“What?” both Raven and I squawk in unison again. My God, we have to stop doing that.
“That’s right.” Low wags that star sparkling on her finger in the air once again. “Levi and I have decided to get hitched right here in the bar. What better place to commemorate the night we first laid eyes on each other?”
“Didn’t you land behind bars that first night?” I’m quick to point out. “Perhaps your nuptials are better suited to be held at the Hollow Brook Police Department.” A part of me demands to stick a pin in that ginormous helium balloon Low has inflated with lust, or infatuation. The good Lord knows, she hasn’t known Levi all that long either.
“Details.” She rolls her eyes, and much to my relief my phone buzzes deep in my purse. I fish it out of Poppy. It’s a text from Serena.
Is this really you? What the hell are you thinking?! I cannot be your sister if you’ve devolved to this level. The poor woman was deaf for God’s sake!
“What?” I hiss, trying my best to click on the link she’s sent. Both Raven and Low gather to my side, but I couldn’t care less about their impromptu snooping. Serena sounds distressed, and what is she talking about—deaf?
A video pops up on my screen of me wagging my face and my finger at that mustache lady yesterday morning, and I gasp.
“Oh no!” My fingers fly to my lips because God knows I’m begging to let a few expletives fly myself.
“What’s this?” Low takes the phone from me and scrolls down a notch. “Who’s ChiwawaMama91, and why is she saying you’re this crazy woman with a green face and rollers?”
“What?” I snatch the phone back, and sure enough, the caption under the vile video reads my nasty neighbor Alexa Maxfield, food critic at Food Crack Nation, disparaging a disabled person in an explosive psychotic rant. Mrs. Gale is a vet who served this country as a photographer and lost her hearing in a roadside explosion while covering our troops. #fireElphaba “Judas Priest.” I bury the phone in my chest and give a caustic look around as if Stumpy might actually appear and I can promptly beat the hell out of her. That word! Gah!,
“Is that really you?” Raven takes the phone from me and the video plays again on a loop. “Yup, I can see fifty shades of wicked under that green flesh. How long does it take to apply your foundation in the morning, anyway?”
“Would you stop!” Low snatches the phone from her and shakes her head at the screen. “Oh no. It gets worse! Food Crack Nation was one of the first to respond.”
I snatch the phone back and read it. “Not to worry, we fired the wicked witch weeks ago for equally disparaging behavior.” I growl at the phone because I happen to know that Dan Rodgers is at the social media helm at my old place of employment. The next time I see that half car he folds himself into parked around town, I’m going to spit on his windshield.
Low pulls me back by the elbow as if we were about to brawl. “Is this true?”
Both she and Raven wear matching looks of horror.
“Yes, it’s true.” I give a quick glance into the crowd just as Levi comes over and burrows his face into Low’s neck.
Raven audibly gags. “Get a room.” She takes off for the bar proper and leaves me amidst the dry humping and the giggling.
“Come on.” Levi hitches his head toward the band. “I want to dance. I can feel a slow song coming on—one that might just be dedicated to you.” He glances up. “Oh, hey, Lex. Good to see you.” He waggles his brows. “Ax has been asking about you all night.”
“Stop being so terrible!” Low giggles as he steals her away. She does her best to look back. “Don’t you dare leave! I’m tackling you again in about five minutes!”
The music shifts to something softer and slower, a cover of “Key Largo” by Bertie Higgins. I know the song well because for the brief time Low was living with me she played it on an endless mind-numbing loop. Apparently, it’s her song, her father’s song, and now it’s their song. I groan at the idea of a couple’s song in general. It’s all so codependent I can vomit.
Shockingly, my high heels scuttle me deeper into the restaurant and not toward the exit like I demanded. Ax and his buddies decided to keep the old miner décor when they took it over, and I will admit I love the old world feel, the rustic cracked plank floors, the distressed picnic tables, and reclaimed wood lining the walls. The Mason jars they serve their drinks in and the cutlery that looks as if it’s hand-hewn from silver tree branches add to the charm. It’s cozy and the food is terrific, or at least it is now that Low revamped the menu. Honestly, after hearing the horror stories of the previous menu, they’re pretty lucky I never gave them that first critique a few months back. That’s the night I walked into this place and right back out once I saw Axel standing smug at the helm of the bar. He took my breath away in that business attire he’s known to sport at all hours of the day. Axel in a well-tailored Italian suit has always been my weakness. That’s pretty much when everything went to hell in a Low-shaped handbasket. I take a few steps deeper into the lively establishment, trying my best to shake Axel Collins right out of my head and bump into a body—Axel Collins himself.
“Lexy,” he says it so soft, his brows dipped into a hard V with a level of concern on his face that I’ve never seen before, and just like that my next breath is knocked right out of me. It’s almost unfair the way my body demands to react to his. My blood pressure spikes, my cheeks slap with heat, and my thighs—they are the biggest traitors of them all the way they quiver for him. It all amounts to an unspoken invitation that my body gifts his without my permission. “Raven just told me about the video.”
The man standing next to him that looks like an overgrown frat boy shakes his head. “Dude, it’s going viral.”
