Speakeasy

  But I am attached to Alec. Even if I don’t want to be.

  “He’s pretty dreamy,” I admit.

  Jude puts his arm around me. “Sounds like you already have your answer.”

  * * *

  Later, when Jude leaves, I take out my phone. I pull up the most-used profile and change the name from Selena to Alec. This feels momentous for some reason.

  Sorry, Selena. It’s looking like we weren’t meant to be after all.

  Then I shoot him a text. Thank you for the treats. I don’t know who your informant is but I love Twizzlers and trashy magazines. Also, texting with my left hand stinks.

  It’s six o’clock already, and Alec is probably at work. I don’t expect to get a response. But my phone rings about two minutes later. The caller says Alec.

  “Hey,” he says, his voice warm in my ear. “Audrey was my informant. But I chose those magazines myself. Two of them have competing theories about Brad Pitt’s latest breakup. So I’m gonna need you to sort that out for me. And I need to know what that statistic on the cover of Cosmo is referring to.”

  “Which thing?” I pull the magazine out of the pile and scan the headlines. One of them is, 32% of Chicks Do This Shocking Thing In Bed. “Thirty-two percent of chicks, huh? I’m totally reading that first. What if the answer is—other chicks?”

  I can actually hear his smile. “Then you can read the good parts out loud to me.”

  “You know I would.” We both laugh, and for a second it feels easy between us again.

  “Also?” His deep voice vibrates inside my chest. “Don’t skip the article about the butt facial. I need to know the benefits so I can decide whether or not to work it into my beauty routine.”

  “Gotcha. Will do.” I’m smiling into the phone like a crazy person, because Alec always makes me smile. I wish I could see into the future. If there’s a happy life with Alec in it, then I could stop being so afraid of wrecking everything.

  “How’s your pain?” he asks.

  Nothing that an entire bottle of wine wouldn’t fix. “It’s all right. I have my best friend, the ibuprofen bottle, right here with me.”

  “Glad to hear it. Call me if you need anything, okay? I’d better get back to work.”

  “Have a good night.”

  “You too, babydoll.”

  We hang up with no more discussion. No promises made. And no plans.

  I want more, if only I could find a way to take it.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Alec

  The next day I send May roses. The card says, Thinking of you. All the time. That’s one hundred percent true.

  But I’m also busy as hell trying to straighten my shit out. I call Connor and tell him I can increase his hours, and he’s pretty happy about that. Except he can only give me two more nights a week, because he has a restaurant job he doesn’t want to drop.

  I can’t fire Smitty yet until I find at least one other bartender to rotate in. Also, Christmas is in a week, so I am going to have trouble finding people to interview. But I don’t want Smitty working without me on shift, which means I’m putting in a lot of hours behind the bar.

  A few days have passed since Hamish’s funeral, so I leave a message for Tad. I invite him to call me when he’s ready to discuss the future of the property next door.

  The next day my phone rings when I’m standing in the unfinished room at the back corner of the Gin Mill—the one that’s supposed to become a commercial kitchen.

  Right now it’s empty except for an industrial sink, my carboys, and some home-brew equipment. I’m checking the fermentation temperature when Tad finally returns my call.

  “Hello, Alec,” he says. “What did you want to discuss?”

  “I know you’re probably not thinking about this yet, and that’s fine,” I say. “But your father and I had agreed on a price for the mill building. He was going to sell it to me next year sometime.”

  “I know nothing of this,” Tad says immediately.

  Yeah, I was afraid of that. “Okay,” I say calmly. “I thought that could be the case. Just don’t lose my number when you’re ready to sell, okay? Because I’m definitely interested, and I saved all the correspondence between me and your dad, if you want to take a look.”

  “I already have some people who are looking to pay a nice price.”

  My heart sinks. I was afraid of that, too. “How much?”

  “It’s not quite final yet.”

  Ah. At least they haven’t reached a deal. “Keep me in the loop, okay? It’s important to me.”

