by Mia Malone
The two women looked at each other in silence for a while and Joke braced. Jenny could be damned unpleasant when she was angry.
“Well, fuck it,” she murmured to his surprise. “You’re right.”
Sissy tilted her head to indicate the glass.
“In my experience, there’s nothing like tequila to beat back feeling like a fool.”
Jenny sighed and downed the shot.
“You’re right again.”
Sissy nodded and looked at Mac, “What can I get you?”
“Nicely handled,” Mac said instead of ordering. “Are you a –”
What Mac thought Sissy might be was drowned out by a loud shout from the door.
“Lovey, my darling!”
Joke closed his eyes. Day had been a skier too and about the same time as Sissy had been hurt. He should have guessed they’d know each other.
Day walked toward the bar with his arms held out and Sissy moved right into his embrace.
“Damien,” she murmured. “Long time no see.”
Chapter Three
Sissy
When Damien Lewis walked into the bar shouting the ridiculous nickname he’d given me back when I was a teenager I didn’t stop to think. He was older, of course, but the cheeky grin was the same, and his happy eyes were familiar, taking me back to a time when I’d had endless possibilities in front of me, so I went straight into his embrace.
“Heard about the hottie working for Joke. Didn’t know it was you,” Damien murmured into my neck, and I leaned back to look at him.
“You look good,” I told him, and he did.
His red hair was cut short, and I could see a few streaks of gray in it. He had a short, neatly trimmed beard and it was streaked too. The way time had carved out lines in his face made him even hotter than the poster boy from my youth, but there were shadows in his eyes that hadn’t been there back when we trained together. I wondered if he saw the same thing in mine.
“Day,” Joke said quietly behind me, and I jerked around.
Shit. I was working, and I’d just walked away from the bar to hug one of the customers. It wasn’t exactly professional of me, and I winced.
“You hired Lovey,” Damien said with a grin.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured. “Damien, let’s talk later. Or tomorrow, when I’m off.”
“Should have known you knew each other,” Joke said. “Take a break, Tug will manage on his own for a while.”
Damien started pulling me toward the bar, but I stopped and put a hand on Joke’s arm.
“Day?” I asked.
“We always called him that. He grew up here with the rest of us.”
I blinked because really? What were the odds of that?
“Lovey?” he asked.
“He made it up from my name,” I answered, and added in case he’d forgotten, “Lovisa.”
“Huh.”
“We knew each other, but we weren’t… close,” I blurted out, hoping he’d understand that I hadn’t had a fling with Damien like most of the other girls either had or had wanted to have.
The skin around his eyes crinkled a little.
“Then you were probably one of the very few who weren’t… close with him,” he said, and if he’d grown up with Damien, he’d known how girls had chased him around, of course.
“True,” I agreed with a small grin. “I’ll just take a few minutes. I can meet up with him tomorrow, or whenever.”
“Okay.”
Our eyes held for a few seconds and I couldn’t interpret the look in his, but the way his face softened looked really good on him.
“Okay,” I echoed and walked off to try to cram thirty years of experiences into a five-minute discussion with an old friend.
***
The rest of the evening was happy. It was as if the mood had lifted when Damien walked in and when Jenny and Paddy came back hand in hand, I heard cheers from around the bar. Word must have spread about the happy mood because people came ambling in and didn’t leave, so both Tug and I were busy. When the clock was almost eleven, I looked at Tug and wondered if he shouldn’t ring the bell. He looked at Joke who shrugged and waved his beer.
“I thought we closed at eleven on weeknights,” I said.
“We mostly do. Got a permit to stay open until one so if we feel like it, we just keep going a while longer,” Tug informed me. “Your leg hurt?”
“No,” I said even though it did. “Joke told you?”
“You favor the other one by the end of the evening.”
“Perceptive.”
“They’re nice legs, Siss. Of course I’m gonna look at them.”
I started laughing, and Tug did too. He wasn’t flirting with me, and his comment had felt unsleazy in a brotherly way. We worked well together, and he was a fountain of knowledge about the locals, which meant I knew the group of people standing in front of me were part of a large Mexican-American family where most were called Alvarez. They were a loud and cheerful bunch and right then, one of them was in the process of showing off the stitches he had in his arm.
“Nine,” he said with pride, although I wasn’t sure why stumbling on his front step in a way that gave him more than a handful of stitches was something to brag about.
“I have eleven, in total,” Bobs said calmly.
Bobs was the owner of the local tattoo parlor, and we had an appointment scheduled for my day off. I was a bit nervous about it, but I’d seen some of his work, and he was good. As in beyond fabulously good, which hopefully meant that the idea I’d been toying with for years wouldn’t be a total disaster.
“A free tequila to anyone who has more than that,” someone called out, and Tug moved.
A very pretty dark-haired woman immediately reached for the glass.
“Fifteen,” she said with a giggle.
The group around her froze and stared. The man who had an arm slung around her shoulders closed his eyes, although he did it laughing.
“Fifteen? Really, Maddie?” the front step stumbling man asked when no one else did.
