That Summer

by Michelle Flick

  I had had enough of her at this point. Okay, I had had enough of her after two minutes of her sitting at the corner of my bar, running her mouth about everything. Her name was Margaret. She had said her last name when she introduced herself, but I hadn’t cared enough to pay attention.

  She was drunk, but that wasn’t the problem. I could handle drunk people; I was a bartender. It was that she was a mean drunk. She commented on how other girls were dressing. She called one a slut because she danced with a guy. She hit on a guy and he ignored her, so he was a dick.

  She slammed her glass on the bar for the second time and called out, “I need another.” In truth, I should have seen her glass emptying and been right on top of it to fill it. But she was rude and probably hitting her limit.

  I looked at Jack and gave him a smile, instead of going to fill her glass.

  She slammed the glass again on the bar. I couldn’t ignore her. It was a Monday night and the place wasn’t exactly hopping. I walked down to her and grabbed her empty glass.

  “It’s about time.”

  I ignored the comment.

  I handed her the drink, took the money she had laying on the bar, and cashed her out.

  I didn’t know if I should be impressed or not, but she threw back the drink and downed it.

  “Since it takes you so long, I’ll have another,” and slammed her glass again on the bar.

  “I think you’re done.”

  “Excuse me,” she said coolly, a slight slur had started to trickle into her vocabulary.

  “I said, ‘you’re done’.”

  “You can’t cut me off. I’m a paying customer.”

  “Joe says I can cut off anyone I want when I think they’ve had too many. You’ve had too many.”

  My hand was resting on the bar, and she grabbed it, roughly. I imagined the purpose was to intimidate me. I saw Jack stand up out of the corner of my eye. I put up my free hand and told him to stay where he was with the gesture. He didn’t move, but he didn’t sit down either.

  “I want another drink.”

  “Okay,” I said smoothly. She released my arm and looked at me, clearly pleased with the outcome.

  I made her another drink. I give Jack a smirk and a wink. My smile is gone when I look back at her.

  I then threw the drink on her. She sputtered, shook her hands, and let out a short scream.

  “Get out of my bar,” is all I said.

  “How dare you!” she ranted.

  “Get out,” I replied.

  “You’re going to pay for that!”

  “Get out.” I turned and went to stand by Jack again.

  She stood there a little while longer, hollering for someone to make her reaction justifiable.

  The left corner of Jack’s mouth was curved up, his eyebrow, slightly arched. “You think that’s funny?” I asked him.

  “I just never know what you’re gonna do next.”

  “It’s kind of why you like me.”

  He nodded at me.

  I smile for two reasons: the vision of that girl soaking wet is still funny to me and I love Jack’s smiles. He has a range of them, but he doesn’t share them all the time or to everyone.

  “I promise not to soak her, alright?” I say and go to get Amber’s friend a drink.

  “Vodka cran?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” she says. No please involved.

  I make it, cash her out, and ask the three other women if they need anything.

  “I’ll have a Bud Light,” Amber says cautiously. I can see she’s wary of me. She’s probably wondering why I’m back. She’s probably wondering if I’m going to go after Jack.

  Not anymore, I want to say to her. It might have been my intention, but if he’s happy, I’ll leave him be. I hadn’t expected this to be our turn out. But I loved him, and if he is happy, I’ll let him be. I want to bawl my eyes out, but I give her a smile, grab the beer, and tell her it’s on me. Call it a peace offering. I get back to work.

  JM

  My heart stops a little when I see Remy walk over to Amber and her friends. I’d seen Melissa slamming her glass on the bar and remembered a time when Remy had dumped a drink on a drunk woman. Would there be a scene? Melissa could cause them and Remy could finish them.

  Remy just makes the drink. She gets Amber a beer and I notice she doesn’t charge her.

  I had been with Amber for three years. Three really good years, once I accepted Remy was not coming back. But here, at Joe’s, with the two of them in the same room, it is painfully obvious how Remy steals the show. And not just from Amber, but from every woman in this place.