Ax smacks him in the gut without breaking eye contact with me. “Is that why you requested the material on refinancing? I’ll help you, Lexy. I want to.”
Lexy? Throttle him, I tell myself. I swallow hard, trying to fight the instinct. Ax knows better than to call me that. It’s as if he’s purposefully trying to incite a homicide. And if I’ve learned anything from Low’s fiasco, it’s that Ax isn’t opposed to throwing an innocent woman into the pokey for the night.
“Wait”—my mind screeches to a halt before I actually go nuclear on him for purposefully calling me a name that I feel genuine disdain for—“how did you know I requested the material on refinancing?”
He gives a quick grimace, and if he’s smart he’ll run for the hills. “My father just bought out Mortgage Makers. Half the employees quit, so I volunteered to drop a few documents off. I swear I didn’t know it was for you.”
A breath gets locked in my throat as I glance around like a caged cat plotting my escape. The song comes to an abrupt end, and I beeline over to Low and her perky friend Raven who can’t seem to drift two feet from each other.
“Look, Low—I’d better get going.” No sooner do I get the words out than she accosts me with another lung crushing embrace.
“You’ll do no such thing. What are you going to do for work?” Low looks as if it’s her world that’s dissolving before her very eyes.
“Nothing.” Raven taps those overblown lips of hers with her hand. “Sorry, but you’re like a pariah. You’re trending on Twitter and not in a good way.”
“Trending? I’ve spent my entire life sidestepping anything that remotely smelled like a trend.” I’m dying. I’m dead. I’ll never work again. I’ll be the new cart lady in front of Hallowed Grounds that everyone buys coffee for just to pat their own backs as if they’ve truly contributed to the world. I’ll be Hollow Brook’s token psychotic bag lady who screams at the top of her lungs all day long, but little will they know I’ll lucidly be cursing a small majority of the very people under this roof for this collision course my life is on.
Low shakes her head as a single tear glides down her rosy cheek, and it’s all for me. “I’ll help you get a job. I swear I’ll do whatever it takes to get your life back on track. You’re a good person. I’m sure that veteran
who lost her ability to hear in a roadside bombing had it coming.” She clamps down on her lips so hard they turn white as paper.
Raven scoffs at her bestie because, obviously, she’s not feeling nearly as hormonal or human this evening. “Where are you possibly going to find her gainful employment in the entire tri-city area? Social media suicide is a contagion in this day and age. She’ll be unemployable for at least a decade. Maybe longer. The Internet has a way of keeping this kind of thing fresh and alive.” She shifts her dead eyes to mine. “You’ll be a meme by morning.”
I suck in a sharp breath at the thought.
“She has a job,” a deep voice strums from behind and I spin on my heels, ready to stab the overgrown frat boy at the other end of those deep vocal cords once he makes a crack about me working on my knees. But it’s not an overgrown frat boy. It’s Axel. “Here. At the bar. You can waitress. Prime hours. Tips are good, I promise.”
My heart thumps once as if it were trying to kick-start back to life. Just hearing him make yet another promise makes me numb on the inside for an entirely different reason.
“The hell she’ll work here.” Low scoffs. “Lex has too much pride to sit under the thumb of her ex.” She does her best to shoo him away like some obnoxiously oversized horsefly, but my eyes remain locked over his. There has always been something unfairly hypnotic about those gray lenses of his. Such a rare, complex color, and that about sums up our entire relationship, complex and rare and in the end very much over.
“I’ll do it.” I hear the words stream from my lips before my brain can process what’s just happened.
“What?” both Raven and Low cry out at once.
“You heard me.” I force the words to eject from my lips as I openly scowl at the budding elation in Axel Collins’ eyes. “I’ll take it.”
Axel
She’ll take it?
My body goes rigid as I try to maintain my composure. Lex is like a cat, a false move and she’ll slash your throat and gouge your eyes out in one slick maneuver.
“You’re kidding, right?” Low whispers to her. “I mean, this is the guy you hate—the ex that sent you running for the hills. You wore an entire spike strip the last time you were in here in the event he even looked at you crooked. You do realize he owns the place, don’t you?”
“I don’t care.” She glares at me as if I were the one who uploaded that demeaning video. “You’ll stay out of my way if you know what’s good for you.”
My lips twitch as I struggle to keep from smiling. “And you’ll be on time and courteous and respectful to the clientele. You can start tomorrow at four. You’ll work till closing and you won’t complain because you’ll be grateful for the chance to keep a steady diet of green infused into your bank account.”
Lex gasps so loud even the band stops the music for a brief second just to assess whether or not she’s having a cardiac episode.
Both Low and Raven whisk her off to the other end of the bar. Brody steps into my line of vision and blocks her from my view. “What the hell? Dude, you weren’t even nice to her. Do you always sweet talk the ladies like that?”
“No, I save all my sourpuss moves for Lex. Sarcasm is her love language.” Actually, it’s something far darker than sarcasm that keeps the cogs in her wheels churning and turning. “She’s had a rough life.”
“Join the club.” Brody folds his arms across his chest as we both look to where Low and Raven have her surrounded. I know what he meant. It’s only been six months since my sister passed away, and it feels like six minutes. Emilia and Lex were friends once, and I took down that relationship when I took down my own.
