “I said I’m good.”
“Playing hard to get?”
“Jesus Christ,” Derek said, coming up behind him. “Tommy, leave it.”
Tommy turned, already swelling up. “Mind your own fucking business.”
“She told you no.”
“So?”
“So move.”
Tommy shoved him hard.
Derek stumbled into a chair, swore, and came back swinging before anyone could get between them. His fist cracked against Tommy’s jaw and the whole room went sideways.
Tommy grabbed the nearest cue.
“Tommy!” Jackson shouted.
Too late.
He swung. Derek ducked. The cue smashed into the wall and splintered. Chairs scraped, someone shouted, glass shattered.
Lauren pushed up from her seat.
I was already moving, but she was closer.
“Stop it!” she yelled, stepping straight into it.
“Lauren, no.”
She didn’t stop.
“I said stop.” She shoved a hand against Tommy’s chest, trying to force space between them.
Tommy jerked back to swing again. His elbow caught her across the face.
Her foot came down in spilled beer. Her ankle rolled under her and she went sideways, hip then shoulder, then her head clipped the edge of a barstool with a sound that went straight through me.
“Fuck.”
I dropped to my knees beside her.
Jackson vaulted the bar. Derek had gone pale, hands up, all the fight gone the second she hit the floor.
“Out,” Jackson barked. “Both of you. Now.”
Lauren sucked in a breath and reached for her head. Blood was already threading through her fingers.
“Don’t move,” I said.
She winced. “Great opener.”
“Lauren.”
Whatever she heard in my voice, she stilled.
I took the first-aid kit from Jackson as he shoved Tommy toward the door and motioned for Derek to follow. Jackson’s fingers touched mine and stayed there a beat too long.
It shouldn’t have. Not after all these years.
I looked up. He was already turning away. “Get the glass,” he said.
The cut at her temple was bleeding hard, the way scalp wounds always did, but it looked shallow. Her ankle was already swelling, fast and ugly.
“Look at me,” I said.
She did. Pupils equal. Tracking. Good.
“Tell me if you’re dizzy.”
“I’m sitting on a beer-slick floor bleeding in public. My review of the evening is mixed.”
Relief hit hard enough to make me irritable.
“You aren’t bleeding out.”
“Way to ruin the drama.”
I shifted toward her ankle. “Move your toes.”
She did. I pressed lightly along the outside of the joint and she hissed.
“Sprain?” she asked through her teeth.
“It looks like a bad one.” I eased my hand away. “I don’t think it’s broken, but I want ice on it and no weight if you can help it.”
“Excellent. Love an accessory injury.”
Red and blue lights washed across the front windows.
Officer Dennings stepped inside, took in the broken glass, the split cue, the chair turned half over on its side, and sighed like he’d been dragged out of bed for a child with a firecracker.
“Jackson.”
“I know.”
“This is twice in one week.”
“I know.”
“Still not helping.”
He started taking statements while Jackson stood there tight-jawed, already doing the math. Complaints. Licensing. Insurance. Liability. One more report like this and it stopped being bad luck and started being a pattern.
Mrs. Henderson sat in the corner booth with her purse in her lap, watching with that soft, attentive face that meant she was already fitting the story together for later.
I stayed where I was.
Dennings crouched beside Lauren. “You drive here tonight?”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Yeah.”
“You been drinking?”
Her mouth flattened. “Yeah.”
“Keys.”
“Jackson has them,” she said.
Dennings looked over at Jackson, who pulled them from his pocket and dropped them into the bag without talking.
“Report’s filed. You can get them back when you’re sober. Seventy-two hours.”
Her laugh came out thin. “Amazing.”
Dennings looked at me. “She need an ambulance?”
“No.” I glanced at Lauren’s ankle again, the swelling pushing against the strap of her sandal. “Temple cut, probable bad sprain. I don’t see signs of a fracture, but she needs off it.”
He nodded and moved on.
I cleaned the blood off her cheek and pressed fresh gauze to her temple. A strand of hair had stuck there. I moved it back before I thought too hard about touching her.
She looked up at me.
For a second, the room narrowed. Not quiet. Just narrowed.
Then Tommy’s voice cut in from the doorway.
“Bet you’ll be real helpful taking her home too, Doc.”