“What? Oh, yeah.” I blew on the coffee and took a cautious sip. Tim was only interested in coffee for the caffeine; he drank any kind, including the cheapest store brands, but this was hazelnut, Cris’s favorite. Just like Peaberry Kona Viennese was mine, and even though Wills groused about the cost, he always saw to it we didn’t run short…I pushed him out of my mind. That act of caring—a fucking act was all it was. “I still say you should have someone come in and gut the kitchen, lay down a new floor, put in new countertops and cabinets, a new sink…”
“The appliances are what’re important. It’s gonna be nice to be able to open the oven without the door falling off.”
“We never cook in this kitchen, Tim. It don’t matter that the door falls off.”
I let their banter wash over me as I mixed together the batter and poured the first batch into the frying pan. All these years, and they still didn’t have a griddle.
“What’s on the schedule for today?”
“I’ve got a delivery later this morning, but once that’s taken care of, we could go out for lunch, maybe take in some sights?”
“Sure. That sounds good.”
“We open the Pub at four, and if you’d like, you can help out behind the bar.” Were they trying to find things to keep my mind off…things?
“Thanks, guys. I’ll help out however I can. Now dig in. Home Depot promised to have the appliances delivered tomorrow, and I want to get the fridge emptied out. I swear you’ve got something sentient living in there.”
* * * *
Cris finished connecting a fresh keg of beer to the taps and wiped his hands on a bar towel. “Want a Coke, Sweets?”
“Is it too early for anything stronger? I really I wouldn’t mind a Dewars maybe, or a Canadian Club?” I totally put out of my mind what happened when I drank too much. I needed it.
“Nope. At eleven in the morning, Coke is all I’m gonna offer you.” Did he think I hadn’t seen the look he’d exchanged with Tim?
I sighed. “Okay.”
He filled a glass with ice, then displayed the nozzle. “This button is for Coke, this one is for ginger ale, this one’s 7-Up, this one’s club soda, and this is water.”
“And I need to know this why?”
“Oh, ya never can tell.” Cris handed me the glass.
“Don’t I get a cherry with this?”
He grinned. “Sure. Why not?” He dropped one into my soda, and touched my cheek. “It’ll be okay, Sweets.”
I couldn’t speak, just nodded and sipped my Coke.
“Give me a hand with this, would you, Sweets?” Tim was replacing bottles of Scotch and gin.
“Sure.” I plucked the cherry from where it rested on the ice and sucked it off the stem, then joined him, chewing on it. “What can I do?”
“Hand me the Grey Goose and the Absolut, okay?”
One by one, I passed him the bottles of vodka, and he stacked them in a row.
“I take it you won’t want to go to Ruby Tuesday’s for lunch.”
I was being stupid about that. I couldn’t avoid pizza and Thai and Ruby Tuesday’s for the rest of my life. “No, Ruby Tuesday’s is fine, Tim.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” Why make everyone else as miserable as I was?
“All right, then. I’m almost done here. We can get cleaned up and…” The bells over the door jingled, and Tim straightened, facing the front of the Pub. “Ah’m sorry,” he said, more Suth’n than I’d heard him in…I blinked, realizing the South had been in his voice only the day before. “Ah’m closed right now.”
“He does that whenever tourists come in,” Cris whispered with an affectionate grin. “They eat it up with a spoon. So do I,” he murmured.
“And he can tell a tourist at twenty paces?”
“Yep. Same way he can tell who’s gay and who isn’t.”
It was an inane conversation, but it helped keep my mind off other things. Until I heard the “tourist” say, “I didn’t come in for a drink.”
“Wills?” My heart started beating a wild tattoo, and I stood frozen to the spot, unable to turn and face him. What was he doing down here? Was this another dream?
“Yeah, ‘Wills.'” His voice was cold and tight.
I sent a panicked glance Tim’s way. He was looking back at me, and his mouth tightened at my expression, but he said nothing.
“How did you get here?” Somehow I got the words out of my mouth. “There were no flights.”
“I drove.”
I stared at him. “That’s almost six hundred miles.”
“The distance didn’t matter. Didn’t you think I’d come after you?”
“Well, now, actually he didn’t.” Cris had seen my expression too, and his lip curled in a sneer. “From what we gathered, he’s through with you.”
“You stay out of this, whoever you are.” His tone dismissed Cris as unimportant. Was he crazy? Cris was a big man. He’d been the one who stepped in to stop johns from roughing us up, and he’d sent more than one bully to the ER.