Now And Always (Crown Creek)

by Theresa Leigh

  My first thought was my usual, “Oh hey, there’s Ethan, cool,” reaction. The same one I'd had since Mrs. Parker’s seventh grade English class.

  But the second thought skidded right into it with, "Shit, is he still mad at me?" Then "He has no right to be mad at me," crashed into that. Then everything veered to the side, overbalancing with a sulky, "How dare he? I'm mad he would even consider being mad at me!"

  In the time it took my brain to get its footing, he'd reached the table. Yanking off his knit hat, he raked his hair back from his eyes.

  I'd told him over and over to get a haircut. He had this floppy, silky hair that was forever getting in his way. He was always raking it back before speaking.

  It drove me nuts.

  Such a simple solution! Get a haircut! I'd made him appointments at the barber. I'd even chased him with my father's beard trimmer once.

  But his hair was still floppy. It had been floppy for so long that—no matter how often I threatened to take a pair of hedge trimmers to his scalp—I wasn't sure I'd want it any other way. His hair was so...him. It was just this side of wrong. Like his long limbs that veered close to, but didn't cross over into, awkwardness. And his thick lashes that butted up against too feminine but would never be mistaken for a girl's.

  Tonight he wore his usual uniform: a plaid flannel tucked into faded jeans, his same old beat-up brown leather belt the only reason they stayed up on his narrow hips. And his ever-present sketchbook tucked under one arm.

  He was the only one of us not in costume, and it crossed my mind to find that irritating. But I kind of understood. Costumes didn’t suit Ethan. He could never be anyone but himself.

  “Hey!” He raised his hand to greet the whole table. I smiled at him. I couldn’t help myself. Fuck, why couldn’t I be mad at him?

  His eyes skipped over me, bounced to Sadie, then rebounded back to me. Ha! I thought. You forgot to be mad at me, too.

  “Where’s your costume?” Ryan wanted to know.

  “I’m dressed as a broke-ass college student who just got out of class,” he explained as he shifted around the table.

  When he sat down in his usual spot next to me, I let out the breath I wished I hadn't been holding.

  “You’re late,” I reminded him.

  “Not too late.” He poked at my still full beer glass and raised his eyebrows. “You’ve barely started.” He grabbed my glass and drained a third of it in one gulp.

  “Damn,” I complained—because I felt like I should—but something in my stomach loosened. Relief flooded through me even as I scowled at him. “Help yourself, Bailey.”

  “Already did.” He lifted his chin.

  "About time you got here!" Ruby complained. "We've been waiting for you to show up so Claire can tell us her news!"

  Ethan turned to me. "News?"

  I leaned forward. Now that he was here, the words pressed against my lips, aching to be heard. "So they finally realized my brilliance at work," I began.

  "Yeah?" Willa prompted, eyes already shining with pride. As the mom-friend of our little group, she was always ready to cheer us on.

  I glanced hurriedly at Ethan. When I saw nothing worrying about his expression—no anger, no disgust, no disinterest—my usual boldness came flooding back. I straightened my shoulders. "You're looking at the new head of PR for the Granger Development Corporation." I grinned, basking in the squeals and gasps and Sadie's enthusiastic clapping. "And what's even better?" I added, once the ruckus had died down. "I'm not a one-woman show anymore. I finally have someone reporting to me!"

  "Oh, dear lord," Ryan groaned. "You're someone's boss? That poor person. Can you even imagine?" he asked, elbowing Naomi, who widened her eyes in mock horror.

  I balled up my napkin and threw it at him, and then adjusted my halo. "Like I always say, I'm not bossy, I'm a boss." I grinned again, thinking of the vision board I'd worked up six months ago. I was right on schedule. "Now it's actually true!"

  Ethan's voice cut in through the laughter. "I'm proud of you," he murmured, ducking his head.

  I turned to him, then noticed I was twisting my fingers around each other and flattened my palms down in my lap. "Yeah?"

  He met my eyes and nodded. "Yeah. I am."

  A rush of warmth surged through me. I wanted to jump up and down like a little kid. He's not mad at me anymore! I'm so happy! But that didn't really fit in with the Claire King brand, so I just tucked my hair behind my ear and nodded back. "Thanks."