Levi comes up and slaps a hand over my shoulder. “What’s going on? Low practically gave me the finger when I tried to intervene. She said you were responsible for this.” He smacks his lips with disappointment. “You do realize that hitting on your ex is only going to enrage her and make things worse.” He gives a subtle wink. Levi thinks there’s a modicum of hope for Lex and me to get back together. I’d hate to break it to his optimistic new and improved self, but Lex and I are irreparable—a broken mirror with too many shards lying around to ever be safe. Who the hell could ever fashion that back together? Hell, I bled out from the simple act of handing her this olive branch—if you consider spotty employment at a restaurant a peace offering.
Brody leans in, that stern as heck look on his face. “Axel here just offered his ex a job. It looks like that waitress position we were in need of was just filled. She starts scaring off customers as early as tomorrow night. So much for getting out of the red.”
“She’ll behave.” I hear myself say the words, but I shake my head as if to refute the idea at the very same time.
“You gave her a job?” Levi winces over at the girls still huddled in an estrogen mass. “Thanks for the heads-up. I’m coming in with a helmet tomorrow night.” He offers a solid sock to my arm. “Let me guess. You’re about to start haunting this place on the regular yourself?”
I think on this for a minute. I’ve been at the office almost twelve hours a day for the last six months straight. Emilia’s death threw my father headfirst into his work, expanding his law firm, expanding his business reach as far as his leveraging powers would allow, and it’s all I can do to keep up with him.
I blow out a breath in lieu of words. Damn. There’s no way I can maintain my workload and have enough waking hours left over to haunt any establishment, let alone this one.
“Relax. I’m kidding.” Levi butts his shoulder to mine. “I know she’ll go nuclear if you’re in the vicinity. If she really needs the gig, then do everyone a favor and steer clear.” He offers up a quick slap over my back just as his twin, Chip, calls everyone’s attention for a quick toast to the happy couple. Ironic that Chip of all people is even allowed to speak at tonight’s event, considering the fact he bedded and fathered a child with Levi’s ex-wife while they were still legally married. Yes, Levi has been through the proverbial wringer.
I glance to Lex and our eyes lock once again, mine with longing and hers with the threat of an evisceration. Yes, it’s safe to say I’m about to go through the wringer myself as if the first time wasn’t bad enough.
“Hey, man.” Brody shakes his head at me with pity. “Don’t you worry. I’ll take her under my wing and make sure she’s all right. You do your thing at the office. I’ll keep an eye on her here.”
It takes everything in me not to clock him because, for one, I know Brody Wolf all too well to decode that frat speak he just emitted. And two, he’s delusional enough to believe he could actually accomplish his mission.
“She’s not like that. I’d threaten your balls for even hinting at the idea of sleeping with her, but Lex can take care of herself. If you’re a soprano the next time I see you, I’ll know why and I’ll laugh about it, too.”
“Very funny.” His features grow dark at the thought of his low hanging fruit getting plucked unceremoniously by my ex.
We glance back to the bar and catch Lex taking off like a bat readying to dive back into her cave before the sun scorches her delicate skin. And dear God, how I miss that delicate skin.
“And there she goes. Damn, she’s got a nice ass on her.” Brody shakes his head as she sashays out the door.
“That she does.” I can’t take my eyes off the void she left in her wake. I’ve missed every last inch of her for far too long. For years now I’ve been gripped with the fear I’d be alone forever. I don’t have to look high and low to realize that there’s no one out there for me but Lex. A part of me thought she’d never step back into my life, and yet here she is. Everything in me says grab on with all you’ve got—and there’s nothing more I’d rather do.
Chip starts in on the toast while Brody heads over to the bar to make sure the champagne is flowing in the right direction before the speech commences.
Brody is a good guy but one I wouldn’t want a single woman in my life to fall victim to. Nope. It’s clear I need to choose between a career
in law and reviving my career as a mixologist.
I think I already know the answer to that one.
In fact, I think I’ll name my first signature drink the Lextini. It’s hot and spicy and leaves you with a hangover that lasts six long years.
Six years too long if you ask me.
I think it’s about time I cured that.
It’s time I cured a lot of things.
Collins and Associates, my father’s law firm in which I was made an official partner just four short months ago, sits snug in downtown Jepson in a tall slender building fit with enough mirrored windows that on a clear sunny day I’m convinced you can see it from space. The refractive light winks on and off like a distress signal as I make my way inside. The thirty-seventh floor is where a majority of the partners have their offices—and once the elevator doors vomit me out, I spot my little sister, Teagan, sitting behind the receptionist’s counter as she logs in hours for her summer internship. Teagan is a carbon copy of Emilia, and every time I look at her I feel a pang of grief volley through me. Same dark hair, same violet gray eyes that have always looked far more manufactured than they ever do real. Emilia was a beauty, and when she died she took all that beauty with her. And my God, how we miss her. But thankfully, we still have Teagan. She’s just finished high school and has opted to head to community college instead of straight to Whitney Briggs, which was a disappointment to my mother in what has been a long line of disappointments this year.
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