It’s been ages since I’ve had a Moscow Mule. My dad used to give me shit about drinking them, saying it was a sissy-vodka drink, that real men drink scotch, neat. He’d make it sound like I was drinking the equivalent of a watermelon breezer, or some other frou-frou drink that a wasted girl would parade around her sorority house with. But the mixture of vodka drenched in the ginger beer slinks down my throat like warm velvet.
Soft and smooth like Mila’s lips.
I slam the glass down onto the wooden bar top and start on a refill.
The last time I was drinking to forget, was the night I met Mila.
It was cold as shit that night. According to all of the weather guys, we were in the icy center of one of the coldest winters Boston had dealt with in at least nine years. Which might explain why Heather felt compelled to warm herself up with Tyler while I was out looking at the bar, stupidly still excited by all the potential the place held.
On the way back to my place, I had stopped at some cozy little bakery that Heather loved and grabbed us some hot cocoa and muffins, like a total romantic tool. I thought we could curl up in our tiny apartment, and I could tell her all about the place where I’d just plunked down every cent I had to my name in hopes that I could make it into a bar I could be proud of.
Instead, when I walked in, I found Heather grinding and moaning on top of my Santa-hat-wearing asshole of a best friend.
Merry Christmas to me, right?
I dropped the stupid cocoa in the doorway and high-tailed it outta there so furious and heart-sick and betrayed, I could barely see where I was going.
I wandered forever, not about to go back to the apartment and see if either one of those assholes was still there. And I couldn’t exactly go back to New Jersey since I’d pretty much fucked over my entire family, wound up in jail, and spent every penny I inherited on my brand new bar.
I had nowhere to go and the weather was getting worse by the second.
And to top it off, I stormed out of my apartment straight into the bitter cold of a Boston winter. The fucking wind was like a sucker kick to the gut.
Jesus, the wind that night practically blew me into that shitty little bar all on its own. Not that I fought very hard against the pull and warm familiarity of my go-to comfort escape place.
Bars always felt like home to me. They were in my blood. From the tiny gin joint that my grandfather owned, and then passed down to my dad, to the falling-down monstrosity I bought because I thought it would help me stake my claim and establish my name, I had and always would have a bone-deep connection with the tiny world that existed around a glass of liquor in the warm, dry comfort of a bar.
Or maybe it wasn’t a bar. Maybe it was our bar, the family bar that was about to go bankrupt. Or at least, that was what was going on the last time I thought to ask about it. Before I blew a gaping hole in all my family’s financial and emotional expectations.
Because I was supposed to save it.
I could have saved it.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I bolted as soon as my inheritance check cleared the bank. I was a punk ass kid who selfishly wanted to open my own place.
Maybe it was karma biting my ass when I found Heather and Tyler together.
Whatever the reason, I found my way to that tiny, sad pub after I left the scene of their double betrayal and settled in for a long night of Picklebacks. What I really wanted to do was pour the whiskey straight into my brain and burn the image of the two of them right out of my grey matter. I was only on my second shot when Mila came stumbling in.
“It’s cold as a witch’s tit in a brass bra out there!” She shot me a cheerful smile and pulled out the stool next to me. She collapsed onto it, letting several plastic shopping bags containing gift-wrapped packages slide off her arms. Her leather messenger bag hit the floor with a thunk and hardback books spilled out all over the place. “Do you mind if I sit here for a while? Just until the wind dies down?” Mila asked the bartender.
“I don’t care how long you sit, as long as you’re buying drinks. And tipping.” He gave her a quick wink, but I knew he was serious. Even in near-blizzard conditions, he wasn’t going to let her take up space at his bar for free.
“Sure. Okay. That’s not a problem.” Her dark hair pooled around her face as she dug through her purse. “Oh. Uh-oh. Um, my wallet…”
I glanced up and caught the bartender rolling his eyes.
“No sweat, I got it,” I said. Mila’s cheeks turned even pinker than they had been from the biting cold.
“No, that’s okay. It’s here somewhere.” She continued to dig through her purse.
“Really, I insist. What’ll you have?”
Mila bit her lip, and I could practically see the wheels spinning.
“What are you having?” She motioned to the pair of shots sitting in front of me.
“Pickelback.” I narrowed my eyes at her, taking in the mussed hair, the makeup-free face and the “I Read Banned Books” shirt peeking out from the folds of her thick wool coat, and the way she looked totally out of her element in this seedy little bar. “You look more like an amaretto sour type of girl. Or, maybe a pink paradise?”
Despite my misery, I couldn’t help the smirk I flashed while I gave her my professional opinion.
“I’ll have a Tom Collins,” she said, negating my smirk with the slow rise of one eyebrow. And I nearly fell off of my stool. She just ordered my grandfather’s drink. “Thanks,” she added. “I can totally pay you back, if you give me your address. I promise I’ll send you a check or something.”
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. I’m Landry.” I extended my hand, and she shook it lightly.
Her smile was warm, slow, and sweet with just a tiny punch of sass. I really thought I had her pegged with her drink of choice, but I was obviously not on my A-game when it came to figuring girls out recently.