  He leaned back in his chair. "Taylor!" he called, catching his cousin's attention behind the bar. "Let's get a round over here!"

  As my friends whooped, I sat back in my chair, careful not to squish my wings. Dressing up had worked. I now felt the same on the outside as I did on the inside.

  I’d had one little slip-up, but no damage was done. Everything was back to normal.

  Chapter Two

  Ethan

  I almost didn't come. I was so close to not coming.

  I left class with every intention of heading straight home. I had a midterm to study for. My website was still a mess. I had a new custom order I needed to work up an estimate for.

  There were a million good reasons to skip the bar tonight. Claire was only one of them.

  But my truck made the turn off Highway 12 without my permission. And the next thing I knew, I'd pulled into the parking lot of the Crown Tavern.

  I glared at my reflection in the rearview mirror. "If you walk in there," I told myself, “then any claim you have to the upper hand is gone. She'll get away with it, just like she always does."

  It almost worked.

  Then I opened my door and headed into the Crown anyway.

  What point was I trying to make, anyway? Last week, Claire was just being...well...Claire. She was nosy and bossy. And interfering with my love life was her favorite hobby. I should have just done what made her happy. And I definitely shouldn’t have yelled at her like I had. I felt really bad about that.

  And I missed her. Which outweighed all the reasons I'd come up with for staying away tonight. I missed her, and I wanted to show her the sketches I’d made for her.

  Yes, I was giving up the upper hand.

  But when it came to Claire, I’d never had it to begin with, so why start now?

  Claire was at the head of our usual table sitting with her familiar straight-backed, regal posture. Her blonde hair shimmered in the low light of the bar, and her smile made everything around her seem to glow from within. She looked like she always looked. Like a damn angel.

  The fact that she'd actually dressed up as one made me bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. I wanted to tease her about the costume being overkill.

  But then she'd ask me why. And then she'd nail me to the wall with those sharp hazel eyes of hers. And then I'd forget how to lie and tell her she already was an angel. And then she'd roll her eyes and laugh, and maybe dig her elbow into my ribs for good measure. Because as far as Claire knew, the truth would be just another one of my jokes. She wouldn't take me seriously.

  She never had.

  So I just swiped her beer and sat down next to her while she made her big announcement. I held my tongue and let her have her moment. I only spoke up once the applause had died down, and then told her another truth. "I'm proud of you."

  Her face softened. "Yeah?"

  She was happy. And hopeful. I didn't miss the quiver of vulnerability in the set of her lips. Someone else might have, but not me. I knew her too well.

  She was asking me if we were okay.

  And I didn't want to be. I had so many reasons to be fed up with her. The way she insisted on calling me by my last name, like we were frat brothers or something. The way she tried to micromanage my love life by setting me up on dates with every random girl she ran into. The way she nagged me about my hair. The way she moved through life like a human steamroller, flattening everything in her way.

  I’d had every right to lay into her last week. I tried to remember
that.

  Then nodded anyway. "Yeah," I told her, meeting her eyes. "I really am."

  Because she was Claire. And I wouldn't have her any other way.

  "Taylor!" My cousin owned the Crown Tavern and let us drink for free about 75 percent of the time. I never knew when he was going to get annoyed with us and actually slap a bill on the table—the first time he'd done it, Claire acted like he'd slapped her in the face—so I gave him my biggest smile. "Let’s get a round over here!"

  Taylor glowered and turned his back. But two minutes later, he slid a tray of shots along the bar. I hopped up to fetch them. "I needed to get rid of this anyway," my bearded grump of a family member sighed. "Just gathering dust."

  "Thanks, man. How's Maddy?" Taylor doted on his niece. Talking about her always put him in a less murderous frame of mind.

  His long mustache twitched. There might have been a smile under all the hair on his face, but I couldn't be sure. "She's killin' it. Queen of the first grade. In twenty years, she's gonna run this town, just like your girl."

