One for the Road (Barflies Book 3)

by Katia Rose

  This is all happening so much faster than I thought it would. Things work between us so well that it’s hard to put up any barriers, like stepping into a river and getting swept up by the current so fast you’re flying downstream towards the rocks before you know it.

  The three of us all leave the apartment together and go our separate ways. I do my best to act normal around Monroe, but she’s Monroe, so of course she asks me if something’s wrong five seconds after I arrive at her apartment. I dodge her questions while she makes me some tea and gets her laptop set up for the call.

  Roxanne’s face appears on the screen, and we both start waving at her.

  “Wow, it’s dark out there already,” Monroe comments. We can see the edge of the window in Roxanne’s hotel room. “And damn, that room looks nice.”

  “This whole hotel is so beautiful,” Roxanne replies. Her voice is a little out of synch with her mouth, which makes her look kind of funny, but her face is stretched into this lovesick, I-am-on-my-honeymoon smile that makes me smile too. “I always felt kind of embarrassed about wanting to go to Paris so much, and to be honest, at first it was a bit of a letdown, but sometimes...sometimes these moments happen, and you’re just like, wow, this is it. I am in Paris.”

  “Awww!” Monroe and I say together before I ask Roxy where Mr. Grim Rockstar is.

  “He’s showering before we go out to dinner. We walked all day today.”

  I wag my eyebrows at her. “And how is the honeymoon sex?”

  She fans herself. “Let’s just say we’ve made good use of this hotel room.”

  I start belting out the words to ‘Sex and Candy’ by Marcy Playground so loud Monroe covers her ears. Roxanne laughs, the sound a little tinny in the microphone.

  “I thought that was the song you sing when you’ve just got laid,” she jokes.

  It is usually the song I sing when I want to tell everyone I got some.

  “DeeDee, are you blushing?” Roxanne leans in closer to the camera. “Monroe, is she blushing?”

  “Hmm, lemme see.” Monroe hooks her finger under my chin and turns my head to face her. “I see a definite pink tinge.”

  “I’m just thinking about steamy Parisian sex,” I joke, pulling away and doing my best to stop the blushing. “I have always wanted to fuck someone under the Eiffel tower.”

  Roxanne snorts. “I think you would get arrested. Although now that you mention it, maybe Cole will be down to give it a try.”

  “Please do not get sent to French prison,” Monroe scolds in her most motherly voice. “Every cent I own has been invested in the bar, and I won’t be able to bail you out.”

  “Fine, fine,” Roxanne agrees. “So, who’s DeeDee screwing?”

  “Who says I’m screwing anyone?”

  Both of them stare at me with cut-the-bullshit looks on their faces.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I slump back on the couch. “Can we move on?”

  The two of them share one of those special best friend looks that seems to get a whole conversation across in two seconds. Normally it doesn’t bother me that they’re so much closer with each other, but today it annoys me enough that I’m digging my fingers into the couch just to keep from snapping at them.

  Whatever secret message they shared seems to have made up their minds to give in and change the subject.

  “How are things at Taverne Toulouse?” Roxanne asks. “Is the management situation finally settling down?”

  “Finally.” Monroe presses her hands together and looks up like she’s giving thanks to heaven. “Taverne Toulouse is a well-oiled machine of functionality once more. I actually had a really interesting conversation with Zach a couple days ago.”

  I try to keep my cool, but I’m sure my whole body must turn stiff enough for Monroe to notice. The whole ‘secret dating’ thing is getting harder and harder to hide, and part of me is sure everyone must know already, but I’m not ready to tell them.

  What would it take for you to be ready?

  That’s what Zach asked me a few nights ago, when we were curled up together under his blankets in the dark. He didn’t sound mad, just curious, but I still freaked out so bad we shut the conversation down.

  I want to be normal. I want to be a normal girl who can have a conversation about being a normal girlfriend, but every time we touch the subject, it’s like hitting a nerve. I panic. My fear and pain start flailing around like a patient thrashing on a dentist’s chair while somebody pokes and prods at all the sore spots in their teeth.