  Remy stands behind the bar, her hair lightening up more from the summer. Her real smile was in place on her face as she laughs and jokes with patrons from the bar. Men and women alike watch and talk to her. They seek out to be part of her conversations, feel her friendly smile and energetic attention on them, a friendly face that’s intoxicating.

  Eight years later, everyone still wants to be part of her.

  Everyone but Amber and her friends. She sits on a bar stool at the corner of the bar. I watch my girlfriend, watching Remy. And while I think Amber is pretty, Remy’s beautiful. While Amber is kind, Remy’s generous. While Amber is smart, Remy is worldly. While I love Amber, Remy made me feel like I could conquer the world with just a look.

  I take a swig of my beer and pray the night flies by.

  Chapter 4

  JM

  She could talk to anyone. I mean anyone, the drunk at the end of the bar, the shy girl who stood outside the fire, a crowd of old guys like my dad and Joe, and, well maybe not a group of girls. She never did make any girl friends when she was here that summer. She stuck to Jared and me. So maybe Remy couldn’t talk to everyone, but at the very least she could win over the patrons of Joe’s without even trying.

  I look at friends of mine, friends of my dad’s, my dad and all of them laughed on cue with her jokes, teased her mercilessly about her lack of a southern drawl, and fell under the charm of her smile.

  “Don’t you all have wives or girlfriends to get home to?” she asks as she makes change for a beer.

  “Do I?” Larry Smith asks. “Oh, yeah. Can’t reckon her name when I’m with you,” he says good naturedly. Larry had been teasing Remy from the moment she got in here.

  “Her name’s Betty,” Joe pipes in. “And stop hitting on my help!” he says with a smile. He knows the appeal Remy brings to Joe’s. He has several bartenders in here just like her. None of them seemed to stay. I doubted Remy would stay either, or again? I didn’t know. I just knew her staying had a short time frame attached to it.

  “How’s that place treating you?” My dad asks her.

  “I got a lot of things to do at that house,” she says with an easy smile.

  “Like what?” Jared asks. “Your grandpa worked every day on that house. Steve’s dad took care of it. What could you possibly have to do?”

  “Cleaning. That’s for sure. I finally finished,” she says with a laugh. “Every day I tackled a room. I’m pretty sure I’ve burned more brain cells on bleach these past few weeks than one should. I need a security system. Back steps need fixing. Steve’s offered to come by and fix them for me.

  Steve Carter. Biggest douche of this town, as well as a womanizer. He was just offering to help her to get in her pants. He doesn’t know one thing about construction. He knew how to cut lawns and weed. He was useless.

  “I’m pretty sure I know a couple of guys who could fix your porch for you,” Joe says, just loud enough for everyone at the bar to hear it, including my dad.

  It is a dig at me or a push or something from Joe. Maybe an experiment to see how we would react to each other, considering our conversations haven’t gone above ‘how you been” and “what can I get you.”

  “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself,” she says, gives him a wink, and grabs someone else a beer.

  “How would I have guessed you would have a bar full already,” came from
behind us. Several people turn, including Jared, but I don’t. I know who it is. That voice has been annoying me since high school.

  “Steve, you done mowing lawns?” Jared asks. My best friend is many things, but a jackass to Steve is one of my favorites. With a big grin on his face, he calls for another beer.

  Steve sidles up to the bar, looking clean shaven, as if he had primped for a Thursday night at Joe’s which was ridiculous, until I saw him wink at Remy. It all begins to click into place. Steve’s dad was in charge of the upkeep of her house. Steve offered to fix her steps when he couldn’t. He was in Joe’s like it was Saturday night when Remy was working. He liked her that summer and what would stop him from liking her now? Absolutely nothing. Son of a bitch.

  “You don’t think Remy would go after a douche like that?”

  Jared must have drawn the same conclusion as I had.

  She laughs at something he says.

  No. Remy wouldn’t.

  “Did you get my text?” she asks.

  That doesn’t mean anything. It could be about the stairs. I did my best to be interested in the label on my beer bottle and the dirt on my hands.