  I blinked at him. "My girl? You mean Alex?" I shook my head. "We broke up months ago." And should have broken up months before that, if I was being honest. We had about as much chemistry as I had with my great-aunt Delia. I only stayed with her as long as I did because Claire had me convinced we were the perfect couple.

  "Who the hell is Alex?" Taylor grumbled. "Nah, I'm talking about Queen Bee over there." He motioned with his dishrag. "Claire."

  "Claire? She's not my girl. We're friends."

  "Yuh-huh."

  I snorted. "Friends, Taylor. It's possible to have them when you're not always yelling at people."

  My cousin snorted even louder. "I have eyes, Ethan," he said before turning back to his customers.

  I shrugged it off with a laugh and headed back to the table. "Cheers!" I called as I set the tray down. Then scrambled back as my friends descended on the free booze.

  "To Claire!" Willa called, lifting her glass before clinking it against Cooper's, who gave her a grin.

  "To Claire!" we all echoed, clinking glasses.

  Claire grinned and lifted hers to her lips.

  Then frowned and set it back down again.

  "What's wrong?" I slammed my shot back. Whiskey, and smooth too. Taylor had given us the good stuff. The burn settled in my belly and radiated out into my limbs. It was easier to look at Claire now. Easier to smile at her. "Not drinking? You're really taking that halo to heart, huh?" I gave it a tug.

  "Excuse me," she sniffed, righting her halo as if it were actually a tiara. "Show some respect to the halo. Your eternal soul is at stake."

  "When is it not?"

  "Oh, please. Like you ever do anything wrong," she scoffed.

  "Excuse me? Who's talking right now? Little Miss Vision Board? Don't think I've forgotten the three-hour lecture you gave me on your five-year 'roadmap to success.'" I used air quotes. "How would you even have time to screw up?"

  "Drinking is not screwing up. Drinking is a social lubricant that facilitates community and professional networking."

  "What MBA course pamphlet did you pull that from?"

  She tapped her head. "This one," she said with a smirk. "But this stuff smells weird." She lifted the shot glass to her nose, then gagged delicately.

  "It does not," I protested, sniffing mine.

  "There's something wrong with your nose then."

  "There's something wrong with your face," I shot back before draining her whiskey for her. I slammed the glass down on the table.

  Claire arched an eyebrow. "Oooh, you had two shots. Should I be impressed?"

  "I needed two."

  "Why?"

  "So I could wrap my head around the idea of you in a position of power." I eyed her, wondering if she'd noticed I'd given her an opening to talk more about her promotion.

  I wasn't lying. I really was proud of her. She'd just eat me alive if she knew how proud.

  "I'm going to kill it, and you know it," Claire said with a toss of her head.

  Yes. I knew it.

  "Oh my God, wait, Claire!" Ruby's eyes were like saucers. "Does this mean you're finally moving out?" Ruby was engaged to Claire's brother, Jonah, and the two of them lived in her small house off Mill Street. "There's a place up for sale on my block!"

  Claire turned away from me, and I found myself leaning forward, just to stay in the conversation as she spoke. "Well yeah, of course that's always been part of the five-year plan." Claire was the only person I knew who spoke about having a five-year plan completely unironically. "But yeah, the higher pay rate will definitely help me get my down payment together faster." She smiled that smile again, the one that made my belly twist in knots. "Also, I already started my retirement account." She pressed her hands on the table and spread her fingers. "Can I just say it? I am absolutely killing it at this adult thing.”

  "And you're humble too," I muttered.

  She shot me a look, and I took the opportunity to open my sketchbook for her.

  But just as quickly as I'd snared her attention, it flitted away from me. I listened impatiently as she and Ruby debated the merits of Traditional IRAs versus Roth IRAs.

  "Claire, can I show you something?" I finally butted in.

  "But then you're missing the tax advantages," she said, wagging her finger under Ruby's nose.

  "Hey, Claire?"

  "And honestly, if you're thinking of taking the money out, why not just have it in a high-interest—"

  "Claire!"

  "What!" She whirled around, exasperated. "God, Bailey, you're such a pain in the ass!"

  For just one moment, I let myself be hurt by her words. One single moment. Barely a heartbeat. That's all I'd allow.