  I want him, but I’m scared to want him too much. I’m scared that pulling him in too tight will only push him away. I’m scared I’ll always be the crazy girl who panics about everyone leaving her, and all the maudit fear is an itch under my skin driving me crazier by the day.

  “It turns out he’s really good at online marketing—like, really good,” Monroe continues. “I asked him for help on a couple things, and I felt like I was taking a master class. I thought I was doing all right on my own, but I know next to nothing compared to him.”

  “Not to rag on all our chosen careers,” Roxanne replies, “but what’s he doing working at a bar if he’s that good?”

  “He’s building an ecommerce empire from home,” Monroe explains. “He’s down to part time at Taverne Toulouse...or at least he should be. The guy never says no to anyone, and we’ve all been asking for way too many favors.”

  You’re asking too much from him.

  My stupid brain won’t shut up today.

  “After seeing what he can do, I came up with an idea, and I’m pretty sure I’ve got him on board. He needs more time at home, and I need more results from the internet. Taverne Toulouse is growing faster than I can keep up with, and I want to take advantage of that momentum. I’d like to make him our online marketing manager. He’d have to give up his job at the actual bar, but—”

  “What?” I don’t realize I’ve jumped to my feet until I see Monroe looking up at me. “He’s leaving?”

  “He’s not leaving,” Monroe says slowly, watching me with her wise woman eyes. “I was just going to say he’d still be in once a week to meet with me, and I haven’t even officially offered him the job yet.”

  “Oh.”

  I try to slow my thoughts down, but they’re already getting carried away.

  “Where did DeeDee go?” Roxanne’s voice calls out from the laptop.

  “I’m, uh, getting more tea.”

  I grab my mug off the table and head into the kitchen. I can hear the two of them chatting as I stand there with my hands braced on the counter, breathing hard. Their voices sound like they’re coming from much farther away than the living room.

  I start twisting my ring around my finger. I’m being insane. Zach working a different job doesn’t change anything. He’ll still be around. He’ll be around less, but we spend so many hours together outside of work now that we’ll probably have more time together than before we started—

  Dating? Are we dating?

  I don’t know how this works. I usually just start calling someone my boyfriend after we’ve been sleeping together long enough that the word makes sense.

  Then I stop calling them boyfriend when we aren’t sleeping together anymore. Simple. Uncomplicated. Easy come, easy go. It’s what I always do. It’s what always happens. It’s a pattern I can’t stop.

  As I stand there with my stomach rolling, holding the edge of Monroe’s counter so hard my knuckles turn white, I’ve never hated that part of myself more.

  Nineteen

  DeeDee

  SHAKE: combining the ingredients of a drink by rapidly agitating them together, most often in a cocktail shaker

  Zach drops my hand and jogs a few feet ahead of me up the sidewalk. I watch him squat down to pull a yellow dandelion from where it’s growing out of a crack in the concrete.

  “For you, Mademoiselle Beausoleil.” I catch up with him, and he bows as he holds the dandelion out. “A May flower.”

  I p
retend to hold up a long skirt with one hand as I curtsy. “It is beautiful, Monsieur Hastings.”

  I take the flower and hold it up to my face, breathing deep. I end up getting a nose full of pollen and sneezing a record number of times in a row.

  Zach laughs and motions for me to give the flower back. “Here. Let me put it in your hair.”

  I watch his face crease with concentration as he comes close and tucks my hair behind my ear before trying to do the same thing with the flower. It takes him a few tries, and when he finally gets the stem to stay in place, he beams and drops his blue eyes to mine.

  “Hey.” He moves his hand to cup my cheek, his smile fading. “You okay?”

  I force a grin. “Ouais. Just a little tired.”

  “We don’t have to go.”

  “No, no, no.” I pull away and grab his hand to start heading up the street again. “I want to go. It’s going to be fun. I haven’t been to the Old Port in forever.”

