Passion: A Single Dad Small Town Romance

by Bella Winters

  “Enough!” she cried, making it sound like more of a banshee cry than a word. “Enough of this! Enough moping around and acting like the whole world came crashing down because of Neil freaking Driscoll.”

  “I’m not moping,” I answered sulkily, feeling absurdly hurt that she would say something like that to me. Despite the fact that moping was exactly what I was doing, “You asked me what I was thinking about, right? I mean you asked me if I was ready to talk about it, and so I talked. Next time, I’ll just try to remember to keep my mouth shut.”

  “No! Come on, Fay, get real. You totally know that’s not what I meant, or at least you should know. And it’s not just you moping, either. It’s both of us, and it’s stupid. Hence, the enough is enough comment, which I definitely stand by. You and me aren’t just going to sit around and feel shitty, Fay. Not for even one second more.”

  “Okay,” I answered uncertainly, starting to get the distinct feeling that Courtney was up to something. “Well then, what did you have in mind instead?”

  “We’re going out, sister. And before you say no, just don’t.”

  “Don’t? Don’t what?”

  “Don’t say no, of course! You don’t like to go out and get messed up, and I respect that.”

  “Ha!” I shot back, starting to feel halfway decent for the first time since seeing Neil. Maybe even since hearing about his dad and wondering if I was going to see him. “You do, do you? If what you do is considered respect, then I would seriously hate to see what your version of disrespect looks like.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said, waving me off impatiently and looking like she was starting to get legitimately excited now. “And don’t try to change the subject. You don’t really go out, and that’s cool, but tonight you’re going to. I’m putting my foot down, Fay. I’m not taking no for an answer, and you know how freaking stubborn I can be. You can do this the easy way, or the hard way, but you’re coming out with me.”

  “You know what?”

  “No, what?” she asked me suspiciously. Her eyes actually narrowed as she got into the stance she reserved for getting her way at all costs.

  I laughed again and reminded myself that as bummed as I had been feeling all day, I still had it pretty good. I had it very good. I had a lifelong friend that loved me enough to put up with my bullshit and pull me out of my funks, even when I didn’t want to be pulled. She was trying so hard to make me to feel better and doing it the best way she knew how. I could have kissed her for it, but instead, I gave her my biggest, flashiest grin, and returned the wink she’d given me earlier.

  “Oh man, I think I know what,” she said giddily, actually jumping up and down with her tentative, but building, excitement. “But I don’t want to get my hopes up too high! Just tell me, why don’t you? Tell me, and put me out of my freaking misery!”

  “Yes, that’s what. You want to go out, and I say yes. Let’s do it.”

  ***

  And that’s how I came to be sitting in one of the back booths of one of only two bars in all of Ashville. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been there before, because I had. I wasn’t a nun or anything. I wasn’t such a square that I couldn’t go out and have a drink. Although if Courtney had been able to read my head enough to know that I even thought in terms of the word “square,” she would have shaken her head in disgust.

  Still, it had been an oddly difficult day, and I couldn’t help but feel a little bit bowled over by all of the noise and lights in such a relatively small space. It looked like half of Ashville was there, and that was something I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by. It definitely made me glad to be in a booth that was at least a little bit removed from everyone. When Courtney happily announced that she was headed to the bar to get us drinks, I was equally glad I had brought my book along.

  I was well aware that a bar wasn’t exactly a conventional place for a person to read a book, but I had no idea what I was supposed to do with myself while I just sat there alone. I could have gone up with her to get the drinks, but I was pretty sure we would have lost our booth if I’d done that. I didn’t want that, either. So it was the book and my nose in it, and for a surprisingly long time, too. The fact that most of Ashville seemed to be trying to get a drink meant that the wait time was nuts, which only made me feel more vindicated in having my book out in the first place. It was a little piece of comfort in an otherwise unfamiliar scenario.

  “Uh uh! No freaking way, Fay! No! Absolutely not!”

