Page 6 of As a Last Resort

AUSTIN

The ferry looked like it had been through a hurricane, trampled into submission by suitcases and sun hats. I couldn’t remember it ever being this busy.

A whistle from behind me cut through as we idled in from the last run of the day. Patrick’s eyeline focused at the end of the dock in front of us. “Now that’s a young lady with a mission.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” A casual Sherry from Jersey leaned up against a wooden piling, an inch of white denim cutoff shorts covering her mile-long legs with a red tied-up half shirt, looped through the middle. She smiled with the innocence of a viper and waved.

“I think she lost half her clothes in a battle with the dock to get to you.” Patrick leaned back against the rail, clearly enjoying the view.

You couldn’t say the girl didn’t have confidence.

He grabbed the intercom. “Good evening, beautiful people. This is the Bolt himself, welcoming you to Rock Island. Please stay seated as we dock and we’ll have you folks off and on your way to paradise in no time.”

After the last guest had exited, Sherry strolled over and propped herself up against the piling that flanked the boat. “How was family dinner last night?”

“Uneventful.” I turned to start the mountain of trash pickup on the boat deck.

“You’re back early. I’m not going to take no for an answer now. One drink.”

Sherry wasn’t my type. And I didn’t feel like being charming.

“We were going out anyway, join us!” Patrick called from the top deck.

She leaned onto the boat and grabbed the railing. “One drink can’t hurt. Right?”

When a flea sneezes on Rock Island, the gossip train barrels ahead full steam. So I knew the moment I walked into Harpoon’s with Sherry, that the subject of town gossip the next morning would be my Friday night whereabouts.

And Harpoon’s was never lacking for busybodies. They had cheap beer, good fried food, and a great view of the water. Patrick walked in first like he did everywhere else, waving and schmoozing like he owned the joint.

Sherry clung to my side as we walked in, a potent mixture of strawberries and that same hairspray my sister used that I hated because it burned my nose. I headed straight to the bar for drinks as she peeled off to the bathroom.

Becky, the bartender whom I’d gone to kindergarten with, raised her pierced eyebrow at me. She was like another little sister to me, and never missed a chance to get into my business.

She landed a frosty beer onto the bar in front of me. “Well, that’s a new flavor of ice cream for you.”

“That’s one way to put it.” I took the first glorious sip, which had little ice shavings floating on the head.

“She’s something to look at alright, even though she’s not your type.”

“She’s more your type.”

“Too bad she’s not into that if she’s here with you. I’d take her off your hands in a heartbeat if she’d let me.” Becky plopped another drink in front of me that had a red and white paper umbrella nestled into whipped cream and smelled of coconut. I raised my eyebrows. “Trust me, she’ll love it.”

“Put these on Patrick’s tab. I have him to thank for this one.”

“Don’t you mean Usain?” The corner of her mouth pulled up. “I’m surprised he hasn’t gotten sued for that yet.”

Only Patrick would be able to steal a famous person’s likeness and have said famous person on board with it. He ran through the bar like a tornado, capturing smiles and laughs like he was harboring them as currency for later.

I jumped as I felt a pinch on my butt.

Becky suppressed a laugh and darted the other direction down the bar as Sherry came up behind my barstool and wrapped her arms around my waist.

“Aw, babe, it matches my outfit!” Sherry whined as she reached around me to grab her drink. Great. We’d already reached babe status. “And how did you know I love Malibu?”

I looked at Becky who was choking back a laugh halfway down the bar.

“Lucky guess?”

“You’re a gem.” She grabbed my beer with her other hand, squishing her boobs against my shoulder. “Let’s go play pool.”

“Have fun,” Becky mouthed with a smirk as Sherry strutted in the opposite direction, hairspray strawberries in her wake.

Apparently, pool was code for let me show you and the rest of the bar my cleavage.

Her chest practically spilled onto the felt. I looked around and she had every single eye in the place on her. I started to sweat. I was never one to relish attention.

She sunk three balls in a row and sauntered up to me like a Cheshire cat.

“Your turn.”

I cleared my throat and tried to line up my first shot, but her thigh was against the table in front of me.

“Umm, you’re sort of in my way a little. For the shot.”