  “All right. Thanks for helping out with the wake.”

  Helping out. Tad makes me want to throw my phone into a wall. “No problem, man,” I say instead.

  We hang up and I look around the room at my brew stuff. It looks like child’s play. I can’t compete with Giltmaker, and I can’t afford to invest too heavily in beermaking.

  But it’s fun to think about. I snag the Brewmaster’s Catalogue off my work table and take it upstairs with me. Some guys get off on shopping for golf equipment or new cars. Me? I lust after airlocks and immersion chillers.

  Alone in my apartment, I do fifty pushups while my printer spits out every email where Hamish and I ever discussed the building. I don’t want to be a dick to Tad, but I’m curious whether my negotiations have any weight in the future of the mill next door.

  I think I know a way to figure that out. But first, pushups.

  Every time I lower myself to the rug I see Bukowski’s evil eyes peering at me from beneath the coffee table. He looks as cranky as I feel. And when I hook my feet under the couch for some ab curls, he scampers off to hide.

  After I get some exercise, I’m feeling less cranky. So I take a drive over to the law offices of Kaplan and Shipley.

  When I get there, the receptionist’s desk is empty already. I walk on through to another room with two desks. May’s is vacant, as I knew it would be. But the opposite desk is taken up by an older woman with curly hair. She’s wearing a phone headset and saying, “Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” At the same time, she’s knitting something from purple yarn.

  She looks up at me, and her eyes widen with interest. And then she raises a finger in the universal sign for “just a minute.” So I put my folder down on May’s desk and run back outside to the truck. I grab the damaged sweater off the backseat and carry it inside with me.

  “Well, hello, there!” the woman says as I reenter the office. “I’m Rita Kaplan.”

  “Hi.” I walk over to shake her hand. “I’m Alec Rossi.”

  “Yes you are,” she says with a giant smile. “This is so exciting.”

  I’m not really sure why she thinks so, but maybe she’s just super friendly. “I have two questions for you, and only one of them is a legal question.”

  Her eyes go to the sweater I’m holding. “Is one of them a knitting question? What happened here?” She reaches for it, and I hand it over. I almost can’t stand to look at the frayed bit at the neck.

  Bukowski is lucky he’s still alive.

  “Holy macaroni,” Rita breathes. “May knitted this. For you?”

  I nod sadly. If I were worthy of such a gift, there wouldn’t be a hole in the neck right now.

  “What a stupid girl.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “She made you a sweater. That girl should know better by now than to tempt the sweater curse.”

  It takes me a minute to remember what that means. If you knit a sweater for a man, you’ll break up. Or something. “May doesn’t care about that,” I point out. “She wasn’t planning on keeping me. But I’d really like to keep the sweater, so could you put me out of my misery and tell me whether this case is terminal or not?”

  Rita gives me another crazy smile. “I should unravel the whole danged thing. That will teach May to knit a sweater for a hunk like you.”

  “Don’t you dare!” I take the sweater out of her hands in a big fat hurry.

  “Easy. I wouldn’t really. Sit down
, okay?”

  I take a seat in the visitor’s chair.

  “The sweater can be fixed, but only by May. She’ll have some leftover yarn from the same dye lot she used to knit it.”

  “Oh. And here I thought this was a problem I could fix without admitting I was culpable.”

  Rita laughs. “That never works, does it?”

  “No.”

  “Never stops us from trying, though. I wouldn’t have a legal practice if mankind was good at owning his own bullshit.”

  And here I thought a lawyer’s office might be dull. “Can I ask you my legal question, now?”

  “Does it have anything to do with May?”

  “No way. It’s a real estate thing.”

  “Oh, good.” She picks up her knitting again. “Go ask May your question, then. She gets all our real estate work.”

  “She’s recovering,” I point out. Every time I think of those bruises on her face I want to rage at the world.

