Chapter 26
“Two Sam Adams,” Miles told Walsh, leaning across the bar and pitching his voice to be heard over the mix of music and conversation. “And a vodka cranberry.”
Walsh added soda to the mixed drinks he was making but took the time to give Miles a flinty look. “Starting a tab?”
Miles nodded and Walsh’s expression darkened even more.
And he glanced down at the other end of the bar.
Miles didn’t follow suit.
He knew what the kid was looking at. Who was sitting there.
She was the first thing Miles had seen when he’d stepped into The Cockeyed Chameleon a few minutes ago and the moment his gaze settled on her, the tightness he’d carried around in his chest the past two days loosened.
As if he’d been searching for her all that time and now that he’d found her, he could breathe again.
But he was keeping his distance. He was still processing everything she’d told him two days ago in his car. Was still trying to come to terms with the mistakes he’d made and working on accepting his fair share of responsibility for her leaving.
But the main reason he wouldn’t approach Tabitha was because she wasn’t alone.
Lincoln Black, a local attorney who’d gone to school with Urban, sat next to her, his body turned toward her. Like she was the only thing in this bar worth looking at.
“It might be a few minutes,” the kid told Miles as he moved on to pulling a couple of draft beers. “I can bring them to your table.”
“No you can’t,” Hayden said as she joined him to scoop ice into two squat glasses. She gave Walsh a gentle hip-check. “You handle this side of the bar. Let Greer handle the tables.”
Setting the beers on the bar, the kid’s mouth thinned. “I’ll have Greer get them out to him, then.”
“That’s not the system we have in place,” Greer, the pretty, tattooed waitress lightly scolded Reed as she joined him on his other side. “The system we have in place,” she continued, loading the beers, then the mixed drinks onto her tray, “is that customers who stay at their table and place an order from their table, get their orders delivered. Customers who come up to the bar, don’t.”
Walsh lifted a shoulder. “We can make an exception for the assistant police chief.”
“No exceptions,” Hayden said, quick and firm.
“We work the system,” Greer insisted. “If we don’t… you know what happens next…”
“Inefficiency,” Hayden said, adding soda to the glasses.
“Confusion,” Greer said, opening a bottle of water and taking a sip.
“Chaos.”
Greer tipped her water bottle at Hayden with a nod. “Anarchy.”
“Jesus,” Walsh grumbled, narrow gaze shifting from one woman to the other. “Fine. I’ll work the fucking system.”
“Of course you will,” Hayden said, as if that were never in doubt. She added stir straws to the drinks. “And, just so you know, that grumpy, anti-social attitude is why you get shit for tips. Try being pleasant once in a while. Friendly.” She inclined her head at Greer. “Be more like Greer.”
“I am a delight,” the waitress agreed with a dimpled grin as Hayden walked down the bar to deliver the drinks. “And I make bank in tips. Although if you really want to rake in some cash, stripping is the way to go.” Drawing her dark eyebrows together, she studied Walsh as he rubbed the rims of four shot glasses with a lime wedge. “Which might actually work better for you. No pleasantness required. I mean, you’re definitely pretty enough—”
“He can’t dance,” Hayden said as she walked past them toward the cash register in the corner.
“He can learn,” Greer said. “They taught Joe Manganiello to dance for Magic Mike.”
“Yes, but unfortunately for all of us,” Hayden said, “Reed isn’t Joe Manganiello.”
“That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have anything to work with.” Greer turned to Reed. “How’s your muscle definition?” she asked the kid, then gestured at his shirt. “Let’s see your abs.”
In the act of pouring tequila into the glasses, Walsh froze, his face going ruddy. “What? No.”
“Come on,” she said with a gimme gesture. “You can’t be shy and strip. I mean, I suppose you could, but you need to have a healthy dose of body confidence. Mostly, though, as a male stripper, you’ll need at least a six pack. And a v cut wouldn’t hurt.”
“He’s out then,” Hayden said, opening two bottles of Modelo. “You’ve seen him eat. No way he could get that kind of definition with all those carbs.”
“Good point. How do you feel about boneless, skinless chicken breast?” Greer asked Walsh.
Walsh set the shots onto the tray with the other drinks. “Order’s filled.”
She blinked at him innocently. “You forgot the extra lime wedges.”
He tossed several lime wedges onto the tray where they scattered amongst the drinks. “Go. Away.”
“Huh. It’s like you’re trying to get rid of me.”
“Yes.”
With a laugh, she lifted the tray. “You’re adorable when you’re all brooding and grumpy. When I’m on my break, we’ll brainstorm ways you can use that in your act.”
And she sashayed off, leaving Walsh with a horrified expression on his face.
“You know,” Miles said to Walsh, “if you were anyone else, I might feel bad for you. But since you’re not anyone else…”
He shrugged.
And grinned.
