Chapter Twenty-Four
Sam
Isit in the truck outside Vibes with the engine off and my phone in the cup holder.
Autumn is still in Chicago.
She flies back to London tomorrow, which means there is a hotel room somewhere across the city with her in it and one more night between now and London. I know exactly how long it would take me to get there from here.
The keys are already in my hand.
For a few seconds, I picture it. Walking into the lobby. Calling her from downstairs. Getting one more chance at the conversation I spent this morning trying to have.
Then I put the keys in my pocket and get out of the truck.
She gave me this morning because she was ready. She didn't give me tonight because I'm unhappy with how it ended.
I walk inside.
Vibes is still a few hours from opening. Tony is behind the bar unpacking a liquor delivery while Bex stands near the stage with one of the performers, both of them looking up at a light cue that seems to be causing an argument.
Tony glances over when the door shuts behind me.
"How'd it go?"
I stop.
He has a bottle of tequila in one hand and a box cutter in the other.
"When did my personal life become part of your shift responsibilities?"
"It didn't." He slides the bottle onto the back bar. "You just look like shit."
"Good talk."
"Happy to help."
He bends over the case again while I head for my office.
"Courier brought something for you."
I look toward the doorway.
A long, flat box is leaning against the wall.
"When?"
"Maybe twenty minutes ago. I signed for it."
"You inspect it for explosives?"
"No, but now I feel like I skipped a step."
"Next time."
I pick it up.
It's heavier than it looks. The return label belongs to a metal fabricator I don't recognize, and nothing on the box explains why my name is on it.
I carry it into the office and set it across the desk.
Whoever packed it had trust issues. I cut through one layer of tape, then another, peel back heavy cardboard and find foam wrapped around something flat and solid. Cool metal touches my fingertips when I pull the last sheet of paper away.
Brass.
I lift it out.
SMOKE
Beneath it, in smaller lettering:
PILSEN EST. ______
I stare at it.
The plate is wide enough to sit over the back bar, brushed instead of polished, with clean mounting holes at each corner and lettering deep enough to catch the light when I tilt it.
There's a fabricator card taped to the back.
I turn it over.
Autumn Hayes.
My grip tightens around the edge.
The order date is from before she left Chicago. Before I opened the envelope. Before she stood in my apartment in her coat and asked me to give her something real.
Before I owned the building.
I lower myself into the desk chair with the plate still across my lap.
The blank space after EST makes sense. When Autumn ordered it, there wasn't a year to put there yet.
But it's the name above it that keeps pulling my eyes back.
Smoke.
I'd told her that too.
It came out during the same coffee conversation when I'd started talking about Pilsen and couldn't seem to stop. The bar. The ceiling. The wall I wanted opened up. Where everything would go if I ever managed to get the place.
Somewhere in the middle of it, I'd told her what I wanted to call it. She remembered. More than that, she believed I was going to get there. Enough to put the name in brass and leave room for the part that hadn't happened yet.
I run my thumb through the empty space after EST.
"Fuck."
Tony appears in the doorway.
His attention drops to the plate.
"Damn."
I turn it so he can see the lettering.
Tony steps closer, reading it from top to bottom. "Smoke?"
"Yeah."
His eyes move to the smaller line underneath. "That's the Pilsen place?"
"That's the Pilsen place."
"You already had this made?"
"No."
His eyes catch on the order card beside my hand.
"Who, Autumn?"
"Yeah."
Tony lets out a low whistle. "That's a hell of a gift."
I look down at the brass again.
"Yeah."
He stays in the doorway long enough that I can feel another question coming.
"So are you guys..."
"No."
That stops him. I set the plate carefully on the desk.
"We were."
Tony shifts the box cutter from one hand to the other, giving me an easy opening to end the conversation. I don't take it.
"I fucked it up."
His eyebrows lift slightly, but he doesn't ask how.
"That sucks."
"Outstanding emotional support."
"I didn't know we were doing emotional support."
"We're not."
"Good. I have inventory."
He pushes away from the doorframe.
"Tony."
He looks back.
"Thanks."
He gives me a quick nod. "Sure."
Then he goes back to work. I stay in the chair.