  “She’s fine,” Rita insists. “She’s bored out of her mind. When I talked to her earlier she was reading an article about how to give yourself a butt facial.”

  I make a mental note to pick up a few more magazines.

  “And anyway, she’s really tired of being helpless. Whatever real estate problem you’ve got for yourself, she’d love to hear about it.”

  “See, it’s probably a waste of time, though.”

  Rita pulls a face. “Then don’t waste mine, hot stuff. Go see your girl. I know she’s having a rough time, but it’s going to be okay. Give her some more of that hot loving. It always cheers her up.”

  She gives me a cheesy wink, and I feel my face start to heat. Although it’s nice to have one’s skills acknowledged. I stand up. “Rita, you have been…”

  “No help whatsoever!” she says gaily. “And to think I’m someone’s mentor. Have a good day, hot stuff. Tell our girl I said hello.”

  She’s back to her knitting before I even close the door behind me.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  May

  I’m watching daytime TV again. But I just made an appointment with the doctor who decides whether I need surgery on my hand, so at least that’s a little progress in my life.

  Someone walks into the TV room to check on me, and I don’t even turn my head. My family’s love is extra stifling today.

  Also, I’m out of Twizzlers.

  The couch depresses under someone’s weight. And then a big hand reaches over and squeezes my knee.

  I do a violent double take when I realize it’s Alec beside me. “Hi,” I manage, even though I can’t stop drinking in the sight of him. He’s wearing jeans and a tight henley T-shirt that shows off his lean, strong frame. And I get a whiff of his woodsy scent. I just want to crawl into his lap and hold on tightly.

  But I resist. Because I’m stubborn.

  “Hi,” he says, settling in. “Whatcha watching?”

  “A soap opera, if you must know.”

  He gives me a curious glance. “Big fan of soap operas?”

  “Nope. In fact I hate myself a little for needing to know who kidnapped the baby, and whether the mom is faking her amnesia.”

  “Do you think she knows who stole the baby?” He moves a little closer to me on the couch.

  It’s a little chilly in here. That must be why I snuggle in beside him and let him put his arm around me. “I’m not sure. I’ve never watched this show before, so I don’t know what she’s capable of.”

  “I see.” His lips graze my ear, and he tucks me closer to his chest, taking care not to touch my bruised face.

  “What’s up with you?” I whisper.

  “Nothing good. But, shh. The policeman is going to interview someone.”

  I turn back to the screen where a soap opera cop is interrogating the boyfriend of the missing baby’s mother. “I didn’t do it,” the boyfriend says.

  Of course he says that.

  We watch until the end, and I sneak glances at Alec. He looks tired. But he seems to relax beside me, one of his hands idly smoothing the length of my hair. After a criminal investigation, a sobbing confession, and two love scenes, the credits roll. I raise the clicker and mute the TV. “That’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back.”

  “I didn’t mind it,” Alec says. “What comes on next?”

  “Reruns of Myth Busters.”

  “Awesome. Oh—I brought you these.” He hands me two fresh magazines, and a little box from Lake Champlain Chocolates.

  “Oh, wow. Fancy. Thank you.”

  He massages my good hand.

  “Alec?” He turns to look at me. “Why did you come?” I blurt out. “I wasn’t very nice at the hospital.” I don’t know why he’s still here when I’ve been so difficult.

  “You’re the person I most want to talk to, that’s all,” he says. “I needed to tell someone about my shitty day, and I pick you. Sorry.” Then he stretches out on the sofa, his head in my lap.

  I look down at him, using my good hand to gently trail my fingers through his hair, and he sighs. Then I massage his scalp, and he closes his eyes.

  Little by little I’m realizing that Alec sometimes feels needy, too. Just because a person projects confidence doesn’t mean his life is all sunshine and rainbows.

  Maybe I haven’t cornered the market on neediness. And if Alec needs me, it’s just possible that I don’t have to be a perfect human being to make him feel better.

