One for the Road (Barflies Book 3)

by Katia Rose

  I cut myself off mid-sentence, but it’s too late. Hope’s eyes are already bulging out of her head, and her mouth has dropped open.

  “What?”

  “Okay, let me expl—”

  “DID YOU HAVE SEX WITH DEEDEE?”

  I sigh. “Well, not at that point, but—”

  “OH MY GOD, YOU HAD SEX WITH DEEDEE!”

  She shouts it at the exact moment Paige decides to walk out of her room, oversized hoodie hanging down to the knees of her leggings and headphones slung around her neck.

  She pauses, blinks twice, and then shrugs.

  “Huh. About time.”

  Sixteen

  DeeDee

  SOUR: term used to describe a drink made with a lime-flavoured mix

  I pull the green-stained gloves off my hands and throw them into the trash in Zach’s bathroom.

  “Okay, ma belle, now we wait.”

  Hope beams at me before jumping up off the toilet seat to check her hair out in the mirror.

  “This is so cool! I’ve always wanted to do this.”

  Zach pokes his head into the doorway. “I can’t believe I let you dye my sister’s hair green.”

  Hope walks over and punches him in the arm. “One: you don’t get to let me do anything. Two: it’s teal, not green. How many times do I have to tell you?”

  Zach picks up a piece of her hair, and Hope smacks his hand away. “It looks pretty green to me.”

  “That’s because the dye is still on—and don’t touch it! You’re going to wreck it. Right, DeeDee?”

  I watch the two of them argue and joke around the same way I used to watch the sibling characters in TV shows when I was a kid, after my sister got taken away. I would sit in front of our old box of a television and repeat all the lines, acting out the same body language. I’d imagine what it would be like to have someone I could tease and hug and tackle whenever I wanted. Even now, I feel like I’m memorizing everything Zach and Hope say, soaking it up and storing it away like I do with Zach’s stories about his home town.

  “I said: right DeeDee?”

  “Ah, ouais, right.” I follow the two of them into the living room. “Don’t touch it, Zach, you dork. You will wreck it.”

  Hope sits down on the couch, perching at the front of the cushion so her hair doesn’t stain anything.

  “I like that you call him a dork,” she tells me. “It’s cute. You two are really cute together.”

  I look at Zach and see his eyes going wide with the same alarm that’s shooting through my chest. He opens his mouth to say something, but Hope holds up her hand.

  “Ah, ah, ah. I know you’re not together, but whatever it is you’re doing, it looks good on you two.”

  Zach’s eyes shift back to me. I can see his face going red, and my skin is starting to feel hot too.

  “I made it awkward, didn’t I?” Hope doesn’t wait for us to answer. I thought I talked fast, but, mon dieu, this girl is something else. “Moving on. How about I order something that isn’t frozen for dinner, and then we can all go out to show off my new hair? Halifax bars are total shit, and I want to see some of that famous Montreal nightlife.”

  I get my face back under control and sit down with my legs tucked under me on the cushion next to Hope. “Parfait! We can go dancing!”

  “Dancing?”

  Zach is still standing in the middle of the room, and he does not sound as excited as Hope and I are about the plan. The two of us are already scrolling through delivery choices on Hope’s phone. I glance up and give him an extra sweet smile.

  “Pleeeease, Zachy Zach?”

  After lots of arguing between Hope and Zach, we decide on getting Thai food for dinner. We all eat way too much curry, and Zach tries to persuade us to just stay in and watch a movie, but Hope and I are on a mission. Every new hairdo deserves a night out. It’s part of the full DeeDee Beausoleil Dye Job experience.

  There’s no blow dryer in the apartment because Zach and Paige are savages, but I have a mini one in the kit I brought over to do Hope’s hair. This is the second time I’ve hung out with the two of them, and as soon as she found out I did my own hair, Hope told me she wasn’t leaving Montreal until I did hers too.

  “Okay. You can look at yourself now, ma belle.”