Tony didn't look at me differently. The words didn't crack anything open that can't be put back together. I said we were and I fucked it up, and then he went back to moving tequila.
I look at Autumn's name on the fabricator card. Maybe I've been giving words more power than they have. Or maybe only some words. And only with one person.
By the time we open, I've moved the plate to the corner of my desk where nobody can knock it over.
Near close, Bex comes in carrying a clipboard and closes the door behind her with her heel. She's halfway through telling me about a change to next week's performer schedule when she notices the brass.
She stops.
"What is that?"
I swivel my chair enough to give her a better view.
Bex walks over, reads SMOKE across the top, then picks up the fabricator card before I can hand it to her.
Her eyes go straight to the name.
"Autumn ordered this?"
"Before she left."
She looks from the card to the plate, then runs one fingertip through the blank space after EST.
Bex puts the card down exactly where she found it. For once in her life, she doesn't offer an opinion.
She picks the clipboard back up instead.
I watch her scan the schedule.
"Bex."
Her eyes lift.
"You good?"
The question is probably automatic.
My answer isn't.
"No."
Her hand stops halfway down the page.
For three years, Bex has asked me some version of that question. After bad nights at Vibes and worse ones upstairs. I have never given her that answer.
She lowers the clipboard.
"All right."
That's it.
No startled face. No demand that I explain. She just stands there.
I rub my palm over my beard. "You're not going to ask?"
"Do you want me to?"
"No."
"Then I won't."
She shifts the clipboard against her hip, and I almost tell her she can go.
Instead I glance at the plate.
"I saw Autumn this morning."
Bex's attention sharpens, but she stays quiet.
"I apologized."
"How'd she take it?"
"She believed me."
Some tension leaves Bex's shoulders.
"I got farther than I did before." I lean forward and rest my forearms against my thighs. "Told her things I should've told her months ago."
Bex moves to the chair across from me and sits without taking off her jacket.
"What happened?"
"She asked what she meant to me."
My hands clasp loosely between my knees.
"And?"
I look at the floor.
"I stopped."
The office goes quiet except for the bass coming through the wall from the main room.
Bex doesn't try to tell me why. She doesn't ask whether I was scared or whether I panicked or whether I need another goddamn revelation.
She just sits there.
"I wanted to answer her," I say. "That's the worst part. I wasn't confused. I wasn't deciding."
My hands tighten together.
"I had the words."
Bex rests the clipboard across her thighs. "But you couldn't say them to her."
I shake my head.
For a while neither of us talks.
Then I look at the plate again.
At SMOKE cut permanently into brass.
"I love her."
Bex goes completely still.
The words are already out, so I wait for whatever I've spent months acting like they might do to me.
Nothing.
The music keeps playing.
Bex is still sitting in the same chair.
My chest still works.
She sets the clipboard on the edge of my desk.
"Okay."
I look at her. "Okay?"
Her mouth twitches. "You said it like you were expecting the ceiling to come down."
I glance up.
"Still there."
"Strong construction."
A short laugh gets out of me.
Bex smiles, but she doesn't turn the moment into something bigger than it is.
I look back at the plate.
"I love her."
It feels different the second time. Not easier exactly. More accurate.
Bex folds her arms loosely across her chest. "Do you need me to say something?"
"No."
She stands and picks up the clipboard.
At the door, she pauses.
"Sam."
"Yeah?"
"I'll be out front."
I nod.
After she leaves, I sit alone with the sentence.
I love her.
It came out clean because Bex wasn't the person it belonged to.
She can hear it, go back downstairs and finish the night. She doesn't get to decide what happens to me after I say it.
Autumn does.
That is the difference.
I don't go to Autumn's hotel. I don't text her that night either.
A picture of the plate would be easy. So would Look what showed up.
She'd probably answer. She might even be happy for me.
That doesn't make it mine to send. She gave me the morning.
I need to stop treating every feeling I have afterward like a reason she should give me something else.
So the plate stays on my desk and the phone stays in my pocket.
On Sunday, Autumn goes back to London.