  I may have been thinking about this all wrong.

  “Tell me the shittiest thing about your day,” I say quietly. “No—tell me all the shitty things. I want to hear every gory detail.” It’s true, too. Even if I’m still a hot mess, I can listen with the best of them.

  His brown eyes flicker open. He sees me looking down at him, and then he closes them again. “I fired Smitty just before I came over here,” he says. “Had to.”

  “Oh. I’m so sorry. What happened?”

  “It turns out he sold some growlers of Goldenpour out the back door and helped himself to the illegal cash. When I confronted him, he admitted it right away.”

  “Oh no.” My heart aches for Alec. And for Smitty, too.

  “Oh yes. Giltmaker cut me off. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s a pretty big problem for me.”

  Wow. “At least he told you the truth when you asked. Now you don’t have to second guess yourself wondering if you fired the wrong guy.”

  Alec is quiet for a second. “He admitted it, but he wasn’t very remorseful. I said, ‘You stole from me.’ And you know his reply? He said, ‘I never took money from the till.’ Like there’s a big difference there.”

  Ouch. “That was his hard limit.”

  “What?”

  “Most addicts have one—a line he won’t cross. And if he never does that one awful, scary thing, then he can convince himself he doesn’t really have a problem.”

  Alec turns his head and fixes those dark eyes on me. “Did you have a hard line?”

  This is the moment when I usually clam up about my alcoholism. And I still have a choice. I can keep the ugly details to myself. But it’s dawning on me that I have nothing to lose. If I duck Alec, he’ll give up on me. If I frighten him off, the result is the same. “My hard line was drinking in the morning before school. Because only a drunk would do that.”

  His brown eyes regard me curiously. “And did you ever do that?”

  “Yeah,” I say, nearly choking on the word.

  He doesn’t break eye contact at all. He just looks back at me with eyes that are deep pools of affection. Then he takes the palm of my good hand and kisses it lovingly. “You don’t scare me, May Shipley.”

  Naturally my eyes get hot, because it’s such a nice thing to say. But I don’t want to cry. So I lean over very carefully and kiss him on the lips.

  He lifts his chin to kiss me back, like he’s been waiting all this time for me to do that.

  The angle is terrible, but it doesn’t matter a bit. We sink into the k
iss like we’re born to it. And maybe we are. I’m still scared of loving Alec and then having it blow up in my face.

  It’s just that I’m more scared of never loving Alec.

  And because nothing is ever simple, my brother Griffin picks that moment to walk into the room. “May, is this meeting the one that starts at five thirty—” He makes a growly sound when he realizes who I’m kissing on the sofa.

  I straighten up. “Five thirty in South Royalton.” I’m not supposed to drive for another week until they look at my hand again, so family members are driving me to AA meetings.

  Alec sits up. “A meeting? I’ll take you. We can go to Worthy Burger afterward.”

  Well, that’s unexpected. I’m immediately hit with dueling images—a Worthy Burger in its perfect, shiny bun, with pickles and handmade fries, and Alec sitting through a grim AA meeting under the fluorescent lighting of the church basement.

  One of those is more appealing than the other.

  “Please?” he says.

  Griffin scowls.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I’d like that.” The burger, mostly. But I can be brave through the other part, too.

  * * *

  My AA meetings open with the Serenity Prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

  And then the meeting leader asks if anyone is here for the first time.

  Alec raises his hand. And when they call on him, he says, “I’m Alec and I’m here to support May.

  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: it’s rough being an easy crier.

  * * *

  The next evening I’m watching a horrible action movie with my brothers when my phone rings.

  Alec! my heart hopes. But it’s not him, it’s Rita. “Hey girl,” she says. “Let’s talk about how Alec brought you to a meeting last night.”

  I walk out of the TV room and into the kitchen, glancing around as if Rita might be peeking through a window. “You weren’t there. How do you know these things? I thought the second A in AA was for anonymous.”