  This is not my business.

  Jared did not feel that way. “So, how’s the grass growing these days?” he calls to the other end at Steve.

  “Better than throwing concrete.”

  “Well, I was always better at working hard than sitting on my ass like you always did. Do you remember,” he continues before Steve can get a jab in, “in high school on the football team when you dropped the winning pass for states. Robbed us of the title.”

  “Looks like you’re still in high school, Albright,” Steve says. “I’m going to grab a table,” he says to Remy. He is pissed. Good. I hope he stays pissed and away from here.

  She comes down to us and leans on the bar next to Jared. She doesn’t make eye contact with me. “What was that about?”

  “Guy’s a douche.”

  She laughs at his frankness.

  “You can’t scare my customers away, ya know?”

  “He’s not a customer, Rem. He’s a douche. Pay attention.” He gives her a big smile and takes a drink.

  “Thanks for the reminder,” she says with a wink.

  I don’t talk much while we all sit here. I want to ask her if Steve had been contacting her a lot, if he was only taking care of the landscape. The Steve that I know and the Remy I remember had nothing in common. I actually couldn’t see her tolerating him. She called him a tool a lot if I remember correctly, and when it comes to Remy there isn’t much I don’t remember.

  She moves behind the bar, her blond hair swaying with her body language. She’s the type of girl that when she talks she uses her whole body. Her hands move constantly. Her hips shake when she’s excited. Her shoulder slumps for dramatic effect. Her antics behind the bar get her smiles and laughs from the patrons.

  And I can’t help it; I look to see if Steve is paying attention to her. He’s texting someone, and I feel better until I realize her phone buzzes the moment he sets down his phone.

  Chapter 5

  RC

  My brain is pounding against my skull. No, that’s not right. I didn’t drink last night. I crack my eyes open, rub them to get them to focus, and realize the pounding is an actual noise and not something self-inflicted or imagined.

  I lie there for a few minutes, waking up, trying to think of what this noise is. Neighbors are not an option and slowly I think it is Steve doing something with the landscaping company, but I don’t know what the hell that would be at, I groan because the clock says seven in the morning. This brings me to option two; some jackwagon was going to get my foot up his ass for waking me up this damn early.

  Now annoyed, I stumble out of bed and head to the porch from my bedroom. I no longer care if it’s Steve; this shit is ridiculous. Then my anger rushes out of me.

  Jared and Jack are on my porch, hammering and fixing my back steps.

  I am suddenly aware that I’m in a t-shirt and underwear and I’m sure I have bed head and not gently tousled hair, but more of a rats nest and God, I hope I don’t have food in my hair. Of all the freaking people.

  “Got coffee?” Jared asks.

  I roll my eyes. “You want coffee? Didn’t you bring your own?” I retort back.

  “We’re fixing your porch for free. Your ass owes me coffee. I don’t know what you owe him, but you can start with coffee.”

  Jack has no reaction to this.

  I want to crawl under a rock.

  Jared smiles real big. He’s up to something. I just know it.

  “Coffee it is,” I say thankful for a reprieve and a chance to control my hair and put on pants. Pants would be good, but maybe overrated. I laugh, but know underwear is still too much.

  I start the coffee, throw my hair up on top of my head, and put on a pair of gym shorts. Utilizing my bartending skills, I balance the three coffee cups and head out.

  They both stop when they see me, and Jack moves to help me. His fingertips graze mine as he takes two cups. I feel the contact right down to my toes and he does too. I see it in his eyes, because the moment he touches me, his eyes shoot to mine and for a split second I’m lost in them and then he turns to give Jared his cup.

  I settle into an Adirondack chair and ask, “So you guys have nothing better to do on a Friday morning at seven than to fix my steps?”

  “We do,” Jared says.

  “We just thought you could use the help,” Jack adds. Always taking care of others.

  “You going to help? We are doing this for free, ya know?” Jared says with a smile and I know he’s not serious.