  I put the blow dryer down, and Hope grabs her glasses off the bathroom counter. Since her hair is pretty dark, I started with a quick balayage job to add some highlights and make the teal really pop like in the photos she showed me. I didn’t have any of my normal bleach left, so we had to use drug store stuff. The transformation is probably not going to be as dramatic as she was hoping, since I didn’t trust the product enough to leave it on for very long. I step back and cross my arms, not taking my eyes off her face as I wait for a reaction.

  She stays very still for a few seconds, except for reaching up to run a few strands through her fingers.

  “Oh...my god.” She pulls a lock of hair in front of her face to stare at it with crossed eyes. “Oh my god.”

  “Quoi?” I ask. Nerves are starting to shift around in my stomach. “What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong?” Her head snaps to look at me. “It’s perfect!”

  Then she screams so loud Zach comes running.

  “What? What the hell is going on? Oh.” He does a double-take. “Wow, Hope, you look amazing.”

  “All of my dreams have come true!” She throws her arms around my neck, and I hug her back. “Oh my god, DeeDee, it’s perfect. I swear I’ve been dreaming of this hair since I was like sixteen years-old. You’re a genius!”

  I pat her head. “Oh, I know, chérie.”

  “You need to open a salon.” She freezes in my arms as soon as she says it and then pushes me away. “Why haven’t you opened a salon yet?”

  I fake a laugh as I lead the way out of the tiny bathroom. “I don’t think I would ever want my own salon. I wouldn’t say no to my own chair at one, though.”

  “You should do it!” Hope bounces along behind me, still tugging on random pieces of her hair so she can stare at them. She’s going to wreck everything I did with the blow dryer. “Seriously, this is beyond professional quality. I can’t believe you can do this without even going to school for it.”

  “Mmm.” I nod and fold my arms around myself, running my hands up and down my forearms.

  I liked hearing her tell me I did a good job, but now that’s she’s going on about salons and hairdressing school, I just want her to stop talking. Thinking about the future only ever makes me think about the past.

  I head into the kitchen and pretend to be looking for something in the fridge. When I glance back into the living room, I notice Zach staring at me.

  “I think we should do shots before we go,” I call out, closing the fridge and opening the cupboard above it instead. “One for the road, hein?”

  We’ve been to two bars already by the time we end up at some kind of punk club with a tiny dance floor. It’s past midnight, and I’ve had enough to drink that it feels like the thump of the bass is calling my name the second we step inside.

  Hanging out with Zach and Hope tonight has been like falling into rhythm I’ve somehow always known, like getting pulled into a dance and discovering your feet already know the steps. The way we talk and laugh and tease the shit out of each other is so natural, so easy. At first I really did treat Hope like a celebrity, like a girl from a storybook who jumped right off the page, but the longer I spend with the two of them, the more this starts to shift into something that’s both huge and crazy and simple and small all at once.

  This feels like family. This feels like home, and it doesn’t make any sense because my home was never like this. My home was the place I was always trying to run from—out into the street to find the other kids, into houses that were full of more noise and people and fun than mine, into parks and parties and eventually the arms of whatever guy was standing there when I came looking. I was always running away from the wolves, running away from the silent plac
es I could hear the howling.

  I never really thought much about what I was running to. It didn’t really matter, only this—this bubbling feeling of belonging I get when I think about Zach’s grateful smile after he saw Hope’s hair or how he’s held my hand under every table we’ve sat at tonight—this is something to run to, cling to, to hold onto and never let go of.

  I’m just so sick of being the girl who holds on too tight. I’m so sick of the fear that’s waiting to swallow me around every corner.

  “No fucking way!” We’re heading to the bar to grab a round when Hope starts waving like a crazy person at someone coming off the dance floor. “Tasia!”

  The girl, who has jet black hair and about five different piercings in her face, looks around at the sound of Hope’s shout and then starts waving too as she rushes over.

  “Hope! What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m visiting my idiot brother!”

