by Jayne Denker
“Sorry. I’m running late—”
“So glad this was your idea. You getting here sometime this year?”
“I’m working on it.”
“I have had a day. I intend to drink quite a bit.”
“I’ll text you when I’m on my way, all right?”
Realizing he didn’t have much choice in the matter, Will grunted and ended the call, drained his beer, and signaled for a third. Cam was right; it didn’t matter if he had company or not. He felt plenty comfortable at the Nail and Bail all by himse—
“Hey, stranger.”
Oh no.
Will braced himself before turning to the person leaning in next to him. “Kyra. How’ve you been?”
“Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Yeah, well. I’ve been busy. How about you?”
“Totally not busy. Work, party, pass out, repeat. You know.”
He really didn’t want to spend any time with Kyra tonight. His unfailing politeness surfaced anyway, so he tried to make some requisite small talk before sending her on her way. “Ready for Christmas?”
“Got an empty space under my tree, waiting for a real nice gift,” she said in the “special” husky voice she trotted out when she wanted only one thing. “Maybe you could fill it.”
Will did everything in his power to keep from flinching when Kyra ran a finger up his forearm. Good lord. Had it really been as recently as a few months ago that he’d considered . . . ? What had he been thinking? Kyra was certainly attractive—that wasn’t the issue. It was just . . . what? He hadn’t had a problem with her before. But now he had no interest. He paused to double check. Nope, he determined. None. He felt nothing.
And now she was draping her arms around his neck, oblivious to the fact that his opinion of her had changed drastically. He leaned away, trying to politely disengage from her grasp.
“Um, hey, Kyra? Do you . . .” He was forced to physically lift her dead-weight arms off him. Apparently Kyra had been at the bar for quite a while, probably ever since her shift at the fruit cannery ended. “Do you mind? I’m going to hang out with my brother tonight, and—”
“I don’t see any brother.”
“Yeah, he’s running a little late. Anyway, you know how it is. Family and all.”
“I hate my family.”
“Ah.”
“And they hate me. Good for nothing sonsabitches.”
“Okay . . . so anyway, do you mind—?”
Suddenly Kyra stumbled into him instead of away from him, her drink spilling, the booze spreading across the bar. A dark head popped up over Kyra’s shoulder.
“Gosh, so sorry. I really gotcha there, didn’t I? Yeah, it’s gonna leave a mark. Yikes. You’ll want to put some ice on that. Oh hey, Officer! Didn’t see you there! Wow, long time, huh? Hey, blondie? Do you mind if I just . . . get in . . . here . . .”
And Jordan elbowed Kyra out of the way so effectively that before the other woman knew it, she’d been pushed behind the bar stools, completely blocked by Jordan’s blank back. Jordan fused herself to Will’s side to form an impenetrable wall.
“Excuse me!” came Kyra’s plaintive wail.
“Are you still here? Oh right, you need your drink. Dude?” Jordan called to the bartender. “Can you replace this lady’s drink? She’s having it over there.” She pointed to the far end of the bar, or more likely the dark corner booth so far away from the rest of the bar and its patrons it might has well have had a sign that read “Here be dragons.”
“What are you doing here?” Will asked, also ignoring Kyra, who was up on her toes, trying to see over their shoulders and stay in their conversation.
“I heard it was a good place to pick up off-duty cops.”
“Very funny.”
“Okay.” The meaningful look she gave him finally sank in to his slightly buzzy cranium. She wasn’t kidding.
“Who told you . . . ? Cam,” he muttered, answering his own question. Then another light dawned. “He’s not coming at all, is he?”
“Nope.” Jordan winked at him over her glass, then pulled out her phone and texted someone with just one thumb.
Within seconds, Will got a text from Cam: You’re in good hands now. I’m bowing out. Will you please go for it! He sighed heavily and put his phone in his pocket.
“Okay, what’s all this about?”
“I said I’d go with you to the wedding if you did one thing for me, right?”