  Zach suggested we head down there to spend our afternoon off work together. We make our way through the cobblestone streets of Old Montreal, still holding hands. It’s just past noon, and the streets are already starting to fill with tourists here to see all the old-fashioned buildings. We pass fancy restaurants and shops selling souvenirs covered in maple leaves and beavers.

  I catch Zach staring at me as we head down to the river, his mouth opening like he wants to ask if I’m okay again before he shuts it and grinds his teeth instead. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I haven’t slept well in days, that the panic I felt when Monroe said he was leaving settled somewhere in my chest and refuses to leave no matter how hard I work to push it away.

  I’m being crazy, though. I’m freaking out over nothing. I’m being needy, and I don’t know how to stop.

  All I want is to be able to stop.

  “Speaking of May flowers...” I put some extra bounce in my step and pull my sunglasses off my head and onto my face so my smile will be more convincing. “Is Paige excited for her next show?”

  Zach chuckles. “Well, she’s Paige, so it’s hard to tell if she feels any emotions at all, but I’m pretty sure she’s grateful you talked Monroe into giving her a regular monthly gig. Although playing a night with a ‘May Flowers’ theme sounds a little too cheerful to be her style.”

  “She’s really not as scary as you think,” I tease.

  He gives me a look.

  “Ben, okay, so she is a little scary, but she can be really sweet too. She’s going to be part of the Taverne Toulouse family now!”

  “Yeah, we all need that one moody cousin who only wears black.” He squeezes my hand and turns serious. “It was really sweet of you to do that for her.”

  I kick a few pebbles along the sidewalk.

  “She seems kind of lonely,” I murmur before I can stop myself. “Nobody should have to be lonely.”

  Zach’s grip on my hand gets even tighter. “DeeDee—”

  “Oh, we’re here!”

  The Old Port comes into view just in time to save me from the conversation. I pick up the pace as we step onto the boardwalk running along the river, dragging Zach with me. The crowd is thicker here, and even though it’s only May, all the summer activities are already in full money-making swing. There are food trucks selling things like crepes and ice cream, and lots of artists with displays of jewellery and paintings set up under covered stands. Kids run around between the adults strolling next to the water, ice cream cones melting in their hands. The shadow of Montreal’s giant Ferris wheel falls over the boardwalk, the pods slowly circling to give people a view of the city and the Fleuve Saint-Laurent.

  A loud scream rings out over all the noise of the crowd, and my head jerks to face the sound. There’s a zip line set up farther down the path, the cable running high over everyone’s heads all the way out to the far end of a pier jutting into the water. It’s not very long, and the girl flying down it is only in the air for a few seconds, but she screams the whole way to the bottom.

  I watch her like somebody staring at a car crash, frozen in place as I wait for something horrible to happen. I feel my knees lock up, and my heart starts pounding in my ears.

  “Yo, let’s do it!”

  Zach’s voice makes me jump. He flashes me an excited smile and starts tugging us over to the stand selling tickets, not realizing I’m still rooted to the spot. My hand slips out of his grasp after his second step, and he turns his head to glance at me.

  “You coming? My treat. It looks fun.”

  I blink behind my sunglasses. Somebody else shoots down the line, screaming at the top of their lungs, and I feel my legs start to shake.

  “DeeDee?” Zach’s back by my side in an instant. “What’s wrong?”

  “I, um, I just don’t really like zip lines.”

  He squares himself off so he’s blocking the line from my view and cups my face with his hands. After a moment, he slowly lifts my sunglasses back up onto my head. I stare at the top button of his shirt.

  “DeeDee.” He strokes my cheeks with his thumbs. “This isn’t about the zip line, is it?”

  I take a deep breath and let it out. “Sort of. It’s true that I really don’t like them.”

  He squints at me. “Didn’t you tell me you went sky diving once?”

  I let out a shaky laugh. “I did. It’s not being up high that scares me. I kind of like heights. In high school, I was one of the bad kids who climbed up the water tower all the time. I was always freaking everybody out by dangling off the edge. I like the rush, but I...”