  Then I laughed. "You calling me a pain?" I flexed my fingers at her threateningly. Her eyes went wide. Claire hated being tickled. "Take it back," I warned.

  "You wouldn't dare."

  I gave her an evil grin. She shrieked, and I pounced.

  A chance to annoy Claire while also getting to touch her?

  You'd better believe I dared.

  Chapter Three

  Claire

  I shrieked. Loudly. I hated getting tickled. "Stop it!" I yelled, laughing. "You have freakishly big carpenter hands! Stop it!"

  He pulled back with a grin. "Are you going to look at this now or what?" He pointed at his open sketchbook.

  "Ugh," I huffed, adjusting my halo. "You're like a little kid, I swear to God. Fine! What am I looking at?" And I leaned over eagerly, because holy shit, Ethan never willingly shared his sketches. I always tried to sneak peeks, but he was weirdly territorial about them. Once, I accused him of using his sketchbooks to draw weird fetish porn, but he just laughed at me. Didn't even rise to the bait and show me to prove me wrong.

  Jerk.

  So when he opened it up, I was breathless with excitement, but I tried to play it cool. "Nice bird," I deadpanned.

  He rolled his eyes and flipped past the exquisite rendering of a sparrow. "You asked me for some design ideas," he explained, opening to a spread in the center of the sketchbook and smoothing his hand down the page. "I worked a few up last night."

  I stared uncomprehendingly at the intricately twisted design on the page. "Is this the—?" Realization thumped me upside the head. "Oh my God, Ethan!"

  He smiled his soft, lazy smile. "That's a good 'oh my God, Ethan,' right?"

  "Shut up, I'm looking." I grabbed the book from his hands and stared at the rendering and tried to keep my jaw from dropping.

  Right after my brother Beau proposed to his fiancée, Rachel, I'd started fretting about the perfect wedding gift. I'd bugged Beau for ideas, but he was annoyingly lax about the whole thing. So I'd taken Rachel out with the excuse that we were going to be sisters soon and needed a girls' night. I'd plied her with wine until I got her to fantasize about her dream wedding. "I don't know," she'd moaned into her drink, flushed and giggly. "We didn't have dream weddings on the compound. Definitely something
outdoors, I know that." She looked at me beseechingly. "You know what my dream wedding is? Whatever you come up with, Claire. I'm hopeless, but I trust you."

  I'd hugged her then, and promised she could leave much of the planning to me. And then I'd grinned, because I had come up with the perfect gift. A custom pergola as the altar for their outdoor wedding.

  Ethan's woodworking business was still getting off the ground. I wasn't sure it was doing as well as it could. So asking him to build the pergola had the dual purpose of earning 'best wedding gift' accolades, and of helping out my friend's business.

  When I'd mentioned wanting to hire him, he'd grunted something that could have been a yes but had an equal likelihood of being a no. Then we never mentioned it again. I wasn't sure he'd taken me seriously.

  Ethan snorted as if he was reading my thoughts. "You didn't think I took you seriously, did you?" he grumbled.

  "Course I did."

  He grunted noncommittally. "These are just a few ideas," he said, gesturing with one long finger before turning the page.

  I looked at the new sheet and sucked in my breath. Then looked up at his face. His eyes were half closed, and those long black eyelashes God decided to waste on a guy cast a shadow across the top of his cheekbones. He looked both intense and peaceful at the same time. It was a uniquely Ethan expression. One I'd never seen on any other face.

  He had the rugged face of a cowboy but the soft, pensive expressions of an artist.

  It was weird.

  "So this is a pretty generic idea right here," he explained, pointing to the top left corner of the page. "With the latticework. You've probably seen this kind of thing in a bunch of home and garden supply places, so I wanted to give you the option. But I'm not leaning toward it."

  I dragged my eyes off his face and back down to his sketches. He was pointing at a squared-off archway, with hashmarks delineating an open latticework design. "I could put roses or something into those holes," I said slowly, trying to drag my wandering mind back to the topic at hand. "If they're in season, I mean. I guess it depends on when their actual wedding date is, but some seasonal flowers would look nice woven in there, right?"