“What . . . you mean the whole ‘lighten up’ thing? Are you serious?”
“Totally.” She reached out and nudged Will’s beer toward him.
“I am not getting drunk with you.”
“It’s only fair. The first time you came on to me, you were drunk and I was sober.”
“I did not—”
“Shut up. Yes you did. That time, I sent you home. Then, when I came on to you, you were sober and I may have been a little tipsy. I blame a very small amount of alcohol without food, thanks to your mom’s cooking. That time, you sent me home.”
“What about the time . . . you know. Halloween. We were both sober.”
“And it worked out so well, didn’t it? So drink up. It’s time we level the playing field.”
“Don’t you think it’s a bad sign if all this requires alcohol?”
Jordan shook her head. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, and again, and again. You think too much. I am trying to turn off the filter that keeps you from doing anything without running all the different possible scenarios first.”
“And you have no filter.”
“Darn right.”
“Hey,” Kyra snapped from behind them.
Jordan casually looked over her shoulder at the irate woman. To Will, she said, “She never takes a hint, does she?” Will hid his smile while Jordan grabbed Kyra’s new drink the bartender had placed in front of them, despite Jordan’s instructions to serve it far away, and slid it the length of the bar with a practiced arm. “Fetch!”
Kyra did.
Jordan lifted her glass and held it in the air, waiting for Will to clink it with his beer bottle. “Let’s get cracking.”
He started to toast her but hesitated at the last minute, tipping his bottle backward instead of forward. “On one condition.”
“Oh my Goooooddd what is it with you?” she groaned. “No! No conditions.”
“One condition.”
Rubbing her forehead tiredly, she muttered, “What?”
“Swear you’re not doing this to get me drunk and take advantage of me.”
“. . . I can’t swear to that.”
“You’d better, or I’m outta here right now.”
“Fine, Galahad. Your purity is safe with me. I swear,” she added, making a dopey face, which completely negated her promise immediately.
Still, she looked so darn cute sitting there, waiting not so patiently for him to agree, that he found himself grinning and tapping her drink with his. “Okay, then. I’m holding you to it.”
“That is so not the thing I want you to be holding me to.”
“Keep it clean, now, lady.”
“Not a chance.”
Chapter 23
What had it been, an hour? Two? And three beers? Five? Seven?. . . What came after seven, again? . . . All sorts of numbers were ricocheting around in Will’s head, along with all sorts of other impressions, snatches of conversation, fragments of his memory and bits of thoughts. Honestly, it felt a lot like a game of dodgeball was going on in his head—missiles flying everywhere, bouncing off the walls, smacking into every last ounce of sense still standing till they collapsed, one by one, curling up on the floor in a fetal position and moaning.
He’d known this was a bad idea, and damned if he hadn’t been proven right. And pretty quickly too. He’d resisted at first. Sipped his beer instead of chugging it. Tried to turn down Jordan’s invitation to dance to the tunes blaring from the jukebox. (She danced? Who knew?) Attempted to refuse to participate in a
game or three of Drunk Darts or Beer Pong or Quarters. Failed at all of it. And here they were, still managing to get more alcohol down their necks, and Will had managed to keep Jordan in her seat and talking when she was more inclined to avoid deep conversation, by nature.
“You had a crush on Summer?!”
Yes, when all else failed, he’d managed to keep her pinned to her barstool by telling her some of his deep, dark secrets. Because if he ’fessed up, maybe she would too.
“A little louder, there, Leigh. I don’t think the guy in the bathroom heard you.”
“Details.”
“Nothing to tell,” he demurred, but he could feel his face getting warm. Well, warmer than it was already, what with the alcohol and all. “It wasn’t a crush—I just admired her.”
“And you still do?”
“Admire her? Sure. And because of that, sometimes I’m not sure if I want her to stay with Cam or run for the hills.”
“Yeah, Cam does have that effect on women.”