  I looked up, sure that the look on my face was similar to the look a dog wore when he knew he’d been caught doing something he was absolutely not supposed to do. What I saw was Courtney, still at least a couple of feet away from our seats and balancing what looked like enough drinks for six people. She had been in the process of pushing her way through some of the throngs of people when she’d caught sight of my open book. The moment she had seen that, she had shouted out her disapproval.

  Unfortunately, when she did that, at least a half dozen other people turned to see what she was yelling about, some of whom snickered when they saw me. I put the book back in my purse, beginning to wonder if going out with Courtney had been all that good of an idea after all.

  When she slid a full drink and two shots of some kind of pink liquid in my direction, I was almost sure it had been a mistake. Still, when she held out one of the shot glasses reserved for her, I clinked it like I was supposed to. I slung it back in one sip, following Courtney’s lead, and then fought off a spasm of coughs immediately after.

  “Oh, Lord! We really do need to get you out more often, don’t we? That’s only one of the girliest shots around, Fay. This is the kind of thing you start off with in high school and work your way up.”

  “I think I’m good sticking at this level. And why are there so many people in here, anyway?!”

  “Because it’s Saturday night, Fay! This is what people do on the weekends! Welcome to the world, lady.”

  “Hold on, don’t get ahead of yourself. I never said I was going to make this a habit or anything, okay? Let’s just take it one night at a time.”

  “Sure, we can do that. Only do me a favor, will you?”

  “Maybe,” I answered slowly, knowing Courtney well enough to know that accepting her requests for favor at point blank was right on level with writing a blank check for a bank robber. “It depends on what it is.”

  “Nothing big, I promise. Just look over at the bar, will you? A quick look, nothing long and languishing. Just look over there, and tell me what you see.”

  I did so, on the verge of telling her she was a crazy person when I stopped cold and felt my mouth drop open. If Courtney hadn’t reached out and physically turned my face away, I would probably have just gone on staring like a total idiot. Instead, I looked down at my hands, saw the second shot sitting there waiting for me, and slammed it back.

  “Neil,” I said in a flat voice that sounded very far away from where I was. “It’s Neil. I should have known.”

  Chapter 8: Neil

  “Hey, man,” I said. “Remind me to drink here more often, will ya?”

  “What, at Elie’s Place?”

  “No,” I laughed, three whiskeys in and starting to feel pretty fine. “In Alaska. You have no idea how much cheaper this shit is here than it is in Connecticut.”

  “Brother,” Eli said around a shockingly loud belch. “If I never go to Connecticut, not once in my whole goddamn life, I think I’ll be able to die a happy man.”

  “Nah, come on. Don’t get me wrong. Everything is stupid expensive there, but it’s a great place to live.”

  “Oh yeah?” Eli asked, giving me a sideways glance that made it clear he didn’t believe me for even a millisecond. “Why don’t you give me one good reason? Give me one good thing Connecticut and New York and all of those fancy places have that we don’t have here in Ashville.”

  “Well, for starters, we’ve got more than one bar.”

  “We’ve got two, actually, but I get your point
.”

  “See?” I asked, laughing. “There you go. Easiest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “Hold on there. I didn’t say I agreed with you. For starters, you only need one bar to get the job done. Second off, you already said the bars in your new neck of the woods are stupid expensive. So why would I want to go and drink there?”

  “Alright, fine. Point taken. But there’s more of everything, Eli. There’s more restaurants and movie theaters. The apartment buildings. Pretty much everything. Anything you think of that you could get here, you can get somewhere else, but ten times better.”

  “I hear ya. I do. But tell me. If we were to go outside and take a look at what there was to see, would you be able to say the same thing?”

  “I’m not sure I follow you,” I said slowly, although I was almost sure that I did and knew that he’d managed to find an exception to what I considered to be a hard and fast rule. “Every place you go has air, Eli.”

