11. Justin
eleven
The shock wave hits me first in the gut, then knocks the wind out of me.
I”m frozen in place once she steps out of the darkness of the pub, and I recognize her. But she’s already fleeing me, her beautiful blue eyes watery, the dark brown waves of her hair flowing behind her as she runs outside, her hands clenching at her heart.
Hands that were once grasping at my shirt, at my neck.
How could this happen? Who did I piss off in the universe to always, always mess shit up spectacularly?
Anger balls my hands into fists and clenches my jaw.
“What is wrong with you?” Haley’s mouth is hanging open, her hands on her hips, her head tilted just like Moose’s.
Clover is already gone, storming out of the pub, head down, shoulders hunched, steps hurried.
Defeated.
My heart hammers inside my ribcage. What is wrong with me? “Did you hear what she said?”
“Yeah, that we weren’t welcoming.” She crosses her arms, daring me to question that.
“She insinuated I had something to do with her uncle’s heart attack.”
“You’re exaggerating.” She straightens her spine. “It maybe wasn’t very… tactful, but… she seems like a lovely person—”
“Nice tits and ass alone don’t make you lovely.” The way this is going, the fact she’s who she is, I might as well get her out of my system now. Because this is not happening.
Matter of fact, this was never meant to happen.
Haley crosses her arms and juts her hip out. “I wouldn’t know about her tits and ass. Glad we got that straightened out. So a woman can’t have nice tits and ass without being blamed for it?”
“Holy fuck, Haley, that is not—”
“That is totally what you said! And stop swearing! It’s not good for business.”
I roll my eyes. Hiring my sister for temporary help might have sounded like a good idea, but sometimes it’s like having my mother in my face. I love my mother and all. But fucking Christ. Can I get a break? “You know who she is?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yessss. The new restaurant manager or… something.”
My Clover.
“She seems nice and… it looks like she will fix up the dump the restaurant became.”
One night.
“She’ll make the whole block look nicer. That’ll be good for you.”
The one woman.
She throws her hands in the air. “What is wrong with you?”
And I shouldn’t want her.“She’s Murphy’s niece.”
She fires back, “So?”
“So!?” How can my own sister be so aloof?
Haley’s face softens. “Oh.” She takes two steps toward me. “Gosh, Justin, you have to let that go.”
Easy for her to say. “Don’t you have tables to wipe out there?”
She ignores my jab and plants herself on a barstool. “Is it a girl? Is that why you’ve had your panties in a tizzy since you came back from Boston?”
A girl? My panties in…? “The fuck you talking about.”
“I didn’t want to say anything, but I’m not the only one seeing it. Since you came back from Boston, you’re… not yourself.”
Not this. “I have a mortgage to pay. No rent coming in.”
“Is it because Alex broke up with Chris and went back to New York?”
What is she talking about? “Business is slow.”
She waves her hand around her. “Business will pick up after the Fourth. It always does.”
My eyes keep going back to the door, to the window at the back where I last saw Clover. I feel a pull. And a weight on my chest. “How would you know?”
“Ohmygod, don’t tell me you fell for Alex. Justin, she’s… she’s Chris’s, if he can get his shit together. Is that why she left? Is that why Chris is so depressed? He lost the love of his life and his best friend at the same time! That’s not how you treat—”
The fuck is she talking about? “It’s not Alex!” I boom.
“Ha!” She jumps off her stool and slams her hand on the bar. “I knew it! It’s a girl. I knew it!!!” She throws her head back and releases a demonic laughter. “Admit it.”
“No!”
She raises a victorious eyebrow. “Colton told Grace.”
“Colton?” I narrow my eyes. I might have had an argument at the reception desk, trying to extract Clover’s real name, seeing as I had to drive my friends back home and therefore couldn’t register for the freaking conference I assumed she was attending. And Colton might have been nearby. Who cares? Can’t a man have a private life? I wait ”til I’m in fucking Boston to get laid, and my friend tells everyone in town the minute we’re back? What fucking world do we live in?
“Grace extracted it from him. We’ve been sleuthing. It wasn’t easy.”
That’s more like it.
“You are… ohmygosh.” She breaks in a fit of giggles. “You fell for a girl! Where does she live? Come on! You can tell me. I’ll help you out.”
“Help me out?”
“Yeah. You need to court her. Romance her. You had a one-night stand with her, and now you want to see her again, but you don’t know what to do. That’s where your little sister comes in. Gimme your phone. Gimme, gimme, gimme.” She wiggles her fingers toward me.
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Justin, seriously. Tell me. What’s her name? I won’t tell anyone, pinky promise.” She plucks her phone from her back pocket. “Just need to find out where she lives, where she hangs out, what she likes. So we can hook you back up. Get this show on the road. Come on.” She does some come-on gesture with her free hand.
Fuck me. “Where’s the aspirin?”
Haley huffs and turns up her attitude dial. “I dunno. I got tables to wipe, ’member?” She whips around, then stops with her hand on the door and turns around again. “And when you’re done moping over some slut, you might wanna apologize to the perfectly nice woman next door!”
“She’s not a slut!” I snap and register my sister’s victorious look.
Instead of basking in her I-was-right attitude, she provokes me further by adding, “Anyone who would have a one-night stand with you is a slut.” She makes a disgusted face, totally trying to get a rise out of me. Or information.
I clench my jaw. “Haley.”
“Then prove it. Tell me who she is. Bring her to Emerald Creek.” Then she heads outside, and Moose worms his way through the door with her, leaving me alone in the pub.
My brain is a mess, my thoughts raging with anger.
‘Bring her to Emerald Creek.’The irony.
I can’t believe what just happened. I can’t believe I found Clover, only to lose her again. Clover is Sullivan’s daughter.
Shit.
Fuck.
The words she told me in the elevator, the ones that made me want to punch the wall, surge back in my memory. “Sometimes it feels like whatever I do, it’s never good enough. Or worse, it’s wrong. I try and try and try to please, to do the right thing, but I end up rejected anyway.”
And now I’ve done this to her.
And why is Clover running her family’s restaurant? Is that her trying to please? Fuck, she came to the pub, and Haley said she was so nice. Trying to please again. And she ended up being rejected again. How could I mess up so spectacularly?
I’m too fucking angry to stay at the pub now. I turn around to go back to Chris’s. Maybe I can help him fix his relationship. One that took almost six months to build. He has something solid.
Not like me.
As I hit the sidewalk, I see Haley and Grace, who is Chris’s cousin and also Colton’s sister, knock on the door of the restaurant. Haley purses her lips at me and turns her head to Grace, who gives me the stink eye.
Of course the girls are going to meddle.
Well, hell.