“Are you ever going to tell me what happened between you two?”
“Good grief, again? Absolutely nothing happened. Stop worrying about it.”
“I’m not worrying about it!”
“Then why do you keep bringing it up?” Jordan sighed heavily. “Let me spell it out for you, okay? I. Do. Not. Have. A. Thing. For. Cam. There—clear enough for you?”
“Why not? He’s the best-looking Nash boy. And he’s, you know, fun.” Will didn’t mean to spit his last word, but that was the way it came out.
“Hah. He isn’t much fun, once you spend enough time around him. You should know that. And he’s not the best-looking Nash boy either.”
“I dunno. General consensus in Marsden—”
“General consensus can suck it. Majority vote is stupid.” Jordan paused, then asked, “Why did you want to be a cop? Wait—don’t tell me. You wanted to save the world. You wanted to make a difference. You wanted to bring the bad guys to justice. Are there bad guys in Marsden?”
“I wanted to stay home.”
“What, now?”
Will shrugged. “I wanted to stay in Marsden. Because I love it. And as you know so well, there aren’t a whole lot of year-round jobs in town, and I’m not an artist—don’t say it,” he ordered, pointing the neck of his beer bottle at her.
So she just mouthed “Quilter,” then grinned broadly at him.
And the smile stayed. It wasn’t one of her usual meteor-flash smiles, but a genuine one that remained on her lips, lighting up her whole face. It was the moment Will found himself on the edge of a virtual cliff. Heart hammering, hands clammy, forehead sweaty, stomach swooping like he was on a rollercoaster that had crested a rise and was poised above a downslope to end all downslopes.
Jordan was dazzling.
Sure, she was a firecracker, just as his brothers had described her. And she was often cranky, and way too blunt for her own good. But God, she was beautiful; he hadn’t been lying when he’d told her that. And she was kind, in her way. And never, ever boring. Or predictable. And Will wanted her more than anything or anyone he’d ever wanted in his life.
Despite all his neighbors who sneered at her and were convinced she’d steal their shoes off their feet or set fire to their doghouses or whatever it was they thought she’d do. They were wrong, and he was right. Like Jordan had just said, general consensus could suck it.
“What?” she demanded, and he realized he’d been staring at her. For how long? He had no idea.
He decided to go for broke. “Jordan? Serious question: What do you want?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Whachoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?”
He made a face. “Again with the W names? I thought that was done.”
“That’s what you thought. I never agreed to it. But okay—honestly, that was my last, best one. I was saving it for a special occasion. Couldn’t let it go to waste.”
“So now you’re done?”
“Now I’m done . . . Billy.” And she winked at him.
Will groaned and buried his head in his hands. “How is anybody going to take me seriously when that’s still going around?”
“Oh, nobody’s going to mistake you for not being serious,” she said, sitting back and draping her arm over the back of her barstool. “It’s your thing. You’re always serious. You always have been. Like what you said after we got caught under the table in kindergarten.”
Will looked up, openmouthed. “You remember that?”
“Of course I do. Best date I ever had.”
“Funny.”
“I mean it. Anyway, remember after, when we got dragged in front of the principal by Mrs. Osterberg, and our parents were called to come in too? You said, totally seriously, ‘But you don’t understand. I’m going to marry her.’”
“I did not.”
“What, you blocked it?”
“You’re making it up,” he insisted, even as some dim memory sparked in his brain—if not exactly what he’d said, then what had happened after, when all four of their parents, and the principal, and their teacher, had burst out laughing.
“Ask your parents. I’ll bet they remember. Hell, I’ll bet Mrs. Osterberg remembers! Let’s go ask her.” And Jordan made a move as if to get up and go to the old woman’s house.
He put a hand out to stop her. “Pass.”
Resettling in her seat, Jordan said, “My point stands. I could always get a laugh out of just about any guy except you. Come to think of it, I could always get just about anything out of any guy. Except you.”