  Zach crosses his arms where he’s standing beside me. “Um, hello.”

  Hope pats him on the shoulder. “This is him, and that’s his, uh, friend, DeeDee. Zach and DeeDee, this is Tasia. She’s on my lacrosse team at school.” She turns back to her friend. “Now, what the hell are you doing here?”

  Tasia gestures to some people on the dance floor. “Just visiting friends in town for a few days.”

  The two of them start chatting about school, and Zach reaches out to brush his fingers over my arm.

  “Hey.”

  I move a little closer to him. “Hey.”

  “You okay?”

  He always seems to know when something is up with me, sometimes even before I do, but I don’t want tonight to get serious. For now, I just want to keep having fun. This feels like the real kind of fun—not just a distraction to fill empty moments. The fun I have with Zach is the kind that keeps me laughing even when we’re not together.

  So I joke around instead of telling him the truth—that I’m scared and nervous and excited at the same time. I cover it up by rolling my eyes and tossing my hair over my shoulder. “I am fine, Zachy Zach. I have not had that much to drink.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  He is taking none of my shit.

  “I know what you meant.” I drop my eyes to the floor, and my fingers find my grandmother’s ring to start twisting it around. “I—”

  Whatever pop punk song was just playing ends, and the whole club goes crazy when the beginning of ‘Sweetness’ by Jimmy Eat World starts up.

  Hope grabs my hand. “Come on! We have to dance.”

  I keep my feet where they are even as she pulls on my arm and look back at Zach. He’s watching me with his eyebrows drawn together and his mouth in a hard line.

  “You’re gonna miss it!” Hope warns as she takes off with Tasia.

  “Zach.” I step closer to him and put my hands on his shoulders. “I...”

  He lays one of his palms on my back. “What is it?”

  But I can’t say it. I don’t have the words.

  “I really like this song.” I stare straight into his blue eyes. I can see the neon sign behind the bar reflected in them. I stare and stare, hoping he’ll read something in my eyes too. “Will you dance with me?”

  “Always.”

  Always.

  I shiver a little as I take his hand and lead him to the dance floor. His palm slides to the dip in my lower back.

  Everyone in the bar seems to be squeezing onto the floor now, and we give up on reaching Hope. Instead, we turn to face each other, the jostling bodies pushing us so close together our chests are touching. I start moving to the beat, shaking my head like I’m at a heavy metal concert every time the song does one of those little drum bashing things. I shout the same words everyone around me is yelling, and Zach calls out the response, shuffling around like the dorky dancer he is.

  We’re screaming at the top of our lungs by the time the chorus starts for the second time. I throw my arms around his neck, mostly because someone is going to knock me over if I don’t, but also because I want to be closer to him.

  I always want to be closer to him.

  I’m on my tip toes, chin resting on his shoulder, and he starts cooing the ‘ooh-ooh-oh-oh’ part in my ear as we sway. I breathe in the scent of his flannel shirt. We don’t even make it to the end of the song before we’re kissing like our lives depend on it.

  This is different. This is different than anything else. This is good.

  I kiss him harder, searching and searching for a way to believe that.

  Seventeen

  Zach

  CALL DRINK: any mixed drink comprised of a liquor and mixer, wherein the liquor is specified by its brand name as opposed to a generic order

  I’m whistling the tune of ‘Sweetness’ as I grab my stuff off its hook at Taverne Toulouse and start heading for the exit. My Saturday afternoon shift crawled by, and I’m more than ready to get out of here, but a shout from Monroe’s office stops me in my tracks.

  “Zach, is that you?”

  I backtrack to her office door, which is already open a few inches, and let myself in.

  “It is I.”

  “I knew it. Your country boy whistling is a dead giveaway. It’s quite impressive. Was that Jimmy Eat World?”

