“Shit, Linc, you act like you were a black hole.”
“I was.”
He shakes his head, pulling a red bandana from his pocket and wiping his grease-smeared brow. “You were hurting. I saw you with Macey. She could have been good for you.”
“Guess we’ll never know.” Someone fires up the jukebox, sending Kane Brown’s “What Ifs” booming through the bar. Fucking perfect choice there, friend. I scowl at the cowboy hat clad asshole who’d chosen a song that seemed to argue every one of my anti-me-and-Macey points.
“I guess,” he says softly. “How’s Janice?” he asks, changing up the topic of conversation to Macey’s gram instead.
“She’s good, took her a book and visited with her a bit this morning. Doctors say she’ll heal up just fine.”
“What about the café?”
I tip my glass up, feeling ice clinking against my lips as I drain my glass. “Macey’s headed there. I’m betting she’ll stick around and run it for a while.”
“Isn’t she in school?”
“Florida State,” I say. “Getting her master’s in business.”
“That’s what I thought. How’s she gonna run it and go to school?”
“Who am I? Her keeper?” I glare at him, hoping to end this inquisition.
He lifts both hands in surrender. “You’re living with them right now, spend nearly every minute you aren’t working at the café with Maax, so I just figured I’d ask.”
“Sorry,” I mumble. I’m being a dick, and I know it. For years, I’ve been haunted by the brokenness on her face when I’d chosen Patricia. Now, it’s blending with the image of her from this morning. She’s always been pretty, but the awkward teenager I knew has morphed into something straight out of a wet dream, and it’s driving me fucking crazy.
But it’s more than that, isn’t it? It’s the fire in her eyes, the way she’s bringing back all those feelings I denied having for her.
“Don’t apologize to me, kid. You know I don’t take any offense.” He groans as he gets to his feet. “Listen, if you’re looking for a few extra hours here and there, I can use some help at the garage. Benny’s on vacation, and everyone and their grandmamma seems to want an oil change this week.”
I chuckle and nod, grateful for the opportunity. “You’ve got it.”
“Tomorrow morning work for you?”
“I’ll see you at seven.”
“Perfect.” He slaps a hand on my shoulder and reaches around to toss some bills on the counter. “Next one’s on me.”
“You don’t need to do that—” I start. He knows I don’t drink alcohol when I’m upset. That’s a slippery slope I intend on avoiding. It was a hard change though—even six months in—so I come here to this bar and pretend I’m pounding back whiskey Cokes that are just light on the whiskey.
“I want to. You look like you could use an entire keg, but if soda’s what you got your heart on—have all ya need. See ya tomorrow, Linc.”
I swirl the liquid in the bottom of my cup, watching through the top as it splashes around. I knew seeing her was going to stir up some of the feelings I’d had for her back then—because even if I’d denied them with the force of someone pleading for their life, they were there.
How could I not have felt something? We practically grew up together. I don’t have a single childhood memory without dark-haired, wide-eyed Macey in it.
She was my best friend, there for me when my mom died, holding my hand and wrapping her arms around me while I cried. No judgment, just firm support when I’d needed it most.
And when she’d needed me? When her mom bailed, leaving her and her father alone, where was I? In the backseat of my car between the legs of a woman who’d burned me in the end.
Classy, right?
I hold up my empty cup, and Hoyt replaces it, grabbing the bills Dilbert dropped. I take a deep breath and tip it up. If I were a begging man, I would lay myself at her feet and plead for her forgiveness. But I’m not. I’m a stubborn bastard, and my pride won’t let me. Besides, I know her, and it wouldn’t work.
Hell, I know her better than I know myself.
After Patricia left me, the only thing I’d wanted to do was talk to Macey. To have her tell me that everything was going to be fine. When I finally summoned the courage to call from my roommate’s cell while he’d been passed out in my run-down apartment in the Golden State, the moment I heard her voice, I froze. It was so familiar to me, the sound of her, and I’d even smiled when she told me to fuck off and stop being creepy.
Not that she knew it was me. I hadn’t mustered the courage to mutter a single syllable.
At the memory, I smile and take another drink.
She warned me that Patricia was bad news more times than I can count. I’d brushed it off, even when Patricia pushed me to smoke my first joint, steal my first beer. I just kept telling myself it was normal teenage stuff, and soon I was so far into it nothing else mattered.
Patricia was my first in a lot of ways. Sex, drugs, alcohol.
But Macey was the first girl I kissed. The first girl I loved, even if I’d been too damned stubborn to admit it to her.
The image of her in the airport when she first realized it was me floods to the surface, and mentally, I zero in on the anger worn plainly on her makeup-free face.
If she wants to hate me, fine. I can carry that hate for as long as I need to because, eventually, she’ll go back to Florida, back to her perfect life, and leave me the hell alone so I can wither away in mine.
After everything I put her through, it’s what I deserve.
Macey
Key in hand, I stand on the curb just outside my gram’s café. I have so many memories of this place—both good and bad—and I’ve always known I’d be back to run it.
It was why I’d gone for my master’s in business and why I’d spent two summers getting a degree in culinary from the best school in the country.
I have student loans that will probably never be paid off, but the thought of taking over my gram’s café and turning it into our town’s first fine-dining restaurant makes all that debt worth it.
I would keep her name alive, her legacy, and that means the world to me. “Janie’s” is lit up in bright red lights, and I put the key into the lock, turning and shoving open the door.
Even though it’s been closed for a few days, I can still smell her signature red sauce and the delectable scent of fresh bread.
For the most part, her café serves Italian food. Her mother came over from Italy as a child and instilled the art of handmade pasta and bread into my gram. It was a way of life for her—therefore, it was for both my dad and me.
My dream—my gram’s dream—was to bring a little taste of Italy to our small mountain town, and I’ve worked my ass off to prepare myself for that.
I hate leaving school unfinished, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit the thought of running this place excites me on an entirely new level. I wasn’t overly attached to finishing out my master’s—truthfully, it’s a debt I don’t need.