There was a pause. Jordan was looking at him evenly, still her usual casual self, but a little bit of something extra shimmered around her. It dawned on Will that this was what she was like when she was being honest.
He wanted to say How about trying now? Now’s good. But he didn’t.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he murmured instead. “What do you want?”
A beat, then, “I want to rock.”
He threw his hands in the air. “Will you please be serious for more than ten seconds at a time?”
“No! Besides, I told you to lighten up, and look what you’re doing—getting all somber and shit. Absolutely not. I forbid it. It’s time for another beer. And then,” she added, with a wicked gleam in her eye, “I think it’s time we looked into doing some minor law-breaking of our own.”
“Ohhhh no. Absolutely not.”
“I don’t mean knock over a liquor store or anything! Just, you know, a little sumpin’ to get the ol’ juices flowing.”
“Not on your life. You’re still on the wrong side of the law, remember. And me . . . I’m leaving the criminal acts to another Nash brother.”
“That thing with Jess is really bothering you, isn’t it?”
“I have to turn him in, but with his record . . . if this turns out to be a class E felony, it could get him in more serious trouble.”
“It’s a prank war. Who cares? It’s not like he killed somebody.”
“Or rode a stolen horse through a casino.”
“Hey, I had good intentions. That filly wanted it as much as I did. As for Jesse . . . you don’t have to turn him in.”
“Jordan, I don’t have a choice. It’s the law.”
This all brought back the memories of Jesse’s last arrest for vandalism and possession . . . the arguing, his pleading with Will to get him off the hook, make it all go away. Will’s refusal . . . and the end of their friendship. Nothing would prevent them from being bonded by blood and family, but their comfortable relationship with one another was done. Jesse had completely lost his trust in Will. “You don’t have my back,” he’d said, which had stung. Will had tried to explain, tried to get Jesse to see it from his point of view, but nothing had ever worked.
“You always have a choice. You could look the other way. I’d never tell that I saw him.”
“There’s video evidence. I saw the video.”
Jordan pulled out her phone. She pushed one but
ton, then another, then said, “What video?”
“You didn’t.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Jordan, even if you deleted the video, we both still know what happened.”
“No, we don’t. I never saw a thing and never told you about it either. See how easy that is?”
This was wrong. Will knew it was all kinds of wrong. And yet all he could say in response was, “Didn’t you say something about another beer?”
“That’s my boy.”
“You. Are. A bad influence.” Will had the vague notion he was shouting, but he couldn’t seem to stop. It was like his volume control was broken. “A very bad influence. You corrupt me.”
“Well, good,” Jordan answered, ducking close to his side as he threw an arm over her shoulders.
“However, you cannot convince me to drive home in our present ineb . . . inebri . . . drunken state.”
“That, I happen to agree with. You’re plastered, I’m plastered.”
“You sure you’re not just faking it to keep me company?”
“Dude. I never fake it.”
That one statement almost sobered Will up right there. He untangled himself from Jordan before he did something stupid. Even in his ineb, inebri, drunken state, he had the wherewithal to use common sense in that regard, although the parts of his body that weren’t his brain were screaming for a different outcome.
“So how do we get home?” she asked. “Walk?”
Will and Jordan had achieved a goal they’d set early on and closed down the bar after downing about ninety percent of its contents. And it had had the exact effect Jordan had promised—he had lightened up. So much, in fact, that he felt like he could float home, soaring above the hillside roads like a googly eyed, far-less-cool Superman.
“Can’t walk. Too far. We’d freeze to death.”
“Well, what then? Call your brother?”
“It’d serve him right. Where’s my phone?”
“In your hand.”
“No. Really?” He checked. “Well, wouldja look at that.” He blearily poked a few buttons. “Um . . . can’t.”
“Gimme.” Jordan tried as well, and finally succeeded. “Ringing. Here.” And she held it out to him.
He put it up to his ear. “There’s something wrong with the phone. I can’t hear anything.”