My surprise over Heather’s back-stabbing proved that.
“Mila. And thank you. Again.”
I wrapped my lips around the shot of whiskey and threw it back, then followed it with the shot of pickle juice.
“That’s pretty disgusting.” She wrinkled her nose, and I fought the urge to grimace over the after bite of the pickle brine.
I shrugged and moved a few inches closer to her.
Not because I was attracted to her in a sexual way.
More because something about her felt instantly comfortable. Like I’d known her my whole life. Like I could tell her about my every fuck-up and she’d listen without judging. I smiled her way, glad to meet her, glad to be drinking next to someone who, for whatever reason, made this shitty day a little bit better.
“It gets the job done. And a Tom Collins is an old man’s drink. Since we’re keeping score.”
She giggled and the noise sounded out of place in my current state of misery. The bartender came back and set her tall glass down in front of her and two more shots in front of me.
“So, what are we drinking to?” She looked up from under her thick, dark bangs.
“To all the people I want to forget.”
Pathetic? Possibly.
Honest? Absofuckinglutely.
“That’s not very Christmassy.” Mila raised both eyebrows and pursed her lips at me.
I shrugged, trying so hard to stay glum, but the way she was looking at me pulled a smile from somewhere deep and dark and cheerless. I raised my drink to hers.
“Cheers,” I said, tapping my shot glass to her drink with a clink.
“Cheers.”
Mila smiled that seductively sad, empathetic smile that, by the end of the night, had me pouring my heart out, asking her to be my roommate, and actually believing in Christmas miracles.
Because somehow, for some reason I couldn’t put my finger on, that cool-as-shit, albeit nerdy-as-hell, girl just walked into my life and gave me hope that, deep down, I might actually be okay.
And I was. For a long ass time.
Mila and I moved
in together and had this rad, platonic, easy, uncomplicated thing going. I opened the shithole bar with my money alone, cutting corners where I needed, and making a shoestring stretch to its last thread when I had to. And it didn’t matter how hard it all was, because I was actually doing it. I was officially not as big a fuckup as I thought I might be.
And then, tonight, I’d gone and fucked it all up.
For what?
A fucking kiss?
If I was that hard up, I could’ve just taken the redhead home. Why did I have to cross the line with Mila?
***
I’m on my third lime-soaked Mule when my phone vibrates on the other side of the bar. I slide off of the stool and stumble across the room, which slants a little too much to the left. I have to grab onto the bar top for stability. I stare at the screen of my iPhone, but everything is too hazy, and I can’t make out the name.
“Hello?” I slur.
“Landry? Oh, thank god you answered!” The female voice squeals a little too loud for my alcohol-soaked eardrums.
“Paisley?” I haven’t talked to anyone from home, not even Paisley, my favorite sibling, in over a year. Not since I left town and never took a single look back.
“What’s up, old man? I know, I know. You probably forgot you even had a sister.” She tries to come off as casual and sarcastic, but, even though I’m drunk as shit, I can hear the hurt jangling in her voice.
“Is everything okay?” I grip the phone tighter, while guilt and worry tangle low in my gut.
Paisley was always a little less stable than my brother and me. She always needed a little more attention. And I was usually the one person she’d turn to when things got rough.
I’d pulled the rug out from under her when I left. And now, even though her voice sounds cheerful enough, I have a feeling something’s not quite right.
“Sort of. I mean…I don’t know. I just…” she fumbles over her words and I don’t have the patience to sit and drag it out of her.
My guilt and shame makes my words lash out harsher than I intend them to. “Paisley, just talk. What’s going on?”
She pulls a long breath in and lets it whoosh out before she rushes her plea. “I really need you to come home. Like, now, Landry.”
“What’s going on?” The beginnings of a liquor-soaked headache are taking shape in my skull. This one’s gonna be a brain-bruiser, and I pull out the tomato juice so I can get started on a counteractive Bloody Mary before I’m completely useless.
“I just really need you here. Tonight. Please.” The last word is a tiny poisoned dagger stabbed in my ribs.
I break off a stem of celery and mix my red drink, my little sister’s voice needling at my shriveled-up heart.
“Paisley, there’s no way I can drive out there tonight.” I could barely make it across the room to answer my phone, so driving is pretty much out of the question.
“So take the train,” she suggests. I rub my hand across the scruff of my cheek and let out a loud sigh. She must sense my annoyance, because she throws in a pathetic little, “Please.”
I owe her this. It’s one tiny request. She’s my sister. I shouldn’t make her beg me to come home or confess before I make the trip. I should be unconditionally there for her. I was once.
But things have changed since then.
A ton has changed.
“What’s this about? I haven’t been home in over a year. I’m probably not even welcome there.” The probably is bullshit. I’m definitely not welcome in my parents’ home, and I can’t really blame them.
“I’ll work on mom and dad,” Paisley pleads.
“I can’t, I have work.”
It’s a dick move, but it will be better this way. And maybe she could come here. I’ll let her know that she’s welcome, that she can stay as long as she needs to. I’m about to offer when she brings up the holiday refrain I’m starting to hate more than I can possibly express.