“Haven’t seen them but that’s what they told me.”
“What?”
“I have given birth,” Maddie informed them cheekily and reached for the glass.
The men around her winced, and I chuckled.
“Get your minds out of the gutter. She had a fucking c-section,” the man I assumed was her husband said and pulled her hand back. “Gib has more.”
Gibson had watched them with a grin, and since I thought it was highly likely that he had more stitches than a paltry fifteen, I waited to hear what he’d say.
“Forty-two,” he announced and stretched a hand out.
It took me a split second to decide what I’d do. I liked this town and the people in it. I hoped I’d be okay to stay in Wilhelmine for a while, and Tug had anyway noticed my injury.
“One hundred thirty-seven,” I said calmly, moved Gib’s hand away, took the glass and downed the shot. “And none in my nether regions,” I added with a grin when the burn from the liquor had faded.
It felt as if the whole bar was staring at me, and they probably were.
“Out of the two of us, it looks like I’m not the sissy,” I said to a stunned Gibson.
Lee burst out laughing, and so did most of the others.
“What the hell?” he asked.
“Messed up my leg a long time ago. It required a bit of surgery to put all the pieces back in place,” I informed the crowd. “Anyone want a refill?”
Hands went up around the bar which meant Tug and I were suddenly busy again.
“Oh, Lovey,” Day murmured when there was a lull in the orders, and I stood to the side, drinking water and watching the crowd. “I’m gonna kill that fucker if I ever meet him.”
He’d known about the assault and what it had done to my career, of course, but I’d skimmed over it in our brief talk like I did with everyone.
“No need,” I said breezily, even though I agreed that there was a h
uge need to kill that man.
I was also not willing to share how the consequences of harming him would be too much for me to bear.
“How could –”
“Not now, Damien,” I said sharply.
He watched me for a beat but backed off and smiled his usual charming grin.
“You should call me Day like the others do.”
“If you call me Sissy.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s good to have you here, Sissy.”
I smiled at him, and then I heard the bell ring loudly.
“Last call,” Joke called out.
***
Joke
A surprising shot of pain rushed through him when Sissy announced the godawfully large number of stitches it had taken to put her leg back in place. He watched her say something to Gibson and how she grinned, but the shadows were back in her eyes again, and he didn’t like to see them there.
“Jesus,” Mac muttered. “Did you know?”
“Yeah,” he said.
He’d listened calmly to her story that first night. She’d kept it short and hadn’t provided a lot of detail, but he could read between the lines. After he’d sent her back to the damned motel, he’d walked upstairs to his apartment and put a fist in the wall. It wasn’t his place to share her history, though, not even with his friends, so he turned away from Mac, knowing it would convey that message. Gibson was watching him with a look which told him he wouldn’t be able to brush the other man off as easily.
“Joke,” Paddy said calmly. “We should talk.”
“I won’t,” Joke said just as calmly.
“I will,” Day cut in. “Not here, though. Brought some ham back from Spain. My place tomorrow?”
“Not driving all the way out to your place for ham, Spanish or not,” Mac snorted. “My place or yours?” he asked Gibson who had walked over to them.
“Jen and Lee are at our place,” Gib said. “We’ll start at yours.”
“Okay,” Mac agreed. “We’ll go to yours for dessert. Tell Lee we’ll bring something.”
Gibson nodded, but he did it watching Sissy who was laughing at something Tug had called out to her.
Half an hour later, Joke had had enough and moved in behind the bar to ring the bell. Day and Sissy was talking at the other end, and it looked like Day was about to hit a wall too, but then he suddenly grinned at her. It was a smile Joke had seen all his life and seeing Day aiming it at Sissy did not make him a happy man.
When the last people were clearing out, he nudged Day, and asked, “Got a minute?”
They sat down in a corner and talked quietly while the bar slowly closed down. Then Tug shooed Sissy out through the small kitchen, nodded in their direction and left too.
Joke sighed and watched his boot-clad feet.
Fuck it. Better just get it done, he thought and aimed a calm stare at Day.
“You interested in her?” he asked.
“What would you do?” Day asked back, not even pretending to misunderstand.
“Give you the worst fight of your life.”
Day’s brows went up in surprise, and he straightened.
“Yeah?”
“I called dibs on this one,” Joke said, trying to ease back and make it into a joke.
Day called him on it immediately, and said calmly, “Don’t shit me, bud.”
Their eyes held a while and Joke knew he’d have to find words to explain, which wouldn’t be easy because he wasn’t exactly sure what he felt.
“There’s something about her, Day,” he said slowly. “I get what Gib felt when he walked in here and saw Lee. A woman like Sissy? Just looked at her, and my whole brain froze. There she was.” He sighed and said slowly, “Someone worth fighting for.”
“Are you asking me to stand down?”
Day looked as incredulous as he sounded, but Joke kept pushing.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Jesus, that’s a first,” Day said, paused and added, “We’ve shared women in the past.”
“A long fucking time ago, Day. And casually. Might come back and bite me in the ass but I don’t plan on being casual with Sissy.”
