Page 48 of Here We Go Again

Logan adopts Joe’s dramatic, pleading tone. “Rosemary, I’m dying whether I’m drunk or sober for it. Are you really going to deny a dying man this one small pleasure?”

“I don’t sound like that.” Joe frowns, and at the sight of his offended face wrinkles, Hale throws her head back and laughs, and Logan almost falls out of her chair in shock. It’s a real laugh, one that shakes her shoulders and makes her blue eyes water in the corners—the kind of laugh that can only happen when you feel safe with the people around you. The thought makes Logan feel warm inside, even before she starts drinking her fishbowl-sized margarita.

“Joe…?” Logan tries when he’s halfway through his drink and tortas. “There’s something I’ve been wondering…”

Joe’s expression is soft and open. “Ask me anything,” he invites with a huge margarita glass sloshing in his hand.

Logan leans forward. “Looking back at your life, do you have any regrets?”

She’s not entirely sure where this question comes from, but in her happily buzzed state, she’s suddenly desperate for an answer.

Joe burps. He’s a true lightweight these days. “I try not to dwell on the past too much.”

Logan pretends to study him through a monocle made up of her thumb and index finger. “Bullshit.”

He burps again.

“You don’t regret living in a crap town like Vista Summit for thirty years?” she presses.

“Or working sixty hours a week as a teacher?” Hale adds.

Joe contemplates this with a drunk man’s seriousness. “I only have one regret in my life, and it’s not teaching or living in Vista Summit.”

Logan slams down her drink. “One regret! What is it?”

Joe tries to look dignified in his wheelchair at the head of the table, but the salsa on his chin diminishes the effect. “That’s… personal.”

Thankfully, Hale looks equally outraged by this evasiveness. “You never told us you have a regret! What is it?”

He shakes his head.

“I threw out the binder, and Logan is trying not to be an asshole,” Rosemary argues like the debate champ she once was. “We’re all making compromises here, Joe. Tell us!”

“I think I’ll take this one to the grave, if it’s okay with you.”

“It’s not okay with me!” Logan and Hale shout in perfect harmony. They turn to look at each other. And even though Hale is perfectly sober, she still bursts out laughing again.

They spend the rest of dinner speculating wildly about Joe’s oneregret. When they leave the restaurant, Logan feels warm and loose and floaty in a way that extends beyond the power of tequila.

The parking lot is dark as they walk to the Gay Mobile, and the sky above Colorado is speckled with stars. “The universe feels infinite tonight,” she whispers as she looks up.

“Okay, no more margaritas for you,” Hale teases. But for the first time in forever, Logan doesn’t feel like she got drunk to outrun her busy brain. She feels at peace with her thoughts tonight.

Hale guides Logan into the passenger seat, helps Joe into the van, and drives them to Best Western, where the only available room has two queens. But when they get upstairs with all their things, Hale wordlessly puts her pillow on the bed next to Logan.

They share the bed, and Logan falls asleep to the sound of Hale’s restless legs against the starchy sheets. Everything feels infinite tonight.

“Enough is enough!”

Hale glances up from where she’s fiddling with the straps on her absurd gladiator-style wedges the next morning. “What?” she asks innocently, as if she’s not performing bondage on her ankles.

“You cannot keep wearing heels in National Parks! I won’t allow it!”

She scowls. “I don’t recall you having any authority over what I wear.”

“I’m seizing authority. This is a footwear coup.” Logan stomps over to the two massive suitcases Hale packed and begins rummaging around for a different pair of shoes. “Shit biscuits, why did you pack so many pairs of heels?”

“Asshole violation!” Hale hops up from the bed and teeters over to her. “Please get your greasy sausage fingers off my things.” She nudges Logan in the stomach with her elbow to shove her aside. “I like wearing heels!”