She took another sip of her coffee, which was helping settle her stomach after Lexi’s birthday celebration the night before. She wasn’t the type to count down to five o’clock—in fact, she was usually in the office until seven or eight—but today she couldn’t wait to go home, get into her pajamas, and watch TV. It had been a long week.
Right at four fifty-five, though, she heard the dreaded words that threatened her evening: “Mandatory happy hour!” The sports editor Shane Prince poked his head over her partition.
She shook her head at him. “I’m bailing on this one.”
“Oh, come on, Breaux,” he said, leaning his bulging arms over her cubicle. “You don’t have anything better to do, and you know it.” He clucked his tongue.
“Ouch,” she said drily, packing her laptop in her faded blue backpack.
Garrett walked over and perched on her desk. “You should come,” he said casually. And then he shifted and said under his breath, “Jerry?”
It never ceased to amaze Callie that she and Garrett could communicate with just one word or a look. But then again, after six years, she could practically read his thoughts. It’s why she knew after all this time that no matter how much she loved him, they would never be together. He didn’t feel that way about her.
They were destined to be friends, nothing more. Even though the weight of it sometimes threatened to squeeze her heart into a million little pieces.
And right now, her friend was reminding her that they’d just had a meeting that morning with their boss Jerry about keeping morale up among staffers. The most recent round of layoffs had shrunken the pool of editors and reporters from fifteen to ten, and the mood in the office had dropped with it. They were the most senior editorial employees on staff now, and keeping everyone one big happy family was part of their job description.
Garrett stared at her, the unspoken words clear between them. Despite herself, her heart raced. She knew deep down she couldn’t say no to him.
“Fine,” she muttered, taking off her black pilled office sweater to reveal her white-collared shirt and khakis. She always dressed professionally just in case she had a last-minute interview. But when they got to happy hour at Hamel’s, a kitschy new dive bar with an oversized stuffed alligator wearing a camo hat and holding a beer can, she felt a bit overdressed—and that was saying a lot for her.
“This place is a little ridiculous,” she said, pulling up a wooden stool at one of the high-top tables in the back. The ceiling was aglow with multicolored Christmas lights, and not an inch of the walls was showing through a plaster of vintage ads and neon signs. An old toilet seat was sitting in the corner with purple flowers sprouting from the tank, and twangy country music blasted over a speaker above them.
Kent Beasley, their copy editor, tucked his motorcycle helmet under the table and pulled up a seat next to her. “It’s Callie’s turn to get first round, right?”
“Ugh, fine,” she said, eyeing the crowded bar. She quickly did a mental tally in her head, and even though it was happy hour, she could barely afford the round. To offset the cost, she would need to skip her decadent plan of getting fast food tonight and opt for mac ’n’ cheese from the box instead. Sacrifices of being broke.
“I’ll help!” Garrett pushed back his barstool. As they made their way through the crowd and ordered five pints of Abita lager, a cheesy country love song came on over the speakers.
“What a week, right?” Garrett leaned next to her, his blue plaid shirt slightly untucked from his dark jeans. He rubbed the back of his neck. He looked stressed.
Callie wished she could reach out her hands and help rub the part of his neck that looked tense. Instead, she just nodded her head in agreement. They stood in awkward silence for a moment. Say something, you idiot, she screamed silently to herself. “So, I’ve been thinking about the levee story.…”
Nothing like a good work conversation to heat things up.…
He leaned in. “Yeah?”
“I’m going to try to talk to someone on the ground to see if there’s a bigger story. Like, maybe something fishy was going on behind the scenes.” There was nothing she loved more than an investigative piece.
“I think that’s a good idea,” he said.
The bartender slid the pints across the bar to them, and Garrett handed him a twenty.
“It’s my turn to buy,” she said, reaching for her wallet.
“Nah, pretty sure it’s mine.”
“Cool.” She swallowed and grabbed two of the pints. “Well, we’ll see what happens with the levee.” Beers in hand, she felt a strand of her brown hair fall from her low ponytail and into her face. Garrett looked at it for a second, paused, and then turned to grab the other pints on the bar.
Nothing to see here, kids, she thought, blowing the hair off of her skin as they walked back to the table.
“So, what’s everyone up to this weekend?” Shane asked, scratching his scruffy yellow beard.
Jason Marshall, a reporter, mimed casting a line toward a group of pretty ladies in the corner booth. “Fishing,” he announced. Shane chuckled.
“Lake,” Kent said with a grunt.
“Sister night,” Callie said, taking a swig of her pint.
“Oh yeah,” Shane said, tapping his Brady High class ring on his pint glass. “How’s that younger one doing? She’s still got that boyfriend?”
Callie rolled her eyes. Shane knew Lexi from high school. Last year, when her younger sister had stopped by the office to drop off dinner on election night, he talked about how hot she was for a whole week after. She arched a brow and smiled even though it grated on her. Why was hotness a prerequisite for falling in love?
“Yes, in fact they just got engaged,” she responded, taking another sip of her drink. The wedding couldn’t come soon enough. Lexi had been engaged for less than a month, but it was all she could talk about. Hanna had agreed to sew the wedding gown and bridesmaid dresses herself, basing the patterns on pictures from one of Lexi’s bridal magazines. Callie knew the pale pink off-the-shoulder gown would look awful on her, but then again, almost everything did. Callie was what her mother called “skin and bones.” She always looked like a scarecrow playing dress up in formal clothes.
“I’ll get her to leave that fiancé of hers,” Shane said with a slow drawl and a grin. “Just give me her number.”
The way he pronounced “fiancé” made the word sound more like “fancy.” Callie supposed having a fiancé did make you a bit fancier. “Sorry, bud. No can do,” she said, shaking her head.
“Well, that’s too bad,” Shane said. “I could have been your brother-in-law.”
“Aw man, I really missed out,” Callie said. Garrett choked on his drink, and she shot him a friendly warning glance.
“Two o’clock, table of babes,” Kent interrupted with a deeper voice than normal.
The other three guys immediately looked around the restaurant. Next to them was a table of bearded men in their sixties decked out in LSU gear, drinking whiskey and talking about hunting. On the other side was a table with three women old enough to be Callie’s mom all staring at their phones. And there, sitting two tables beyond that, were the babes: four of them, all the same shade of blond, all busty, and all giggling over something that probably wasn’t that funny.