“Really?” Day asked.
“Really.” Joke confirmed.
It felt good to put the words out there. He wasn’t sure how things would end up, and she might prefer to get back in her car and speed down the mountain in a cloud of dust, but he’d seen her glancing his way so he hoped she wouldn’t. Either way, he was going to give it his best shot and see where it took them.
“What about the shit you do with Gib and Lee?” Day asked.
Ah, fuck. Of course, Day would bring that up.
“Not the same,” he said because it wasn’t.
Back when Day quit skiing they’d had a blast, doing everyone catching their eyes, and yeah. They’d shared women when they felt like it, and the situation arose, but it wasn’t in any way the same as what he’d done with Gibson and Lee.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake –”
“Day,” Joke barked. “None of your fucking business but it is not the same.”
Day backed off immediately, knowing that Joke was right. It wasn’t his or anyone else’s business.
“Whatever, man,” he said casually.
“Exactly,” Joke confirmed.
“You’re gonna tell her?”
“Of course,” Joke said immediately. “It’s not at the top of my list of shit to tell her, but it’s on the list.”
They watched each other in silence for a few seconds and as they did, Day’s face softened.
“You’re serious about this?” he asked.
“Yeah. Those eyes of hers hit me straight in the gut.”
“More likely in the –”
“There too,” Joke cut him off.
“Jesus, Joke,” Day snorted. “Don’t know what the hell you imagined would happen but I had actually not planned to start anything with her. She was a friend a long time ago, and she’ll be one now too, so don’t get all cranky about that because it’ll just piss me off.”
“Okay.”
Joke felt a little stupid for jumping straight into a whole bunch of assumptions which apparently had been dumb. It was exactly how Gibson had acted with Lee, and he’d laughed at his friend, which meant Gib would laugh right back at him if he ever heard about this conversation.
They sat in silence for a while, and then Day suddenly chuckled.
“You gotta know it’s a massive sacrifice on my part,” he said and wiggled his brows.
Right. Ribbing was apparently about to begin.
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you too.”
Day was grinning, but it faded away, and then he murmured, “Don’t want her but I can see why you do. She was pretty as eighteen, but now… she’s fucking gorgeous. Women like her make men like me not ever have a fucking mid-life crisis. Life has given her a few blows like it does to all of us. Coming out on the other side, knowing who you are, and what you want… beats perky boobs and cute giggles any day.”
“Oh yeah.”
“At our age, only morons hit on twenty-somethings when they can go after women moving like she does,” Day said.
Both Day’s smile and stupid brow-wiggle had returned, but Joke couldn’t hold a grin of his own back.
“You seriously used the phrase ‘at our age’?” he asked.
The look of dismay on Day’s face made the grin turn into loud laughter.
“Fuck it,” Day grunted. “I did.”
***
Sissy
I sat in a chair by my window and tried to unwind but Day’s words kept echoing in my mind. They hadn’t known I came back to get my gloves from the kitchen and I’d heard them. Since their conversation had seemed private, I had tiptoed out of there without calling out to them, but I’d heard Day before I left.
“Life has given her a few blows like it does to all of us. Coming out on the other side, knowing who you are, what you want…”
Did I kn
ow who I was?
Former skier. Former wild girl. Former top student. Former wife. Current bartender. And mother. Which one of those was I, really?
I turned it around in my head as I watched the streetlights outside. A car crept by slowly, stopped, and parked on the opposite side of the street. A young man walked slowly up the road, looked to the side and turned onto Main Street.
It was late, but I couldn’t sleep, so I remained where I was, thinking things through. When the town was dark and I finally started yawning, it hit me.
It was time to merge all the pieces that were me together into one.
I’d go skiing while I stayed in Wilhelmine like many of the others did.
I’d use what I’d learned in school and in my job while I worked at Oak.
And I’d find a way to bring my girls to see me.
We’d talked every day since I’d arrived in Wilhelmine, and it was so sweet to see their faces on my screen while we chatted about what they’d done during the day. It also hurt because it was real but at the same time, it wasn’t.
I wanted to hold them and would have to find a way to do that. Joke had said I’d be safe. Perhaps I should say something to Day? It would probably be good to talk the chief of police too, although since Joke would have called him to check out my past, Mac already knew, and he hadn’t said anything.
I’d go to Lee’s place for girl-talk with her and Jenny, and see how I felt about them first. Before I made my mind up, I’d snoop a little to see what the bunch of gorgeous men were like when they weren’t badassing their way around the local bar. Then I’d make my mind up.
It was a sketchy plan which mostly wasn’t a plan at all, but it was something, and it finally made my belly unclench, so I got up to wash the makeup off my face. When I’d undressed and lay in bed, I thought about a part of me I had pushed to the back of my mind for a very long time.
The wild girl.
Maybe I could find her again, or a small piece of her, at least?
When my hand slid in between my legs, and I started moving my fingers over my clit, I wondered if Joke would want to help me find that girl again? She’d been pretty crazy, but she’d also been fun, so maybe he would.