“Landry, it’s Christmas. You can close the bar on Christmas for Christ’s sake. Oh, I guess I’m not supposed to say Christ like that, right? Whatever. It’s Christmas, no one will be there anyway.” Her voice is a mix of clawing desperation and teetering anger.
“You’d be surprised.”
I press my palm to my forehead, which is starting to throb already. It’s been a long night. I need to go to bed. But I can’t go back to my place. Mila might still be there. And even if she’s not, just seeing all her crap is just going to remind me of what a total douche-nozzle I am and how badly I screwed things up.
“I have something to tell everyone, and I’d really, really like you to be there,” Paisley finally says with a sigh.
I understand that sigh. She wanted me to come home for her, not because of some bombshell she’s gonna reveal. My selfishness is starting to irritate even me. I hate myself a little bit more with every passing second.
“Are you pregnant?” I ask.
“No way!” Paisley snorts and I can’t help but smile. And the way I suddenly miss her and Henry aches like a broken beer bottle to the gut.
Maybe Christmas is the time for miracles and all that.
“I’ll see what time the train to the city leaves. Can you pick me up in Dover?”
Paisley squeaks with delight on the other end of the line, and I already know I’m making a catastrophic Christmas mistake.
Chapter 4
Nearly five hours later, I’m on the second train of this never-ending night, travelling back to New Jersey, so chilled I have a nasty cold sweat, my stomach is rumbling and rolling over itself, and my brain is on fire from the residual aftershocks of a hangover going strong. I slide my phone out of my pocket a dozen times, running my thumb over the smooth glass, ready to text Mila at any second.
Any second.
Whenever I got my guts up and just do it.
Anytime now.
The irony of my situation is that I’m actually begging fate or life or whatever to throw me something that will detour my attention and keep me from having to bungle it all with Mila in a whole new format…and then I get a diversion that comes out of the goddamn blue and is the only thing, other than a face-to-face meeting with my dad, that could ruin my already shitty situation.
“Landry? Landry Murphy? Is that you? Seriously?”
For a long minute, all I know is that this is someone from my past, someone I knew really well once and am having a hard time placing through the vodka-fog encasing my brain.
Finally the pieces all come together; the long blonde hair, the pretty brown eyes, the figure, tall but a little too skinny. Which makes sense when you know her and how constantly on the run she always is.
It was exhausting in high school when she was the head of at least twenty different clubs, our class president, the salutatorian, and a Girl Scout. Yep, she went all the way up to whatever the Girl Scout equivalent of Eagle Scout is. I went to the ceremony with her to get her award or sash or pin, and the little beret she wore was cute as hell. Awesome cookies, too.
She went on to dominate in college and, last I heard, she was working on her doctoral degree. Probably well on her way to being some cutthroat attorney or head of neurosurgery or something equally impressive.
“Toni.” I move closer to the window, my body language asking her to sit down next to me even though my brain is objecting loud and fierce.
The smile stretched over her lips pulls into a resigned, downturned frown. “No one calls me that, Landry. No one ever called me that but you.”
She sits next to me.
She smells entirely different than I remember.
It’s a good smell, some kind of sweet, expensive perfume mixed with this cold, clean scent that’s probably really just the smell of winter leaking in through the cracks in the rickety doors.
But good isn’t comfortable and, even though I hate it, it’s just another inevitable aspect of her personality that always clashed with mine.
Back when we were together, I was constantly working hard to loo
sen Toni up, make her more relaxed and less hyper-fucking-aware. I wanted to find that little piece of her that I could just sink into and forget the outside world with. It was the holy grail that held my attention through the entirety of our relationship.
But it was Atlantis, a herd of unicorns, the tooth fairy; Toni was and always would be only exactly what she seemed on the surface. There were no hidden depths to the girl.
And I got bored trying to find some secret she didn’t have.
And she got bored trying to make me take life more seriously.
It was the world’s most intensely boring, frustrating relationship.
I haven’t talked to her in years. This is definitely a blast from the past I’d really rather not have when I’m stuck on public transportation for forty-five minutes with no escape hatch.
No matter how cute she might be.
And she sits down next to me. Of course. What else would she do on a drafty, eerily quiet train late on the eve before Christmas Eve?
“So, you want me to call you Antonia instead of Toni? That’s a lot of syllables,” I gripe. “It sounds grown up.”
“We are grown up, Landry.” She unbuttons her coat and loosens the scarf from around her neck. “And everyone still calls me Ann, just like they always did.”
“Ann is boring.”
I cross my arms because it’s cold as a meat-locker on this train, and I have to work not to scowl, but it’s hard. I don’t feel like smiling, mostly due to the combination of Toni and the bitter cold and my hangover all crashing into my guilt over Mila and mixed in with my dread at the thought of what waits for me at home.
Home.
It should be such a reassuring word, but it falls flat and sour in my brain.
“It was always so important to you that I be more interesting.” Her voice is quiet and her focus is on her hands. She’s tugging off her leather gloves, one finger at a time. When she looks up, her eyes are on fire with this kind of sexy defiance. “I always was interesting. Just because I was an achiever didn’t make me some predictable good girl.”
A Toast to the Good Times Page 3