  I’m babbling. I trail off, and Zach runs his hands down my arms.

  “You what?” he asks, like it’s just me and him, like there’s nothing and no one else around us.

  No matter where we are, that’s how I feel whenever he stares at me this way, the same way he did when I was drunk and fell asleep in an Uber beside him, the same way I sometimes catch him watching me at the bar: like I’m the most precious thing he’s ever seen. I don’t know how that expression can make me feel so full and so hollow all at once.

  My stupid zip line freak out isn’t a fun thing to talk about, but it’s better than telling him my chest gets so tight I can’t breathe whenever I think about my feelings for him, so I continue.

  “It’s kind of like roller coasters,” I explain. “I love going on roller coasters, as long as there’s someone sitting beside me. When I was in high school, I went to a theme park with some friends, and I ended up on my own for one of the rides. They strapped me in, and the ride started moving, and I...”

  I force myself to breathe. I can still feel the panic from that day rising up in me like an angry monster trying to tear its way out of my body.

  “Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Let’s sit down, okay?”

  There’s a bench a few feet away, facing a little bay between two piers where you can rent pedal boats. I let Zach lead me over to the bench and sit down beside him, his thigh pressed against mine. I can’t stop myself from playing with my ring, sliding it around my finger as I force myself to breathe.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asks.

  I try to laugh, but it sounds more like I have something stuck in my throat. “I don’t even remember. I know I was yelling at them to let me off, and everything after that is a blank. When I got off, I was crying and shaking so hard I fell over when I tried to stand. Then I puked. It’s stupid, but I just couldn’t be alone like that. I couldn’t be strapped in with no way to get close to anyone else.”

  He lays a hand on my leg. “It’s not stupid.”

  “It is kind of stupid, and it is certainement crazy.” I watch two pedal boats collide with each other as the drivers figure out how to steer. “I know it’s crazy. I...saw someone for a while, when I first came to Montreal—a psychologist. I was so messed up about Clém, and about everybody else who has left my life...my dad, my sister...It was too much. Monroe didn’t even know the full story, but she talked me into going. I don’t even know if it he
lped. I just felt so embarrassed.”

  “You never have to be embarrassed about that.”

  I turn my head to face him, my eyebrows shooting up at the force in his voice. He almost sounds angry. He clears his throat and goes back to patting my leg.

  “Sorry. I just hate hearing you say that. You’re not crazy.”

  I can’t help it; I laugh—a harsh, bitter laugh that tastes all wrong in my mouth.

  “Tabarnak, Zach, I felt like my whole fucking world was falling apart just because Monroe said you’re changing jobs—”

  He starts to interrupt, but I keep talking.

  “I know I’d still see you, and I know you haven’t even said yes yet. I know all of that, but I was still so scared. I was even mad—mad that you would leave without telling me, even though that’s not what’s happening at all. I—I—Câlice, I hate when I get like this.”

  He lets me breathe for a few seconds. I’m panting, my hands curled into tight fists in my lap.

  “DeeDee, whatever this is and whatever it takes, I’m here for you. I’ll be whatever you need. I want to support you. I want to help.”

  “But you can’t.”

  Now it’s him raising his eyebrows at me. I lower my voice and try to make it softer, but I can’t stop the way it trembles.

  “I...I use people to fill something in me up. I grab on and let them lead me like...like those boats!” I point down to the water. “I jump in, let someone do all the work and the steering and just kind of put my feet on the pedals because I can’t drive a maudit boat on my own, and that’s fine because there’s always another boat to jump in. I know how to make people like having me in their boat for a while, but I...I don’t want to do that with you. Je veux être plus que ҫa pour toi.”

  I want to be more than that for you.

  “DeeDee.” He squeezes my knee and waits for me to look at him. “You are so much to me already. You are more than enough, and if I need to pedal a little harder for now, I am more than willing to do it.”

  He slides his hand around my thighs and pulls them over his own. I let him tug me closer until I’m cradled in his arms.