Walsh slapped a bar towel onto the counter and wiped it clean with strokes hard enough to take off the finish. “Might want to stop being so fucking amused by the shitshow that is my life and start concentrating on the shitshow that’s yours.”
He sent another look down to the other end of the bar.
Miles looked, too, just in time to see Tabitha laugh at something Black said.
Miles couldn’t remember the last time he’d made her laugh. Or even smile. A real smile, not one she gave him because she was hiding behind it or because she thought that was what he wanted to see.
One that he’d earned.
As if she sensed him staring at her, that smile that wasn’t for him still on her face, she looked over Black’s shoulder and straight into Miles’s eyes.
She looked beautiful, of course. He didn’t think there’d ever be a time when he didn’t think she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
Her hair was parted down the center and left loose to hang in soft waves to her shoulders. She wore a wide-necked, short sleeved shirt the color of ripe raspberries that showed off her collarbone and clung to her breasts. Her makeup was minimal except for a burst of color on her lips, the same rich hue as her shirt.
But as he held her gaze, more color appeared—a muted pink suffusing the long line of her throat. Brighter spots of it in her cheeks.
Then she lowered her lashes, took a visible deep breath.
And when she lifted her eyes again, this time, they stayed on Black.
Miles’s heart picked up speed and there was a gnawing sensation in his gut, like there was something missing. Like he was incomplete.
He took a step toward her when Walsh set the two bottles of beer on the bar. Noticed that the vodka and cranberry was already there. “Your drinks.”
Miles glanced at Tabitha again. That empty feeling intensified and he realized he wasn’t missing something.
He’d lost it.
No. He’d pushed it away.
He should let it go. Let her go. He’d learned to live without her once. He could do it again.
This time, it might actually stick.
But the idea of moving on held no appeal. It never had.
Worse was the idea of her moving on.
Especially if she did so in front of him. If she fell in love with someone from Mount Laurel. If she married someone Miles knew. Had a family with him.
If she went on to have the life Miles had dreamt of with her.
With some other guy.
He glanced back at Black who was now leaning even closer to Tabitha as he said something close to her ear.
Turning back to face the bar, he waited until Walsh came back from delivering an order.
“Did she come with him?” he asked.
One side of Walsh’s mouth curled up, the closest he got to a grin.
Miles had just made the kid’s whole fucking night.
“You know,” Walsh said, scooping ice into two tall glasses, “if you were anyone else, I might feel bad for you. But since you’re not anyone else…”
And the asshole shrugged.
Miles dug out his wallet. Pulled out a twenty and laid it on the bar, keeping the tips of his fore and middle fingers on it. “Did she come with him?”
Adding soda to the glasses, Walsh glanced at the money, then raised his gaze to Miles’s face. Lifted an eyebrow.
Miles sighed.
And pulled out another twenty.
Walsh’s mouth turned up even more. “No.”
But when he tried to pick up the twenties, Miles kept his fingertips on them.
“You’re sure?”
“Are you sure you have enough cash to keep asking questions?” the kid countered.
Mouth thin, Miles pulled out a fifty.
Walsh slid the money off the bar then added it to the shared tip jar. “She didn’t come with him. He’s just another guy shooting his shot.”
When Walsh moved farther down the bar, Miles followed him.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “Just another guy shooting his shot?”
“Jesus. How old are you?”
“I know what the saying means,” Miles ground out, although every time he spoke to either Walsh or Verity, he felt fucking ancient. “I want specifics as to what it means in this case.”
Bending over the sink attached to the wall, Walsh washed his hands. Straightened and dried them on a paper towel. “It means if you want a chance with her, you need to get off your ass. Because she’s here almost every night. And while she always comes in alone, she isn’t often left alone.”
Miles frowned, his gaze snapping to her, but this far away—and with Black’s big body between them—all he could see was a flash of her golden hair.
“She’s here every night?” he asked Walsh.
“Just about.”
He thought about what Tabitha had told him about her past. Of her childhood and being abandoned by her mother in a motel.
If anyone had reason to try and numb their pain with alcohol, it was her.
“Is she…” He stopped, something about his thought, his question, not adding up, but he had to ask it anyway. Had to know if she needed his help. “She’s here, drinking, almost every night?”
“I thought you two had a history,” Walsh said mockingly, before turning to the cooler and pulling out a bottle of Bud Light, passing Greer who set the tray back on the bar, then took off again.
“We do,” Miles told him, following him down the bar as the kid delivered the beer to a middle-aged white man in a Grateful Dead T-shirt. “We do,” he repeated, low and firm, when Walsh set out two shot glasses.
He poured Jack into them. “She doesn’t drink, She comes in most nights. Eats dinner. Talks to Hayden and Greer when it’s slow. And gets hit on by at least two guys a night. Guys who aren’t too chickenshit to go after what they want.”
Miles ignored that comment. “She comes here—almost every night—to eat dinner?”