  She gestures to one of the spare chairs against the wall, and I pull it over to take a seat in front of her desk. The office is tiny, but not as tiny as the converted broom closet she used back before she bought the place. The room has bright white walls, modern lighting fixtures, and still has a trace of that fresh paint smell from the renovations. Framed copies of our old advertisements from Taverne Toulouse’s days as a grimy student bar are hung behind the desk, with puns like ‘What have you got Toulouse?’ advertising three for one deals on shots.

  “It was,” I inform her, “and by the way, that’s small town boy whistling, not country.”

  I wave a finger at her, still bobbing my head to the tune of ‘Sweetness.’ That song has been stuck in my head for almost a week now, and I’m the farthest thing from sick of it. I can feel her arms around my neck every time I whistle the melody, picture her perfect lips singing the lyrics every time I hum the chorus.

  “Right. Small town. Not country.” Monroe rests her elbows on the desk and props her chin on her hands, grinning at me. “You seem...buoyant today. How are you?”

  “Glorious,” I answer without hesitation. “I am glorious.”

  She laughs. “Good word.”

  I’ve managed to keep my mouth shut at the bar like DeeDee asked, but I wasn’t lying when I told her everyone would know something is up with me. I’m sure that with her sage-like powers of wisdom and intuition, Monroe knows exactly what’s going on. Somehow, the thought doesn’t embarrass me. I almost want her to know.

  My life is finally on the trajectory I’ve been aiming at for years. It’s not just things with DeeDee that are different; my business is still showing signs of a major upswing. The results would be faster if I wasn’t spending so much time at Taverne Toulouse, but they’re still coming through. It feels like I’m building something, being something—something that’s taken a back seat for far too long.

  “You’re all done for the day?” Monroe motions to my backpack, and I nod. “I wish I was too. This SEO stuff is killing me. I’ve thought about outsourcing, but that just feels like giving up. It can’t really be this hard.”

  “SEO?” I sit up a little straighter in the chair. “SEO is my jam.”

  Monroe tilts her head to the side. “Really? Nobody I’ve mentioned it to even knows what it is.”

  “Monroe, I run ecommerce stores for a living. Search engine optimization is—” I pinch my fingers together and bring them to my lips, kissing the tips before raising my hand in the air like a French chef talking about the crème de la crème. “That and running targeted ads,” I continue. “If you ever want to run Facebook ads for Taverne Toulouse, I’m your guy.”

  Monroe slouches back in her chair, nodding sl
owly. “Huh. So, um, I know you’re heading out, but do you have five minutes to look at this and tell me if I’m being a total idiot or not?”

  She must see the hesitation register on my face. I’m supposed to get in a few hours of work tonight before seeing DeeDee—the prospect of nights wrapped up in the sheets with DeeDee Beausoleil has been excellent motivation for staying productive during my working hours—and I know how quickly five minutes at Taverne Toulouse can turn into forty-five.

  “I just need a quick eye on it. I know you’ve already punched out,” Monroe assures me, “and you’ve seriously been a lifesaver these past few weeks. I probably owe you a paid vacation day at this point, or at least, I don’t know, a free keg.”

  I chuckle. “I don’t even know where I would put a keg. You should see the size of my kitchen.”

  “I’ll see about the vacation thing then. Do you have a couple minutes now? I don’t want to hold you back. You look like you have fun plans for the evening.” She grins at me.

  Oh she knows. She totally knows.

  “I do, uh, have to get going, but...”

  No buts. You have to leave. You’re allowed to leave. You are allowed to say no.

  I think about the sales I’ve missed out on the past few weeks, all the traction I haven’t taken advantage of. My advertisements have been bleeding money from lack of maintenance on my part. The potential is right there, but I haven’t prioritized myself enough to grab it with both hands.

  My palms start to get sweaty as I stare at Monroe like I’m up on a podium, facing a crowd waiting for me to make a speech I can’t force out of my mouth. This shouldn’t be such a big deal, but brushing off a friend who needs my help goes against every instinct I have.

  “I, uh, just...” I trail off again and force myself to swallow. “Ihavetogetgoingbutwecouldtalklater?”