I don't ask what time her flight leaves. I don't find an excuse to be near the airport. By late afternoon, I catch myself thinking about where she might be and make myself stop doing the math.
She knows where I am.
More importantly, she knows I heard her.
Monday passes.
Then Tuesday.
I work. I sleep badly. I look at SMOKE more often than I need to.
By Wednesday afternoon, I've stopped pretending I don't know what I want to do.
Bex is in my office with next week's schedule spread across the desk, a pen between her teeth while she moves names around with one finger. She glances up when I close the door, but only long enough to make sure I'm not bringing her another problem before going back to the page.
"Can you take Friday?"
She pulls the pen from her mouth and circles something near the bottom of the schedule. "Probably. Tony can stay through close if I move Marisol up."
"And Saturday. Sunday too."
The pen stops against the paper. Bex lifts her head and looks at me properly now. "You want all three?"
"Yeah." I pull out the chair across from her and sit, resting my forearms against my thighs.
There are a dozen respectable reasons I could give her.
Work at Smoke. Meetings. Something personal that sounds important enough to justify disappearing for a weekend.
None of them are the reason I'm asking. "I need the days. "
Bex watches me for a moment, then looks back down and starts making changes. "Tony's going to bitch about Sunday."
"He'll survive."
"He always does." She draws a line through my name on Friday, shifts another one underneath it and reaches for her phone to check something against the schedule. "I can make it work."
The relief is immediate enough to irritate me. I lean back in the chair and rub my palms over my thighs while she sends a message, waits for the reply and adds another note beside Saturday.
"You're not going to ask why?"
Bex glances at me over the top of the phone. "You just managed to tell me you need something without disguising it as a staffing emergency. I'm trying not to spook you."
"Very considerate."
"I have my moments."
Her phone buzzes. She reads the message, types something back and puts it facedown beside the schedule.
"London," I tell her.
Her hand, halfway back to the pen, stops.
I watch recognition move across her face before she settles deeper into the chair. "You're going to London."
"Friday."
"Does Autumn know?"
"No."
Bex's mouth tightens, and I can see exactly where her mind goes.
"I'm not showing up at her hotel," I say. "I don't even know where she's staying."
She picks the pen up again but doesn't write. "So what are you planning to do?"
"I'll get there, ask if she'll see me and let her decide. Coffee, a park, wherever she's comfortable. Somewhere public."
Bex rolls the pen between her fingers. "Why wouldn't you ask her before you buy the ticket?"
Because that would make this easier.
The brass plate is propped on the corner of my desk behind her. SMOKE catches the light when I look past Bex.
"If I ask Autumn whether she wants me to come, then I'm making her responsible for whether I go.
" I shift in the chair, trying to get the thought out without dressing it up.
"If she says yes, I get to tell myself she asked for this.
If she says no, I stay here and never have to find out what would've happened if I'd shown up and actually said what I should've said months ago. "
Bex's fingers stop turning the pen.
"Getting on the plane is my decision," I say. "Whether she gives me any of her time once I'm there is hers."
For a moment she just looks at me. Then she lowers her eyes to the schedule and draws a firm line through my name on Sunday.
"All right. Tony takes Friday close. I'll do Saturday and Sunday, and Marisol can cover the early part Saturday so I don't murder anybody."
"Appreciate the sacrifice."
"You should. I'm charging you for it."
"Put it on my tab."
Bex gives me a small nod and leaves, pulling the door almost closed behind her.
I reach for my phone.
The airline app opens to my last trip, and I clear the destination before typing London.
Flights populate across the screen while my brain immediately starts reaching for everything practical.
Arrival times. Hotels. How quickly I can turn around if Autumn doesn't want to see me.
Whether I should book three nights or four.
Every detail that can be arranged before I have to face the one thing I can't arrange at all.
Her answer.
I choose a Friday flight that gets me there Saturday morning and enter my information. By the time the purchase screen appears, my pulse is beating hard enough that I can feel it against the phone in my hand.
There is still time to close the app.
Getting on this plane doesn't mean Autumn will forgive me. It doesn't mean she'll take me back. It doesn't even mean she'll agree to see me.
For once, I don't need the next answer before I make this choice.
I press confirm.