  “Nah, brother, not the freaking air. I think you know that, too. I’m talking about the view. You look out there and tell me there’s land that pretty every place you go. And shit, why not throw the air into the package, too? You can’t tell me that the air in New York City is anything close to as sweet as this. Not even in your fancy Connecticut. Go on, try it. You tell me it’s as good, and I’ll tell you that you’re a liar.”

  “Well, I did go to law school,” I answered with a grin, willing to back down when I was beaten, but not wanting to have to come right out and say it. “So lying is kind of what I’ve been trained for.”

  “I gotcha. At least I think I do.”

  “What about you, man?”

  “What about me? I just run my little barber’s shop, like I told you earlier.”

  “Sure, I know that. I just meant, shit, I don’t know. Do you ever think about getting out of here? Do you ever think about getting out of Ashville?”

  “Me?” he asked me with such a genuine look of surprise that I almost felt stupid for asking the question in the first place. “Why would I want to do a thing like that?”

  “I don’t know. Because there’s a whole world out there. There’s plenty worth seeing, worth doing, outside of Alaska. Believe me, I’ve seen enough of it to know it’s basically endless.”

  “I don’t think that’s the way it would work for me, man.”

  “But why? I guess that’s what I don’t get. Why not?”

  I had a feeling I was starting to sound something on the abrasive side, and there was a part of me that knew the best move at this point would have been to drop it and drink my drink. The thing was, I couldn’t seem to make myself do it. I knew it wasn’t my place to grill Eli the way I was, especially since I hadn’t bothered to be his friend in almost ten years. But I couldn’t make myself drop it, couldn’t make myself let it go. I needed to know.

  I needed to know how a guy, how anyone, any of the people laughing it up around me in one of two town bars, could stay in Alaska and be happy about it. I needed to know how they could make the choice to live in a town, to make that choice every fucking day, and for it to be the same town that I still had nightmares about winding up in again.

  “I don’t think there has to be a real why, Neil. Or let’s put it this way, it’s not something I’ve got the words to tell you the reason for. It’s my home. It’s the place that makes me feel easy in my heart. The idea of living someplace else, it just doesn’t sit well with me. You understand?”

  “Yes and no. I believe that’s the way it is for you. I also believe it would drive me fucking nuts to have to be here any longer than absolutely necessary. I need to be out there, you know? I need to be out there where it feels like life is really happening.”

  “Sure, I believe that. But tell me, brother, what about the women?”

  “What about them?” I asked casually, signaling the bartender’s attention for another round and taking my sweet time answering a question, the meaning of which I knew damn well. “They’ve got women everywhere. You know that.”

  “Shit, Neil, you know what I mean. You said everything’s better in places that aren’t here. Does that same thing go for the women?”

  “Chicks are chicks, Eli. As far as I can tell, that doesn’t change much from place to place.”

  “Now that one, I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with. Some chicks are chicks. Some might as well be goddesses.”

  “Oh man!” I laughed, a laugh that felt surprisingly good after how tightly wound I’d been ever since receiving the news of my father’s death. “Goddesses, huh? It sounds like you’ve been with a different kind of woman than me, Eli. I can’t say I’ve ever met a woman I would call a goddess before.”

  “No?”

  “No, can’t say that I have.”

  “How about Fay Turner? You remember her? If my memory serves me correctly, the two of you were practically married when we were all still in school. Or when the two of you were still in school, anyway. I dropped out at the end of tenth grade.”

  “I wouldn’t say anything close to married, Eli,” I answered in what I hoped was a light tone, feeling most of the levity that had been building up inside of me evaporate at the mention of Fay’s name. “There was never a ring or anything like that. We were just kids, man. You know how it goes.”

  “She was fine though, right? She was definitely hot.”

  I didn’t say anything in response, only sipped on the new drink the bartender had brought me. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say to something like that. A part of me wanted to kick his ass just for talking about her, but that wasn’t right. When she had been my girl, sure. Anyone talking about how hot Fay was would have learned not to disrespect our relationship in front of me. But she hadn’t been my girl for a hell of a long time.