“Oh, my bad, I didn’t mean to distract you.” She walked her fingers up my pool cue.

There was flirting, then there was what Sherry called flirting. Apparently they did things differently in Jersey. This was part of the reason I didn’t date. You never knew who was fun crazy or legitimately crazy. The line could be pretty thin.

Cheers erupted by the front door. Sherry’s eyes darted toward the noise, giving me just enough time to slip out from under her arm.

Lexi’s blond head popped up behind the bar, already laughing with Becky.

And there was Rex, surrounded by the usual crowd like he’d parted the Red Sea.

Rock Island’s golden boy. People loved him.

Hell, I couldn’t blame them. But we hadn’t had a game in six months, and people were still lining up to congratulate him on a good season.

It was the kind of glory my dad had always pictured for me—the future he’d mapped out from the moment I could throw a football.

A future I never wanted.

My phone dinged twice just as Patrick walked over to check in on us.

“Hey, you got me for a sec?” I handed over my cue without waiting for an answer and stepped away to check it. One text was a subtle jab from my dad seeing if I’d caught the basketball game on TV that day, and the other was from my mom asking who I was at Harpoon’s with. Great.

I needed an out. I was crawling out of my skin to get out of the bar even before Lexi and Rex showed up and it turned into a pep rally.

It wasn’t like I hadn’t been on dates before, it just wasn’t a priority for me.

I wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of guy, and I didn’t see myself wasting time when I had so little of it to spare in the first place.

“Hey, Dad needs me at the house. Gotta go, man. Sorry to cut the night short.” It was a lie, but I was desperate. “I’ll see you around, Sherry.”

I tried to ignore the wave of disappointment that crashed over her face as I turned around.

I knew Patrick would flirt with her and make her feel like a million bucks.

He’d lift her spirits and tell her I’d had a rough day.

Which I hadn’t. And that she’d get another chance.

Which she wouldn’t. Or he’d tell her I had just gotten out of a bad relationship and wasn’t ready to jump back in. Yet.

I walked out the front door and took a deep breath. The chatter inside the bar died out as the door behind me closed. I ran my hand down my face and looked up. She was attractive if Barbie was your thing. And nice. And clearly into me. But she just wasn’t who I wanted.

I opened the front door to my beach bungalow and threw my keys onto the little plate on the table.

It’s a key dish , Mom had said the week after Vanessa moved out.

My keys were the one thing I just couldn’t keep track of.

It’s funny how the basic things become the most difficult.

I never saw the purpose of an entire plate made solely for the purpose of holding keys when the table underneath it did the exact same thing.

It took me a few weeks to get into the habit of actually using it and now, that’s just where my key ring belongs.

Mom came over to help me rearrange furniture and spruce up the place. She figured moving the love seat from the left side of the room to the right was at least one step toward mending my shattered heart.

I collapsed onto the couch—the couch Vanessa had picked out but that now lived on the other side of the room.

Tom would’ve gotten a kick out of the Sherry story.

He’d reenact it, licking whipped cream off his finger, prancing around the living room with his shirt tied up like an idiot, and we’d laugh until we cried.

He’d pass out on the couch and we’d roll into the next day easily, like brothers who were separated at birth.

I could hear Vanessa’s laugh in my head when I’d tell her the part where my pool cue turned into a finger ramp. She’d throw her head back and laugh with her mouth open, with that twinkle in her eyes that sparked something in me.

I shut my eyes tight and counted to ten. I’d be up in a few hours with a full day of work ahead of me and once I got going, I wouldn’t have the time or energy left to think about this stuff.

But these quiet moments were the hardest.

The moments when I still felt like calling Tom, even though we haven’t spoken in years. Then, I’d think about calling Vanessa. Then it hits me—again—that they’re both gone, like a kick to the chest I never saw coming.

I used to hate the quiet. It was a reminder of how empty everything felt.

I’d have the radio on, or the TV going in the background just to fill the space.

But after a while, I learned to sit in it, even if they showed up in my head when I least expected it.

It doesn’t happen as often now, but when it does, I still feel the hollowness in my gut.

That’s the thing about staying in the same place. They moved on. They got to go somewhere new—together. But I’m stuck here, in all the places where their ghosts still look at me from across the room.