  “Nope. I’m going to enjoy my coffee as I watch two very handsome construction workers work on my steps.” They both smile at me. I raise my cup to them in cheers and sip.

  So seven in the morning is not my friend, but if I’m up, being with these two is an okay thing. I drift off as I watch them work, and have to mentally shake myself because I get lost in Jack. Since my return, this is the longest I have been around him and the longest time that I have had to get a look at him without bar lights.

  In the Carolina morning sun, he’s handsome; he’s sexy; he still makes my insides feel more like liquid than bone. He still wears his baseball cap forward and low over his eyes. His t-shirt is worn, and I can see the muscles in his back flex each time he lifts a board or swings a hammer. He’s still got it and before I start to fantasize about him right in front of him, I stand up and go get the coffee pot. Mentally shaking myself to put my game face on, I head back out.

  Jared looks up when he hears the door shut and gives me a funny look. Well actually, he gives my chest a funny look. I’m about to call him a perv to his face, but he talks first.

  “Dude,” he says to Jack. “Didn’t you have a shirt like—“ and he stops. Why does he only just notice the shirt now and not before?

  I look down and realize what shirt I’m wearing. I’m wearing Jack’s shirt from, well from the first time we had sex.

  Jack doesn’t miss a beat and nor does he look at me. “Yeah, I did.” He goes about his job and Jared does, too. They both thank me for the coffee and I take my seat again, hugging my knees to my chest, unwilling to look at Jack, I stare at the ocean and go back.

  I had not wanted anything the way that I wanted him. And for me, that was new. I wanted everything, all the time. I was infatuated with life, the new, the exciting, and here was Jack Monroe with the soft green eyes, and the hint of a dimple, making me want the quiet, the slow, the simple.

  Before moving here, everything I just said wouldn’t have caught my attention, ever. But there was something in him that made me want to cling to him for all the right reasons and that, too, was new for me.

  He was everything I wasn’t.

  His life was everything I had wanted and just thought was out of my reach, so I had told myself never to want it, to never think of it, and here he was making me think about it, without asking me to.
/>
  He leaned in, giving me the option to refuse him, and I wanted to tell him there was nothing I wouldn’t give him. I leaned in, brushing my lips across his. He paused, waiting for me to kiss him again. Like I said, there was nothing I wouldn’t have given him. My lips brushed his again, longer this time. My hand reached up and found the back of his neck, hoping to show him I wanted him to kiss me longer.

  My lips continued to kiss his, until his mouth opened, inviting me in. His hands finally touched my sides, and he moved to his knees, pushing me down onto the blanket, all without breaking the kiss. The weight of his body on mine elicited a moan from deep within me.

  He abruptly broke the kiss.

  “Jack?” I asked, fearful he is going to stop.

  “You can’t make noises like that Rem. I can’t keep control if you do that.”

  A smile splayed across my face.

  “You also can’t look at me that way and expect me to—“

  “I don’t want you to keep control, Jack,” I know it was what he was fighting for.

  It was clear I couldn’t say things like that to him either, because he groaned in a different way.

  “Kiss me, Jack and know, if I want you to stop, I’ll tell you.”

  “Promise me,” he said.

  “I promise,” and he leaned back down on me. His hard body fitting perfectly against the contours of my curves. My hands traveled along his biceps, his shoulders, his lower back, and lightly I grazed his butt, and it was his turn to groan, for the right reason.

  He buried his face into the crook of my neck and the warmth of his breath on my neck was enough to make me beg him to lose control.

  “Jack,” I whispered into his ear, “please lose control.” I felt him smile into my skin. He picked up his head slightly and began trailing kisses from my neck to my ear, and the moment his tongue made contact behind my ear, I let out a gasp as a surge of desire shot down to my toes. I heard him chuckle.

  He continued kissing my neck, but moved lower again and I realized he was going to take his time and there was a part of me that didn’t think I could wait that long. I moved my legs so they could wrap around his hips and bucked against his. He groaned again and said, “You’re not going to let me do this right, are you?”