  Besides that, Eli was probably trying to fuck with me by talking about Fay. Call it the lawyer in me, but there was a certain glint in his eye that made me think this was more than reminiscing. And he kept looking over one of my shoulders. I got the distinct feeling that something else was going on. I didn’t want to ask, though. Whatever he was trying to get at, I didn’t want to get roped into it. I’d been having a good time with Eli up until now. I didn’t want to ruin the night with thoughts about the past.

  I decided that I wasn’t going to say anything else until Eli changed the subject, apologized, or did something to try and explain himself. Finally, once the tension had really started to build to a noticeable level, Eli laughed a little and clapped me on the shoulder with a meaty palm.

  “I’m only fucking with you, brother. I couldn’t help it. Just a little ribbing for knocking my hometown.”

  I nodded. “My hometown, too, Eli. Don’t forget that. It’s not like I’m a tourist.”

  He shrugged. “After all of this time, you kind of are a tourist. But anyway, I was also just wondering what your thoughts were on her. Fay that is. You know, seeing as she’s sitting right over there behind you.”

  “What?” My pulse raced faster than I wanted to admit. I suppressed the urge to whip my head around to see if he was telling the truth. “Are you fucking with me again, Eli? Because I gotta say, man, not too cool.”

  He grinned and shook his head. “Nope, not a joke. Not this time, dude. She’s right over there with Courtney. You remember Courtney? Anyway, Courtney and I fuck around from time to time. So I tend to notice her when she’s around. And seeing as Fay never comes out to the bar, she’s pretty easy to spot as well. Plus, almost every guy in here is looking at her right now. Makes it hard to miss her.”

  Against my better judgment, I looked over my shoulder in the direction Eli had been looking, off and on, for the last couple of minutes. It might have been coincidence or fucking fate. It might have been all kinds of things I didn’t pretend to understand, but when I looked in her direction, she was impossible to miss. She was looking right at me.

  Our eyes locked for half a second, and she ducked her head the instant they did. There was no doubt in my mind that s
he’d been looking at me. It was dim in the bar, but I thought I saw her start to blush immediately after I looked in her direction. I had to smile at that, despite the fact that I was almost ready to get up and sprint out the door.

  All of a sudden, I remembered that Fay had never been able to hide it when she blushed. Her face was so perfectly creamy that it looked like she’d never stepped foot outside, even though I knew she was one of the most outdoorsy girls I had ever met. Her pale complexion made it painfully easy to see it when her face went red. It was something I’d always liked about her.

  Remembering that made me think about our shitty meeting in the diner. I’d bailed as soon as I’d seen her. Just the sight of Fay awakened uncomfortable feelings inside me that I didn’t want to deal with. Opening up those old wounds seemed like more trouble than it was worth. But maybe that wasn’t quite fair to her. The two of us definitely had a history together, and she didn’t look particularly pissed to see me, after all.

  “What do you say, man?” Eli asked loudly, speaking up so I could hear him over the ever-rising din of the strangely honky-tonk Alaskan bar.

  “What do I say to what?” I asked back.

  “You feel up to going over there with me? I know you don’t have any time for women, or at least, that’s the way you make it sound. But it’s been a while for me and Courtney, and she’s the best piece of ass I’ve ever had. She strikes me as a little bit crazy, which is something I appreciate in a girl.”

  “Yeah, man, if that’s what you want to do. I can play wingman.”

  Eli nodded at me in agreement. Although, I thought I saw a little look there that said he thought I was bullshitting if I was trying to convince him that part of me wasn’t heading over to that table for me. The two of us got up to go.

  Almost immediately, our places at the bar were swallowed up, making the impromptu decision feel like a disturbingly final one. For the time it took us to walk from the bar top to the little booth Courtney and Fay were holed up in, I felt like I was walking through no man’s land. There was always the chance that my ex would still freak out, tell me what a piece of shit I was, and make it clear that she only wanted me to drop dead.