“What’s wrong with the food here?”
Jesus. Why couldn’t dealing with this kid ever be easy? “Nothing’s wrong with it. I’ve eaten here plenty of times myself. Just not every night.”
“Maybe she hates to cook.”
“She doesn’t.”
Miles and Walsh both startled, then turned to find Greer was back behind the bar at Walsh’s side, having snuck up on them both like a silent, sunny, heavily tattooed ninja.
“Excuse me?” Miles asked.
Straightening from getting her bottle of water out from under the bar, she glanced between him and Walsh. “You two are talking about Tabitha, right?” Walsh nodded. “That’s what I thought. She doesn’t hate to cook. I mean, she might hate cooking, but if you’re trying to figure out why she’s here so often, that’s not it. It has nothing to do with cooking or the quality of food here.”
And she took a long drink, then twisted the cap back on and put the bottle back under the bar. Put a stack of cups onto her tray while Walsh added the pitcher of beer.
Miles bit back his impatience. Dealing with Greer—who was only a year older than Verity—wasn’t any easier than dealing with Walsh. “What does it have to do with, then?”
Before Greer could reply, Walsh snorted. “The assistant police chief wouldn’t get it.”
“Get what?”
The kid smirked at Greer. “Told you.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Greer said slowly, thoughtfully, as she studied Miles like she’d just returned from a little stroll through his head where she’d seen every thought he’d ever had. Felt every one of his emotions. “My guess is that Assistant Chief Jennings knows more about it than we realize.”
Something in her expression had him hesitating.
His mother used to warn him about asking questions he wasn’t ready to hear the answers to.
But his curiosity and pride wouldn’t let him let it go.
“More about what?”
Her eyes softened, her mouth twisting in a sympathetic smile. “Loneliness.”
Miles felt like he’d just been punched in the gut.
Damn if that hadn’t been a direct hit.
“It’s the sweet-acting ones you have to watch out for,” Walsh said, as if imparting some hard-won, smartass wisdom.
The kid was right.
Miles hadn’t thought Greer was a threat, yet she’d laid him out with one simple word. One simple, undeniable fact about himself.
He was lonely.
And it was clear enough for this nineteen-year-old with her bubbly chatter, dimpled smile, and neck tattoo to see.
“I don’t act sweet,” Greer told Walsh, “I am sweet. I can be both a delight and a speaker of hard truths. It’s part of my charm. I’m also incredibly good at reading people.”
“And modest,” Walsh muttered flatly as he poured spiced rum into glasses.
“Speaker of truths, remember? False modesty is the worst. Besides, it’s not vain to know your strengths or your own worth. I know mine. Just as I know my weaknesses and my fears.” Picking up the tray, she gave Walsh, then Miles, a glance that was somehow pitying and condescending at the same time. “You both might want to work on learning yours. Remember, if you want love, any kind of love, you have to learn to love yourself first. Flaws, mistakes, fears and all.”
Miles and Walsh both stared at her as she walked away—Walsh with a flinty gaze and tight jaw, Miles with his mouth hanging open.
Guess Verity wasn’t the only teenager in town who could leave him speechless.
“What the hell,” Miles asked Walsh, “was that?”
The kid gave an irritated shrug. “Fuck if I know.”
“That,” Hayden piped up, as if she’d not only been privy to their conversation, but a part of it all along and not pulling beers, mixing drinks, and taking orders the whole time, “was you getting schooled by a nineteen-year-old.”
He jerked his head in Walsh’s direction. “He got schooled, too.”
She waved that off with one hand. “Pfft. He’s a child.”
Walsh glared at her, then stomped off down the bar to take another order without a word or backward glance.
Miles glanced back at Tabitha, still unable to see her fully, but taking in the parts he could see. Her high-heeled, wedge sandals on the rung of her stool and the dark denim of her jeans, the frayed hem ending an inch above her ankle. The curve of her hip when she straightened. The flash of the rings on her fingers when she reached for her drink. Her fucking elbow as she lifted a hand to flip her hair off her shoulder.
“Why don’t you ask what you really want to know?” Hayden asked him.
Still taking in those pieces of Tabitha, as if they were all he was ever going to get, all he deserved at this point, he shook his head. “I can’t.”
He had too many questions. Wanted to know too many things that were none of his business. Answers he had no right to.
“Okay,” Hayden said slowly. “Then why don’t you ask what’s most important to you?”
That, at least, was easy.
He glanced at Hayden. “Is she okay?”
“She’s okay. I promise. She’s adjusting to a new town. She’ll find her place. And her people.”
She walked off, leaving Miles standing in the overly warm, overly loud, crowded bar unable to hear anything but the rushing sound in his head. Unable to feel anything other than the cold clamminess on the back of his neck. The itching sensation climbing his spine.
Unable to see anything other than parts of the woman he’d sworn he was done with.
Unable to keep believing that was true.