Page 32

TOMMY

“This is Rebekah.” Oliver drops a blonde in front of me, the way a cat presents a dead mouse at its owner’s feet. While music pounds in the air, the jukebox inside Darlene’s is rich with quarters, and the tracks are lined up for hours, he wraps his arm around a different blonde and beams.

Look what I did, Tommy! I caught you a juicy fish.

Rebekah and the other one look similar enough to be sisters, maybe. Cousins, perhaps. But they’re definitely not from around here.

“Rebekah, that’s Tommy. He’s recently suffered heartbreak and could do with a little soothin’.”

“Hi, Tommy.” She’s small in the waist and large in the chest. And when she offers her hand, taking mine and smiling up with big ol’ baby blues, I know Oliver’s game.

He didn’t go fishing for just any chick.

He tried for a lookalike. Like blonde and blue will do—it doesn’t matter whose brain or personality they’re attached to.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your breakup. ”

“He’s exaggerating.” I shake her hand and take mine back just as soon as she releases me. “A girl I dated in high school is back in town, and Oliver likes to create drama where there is none.” I look down at the almost empty glass in her hand. “You want a new drink?”

“Oh, sure.” She beams, pleased with my offer, but her smile falls into a pout when I spin away and head to the bar. Without her.

“Hey, Tommy.” Caroline slaps a napkin by my arm and glances over my shoulder. “I see you and Ollie have been shopping from the kiddie section. ”

“Just him,” I chuckle, nodding in thanks when she grabs a glass and begins pouring. “And she already had a drink in her hand. You card her when she ordered?”

“Yes.” She burns me with a side-eye. “Of course I did.”

“So that kinda implies she’s not a kid. Which bodes well for me since I don’t like the idea of sleeping in a cell for the night.”

Finishing, she sets my beer by my elbow. “Means you’re taking her home?”

“No. But I’m glad to know she’s of age, simply because I was standing near her. Busy in here tonight, huh?”

She looks around with a maternal affection glowing in her eyes. This bar is her baby, just as surely as the three humans she birthed are her babies.

“Saturday night tends to do that, especially after a long, hot day in the sun. Folks get thirsty, and word gets around that the Watkins boys are spritzing on a bit of cologne.”

“Jesus.” I grab my beer. “The fact I know you aren’t even lying is just…” I take a long sip and shake my head. “It’s exhausting. People around here need to get a life.”

“Why, when you provide better entertainment than whatever’s on the television?”

“You’re a pain in my ass.”

“Mmhm. You here for a big night where I gotta call Pete to help me keep things under control? Or is mellow the new yellow, and you’re gonna behave?

” She grabs another glass and begins pouring someone else’s beer, but before I can answer, her smile drops away, and her eyes shoot over my shoulder in panic.

“You in a good mood, Tommy Watkins? If not, give me twenty seconds to make some phone calls.”

“I… what?” I glance over my shoulder and feel that kick, like every other fucking time we’re in the same space. Because Alana Page stops in the doorway, long blonde cascading hair tickling her shoulders and bright blue eyes burning with anxiety and scanning the crowd that stares back at her.

It shouldn’t be like this, where a whole fucking bar silences just because someone walks in, where bodies stop moving, and the awkward cough of someone who can’t help themselves bounces across a packed room.

But this is Plainview, where no one minds their own business, and she’s Alana Page. The one who got away.

I don’t even mean she’s my one who got away.

She left us all, and her departure was, for the first few weeks, as though a serial killer had swept through town and ravaged our small community. Questions went unanswered and understanding, to this day, remains unreachable.

She wanted to disappear and be forgotten. When really, she created the biggest fucking mystery Plainview has known since before prohibition.

I turn to go to her, but Caroline grabs my arm, setting her hand on my bicep. “Tommy…”

“I won’t make a mess.” I brush her off and take my beer, and since the whole fucking town needs to watch anyway, I cross the bar and hold Alana’s terrified stare. She’s gonna be scared no matter what. May as well face the devil she knows.

“I can leave.” So quickly, she steps back and draws my focus down to her dress. Her body wrapped in white, and the tan she collected from half a summer in the middle of nowhere. “I didn’t realize you’d be out, so I can?—”

“Stop freakin’ out every time we run into each other.”

I offer my beer—not sure why, except it’s the only thing I have in my hand, and I want to give her things.

Always have. Always will.

But she shakes her head, drawing her lip between her teeth and ruining the lipstick she applied before coming out.

Fuck me . Lipstick is a grown woman’s decision. It’s not something she even considered back when we were teens.

“You’re in Plainview now, Lana. Chances are, we’re gonna run into each other at least every other day. You’re gonna develop an autoimmune problem if you panic every time we’re within a hundred yards of each other.”

“This is your space.” She looks past me. Around me. Scouring those who watch us, and finding absolutely no pleasure in it. “You were here first, so I’ll head out and?—”

“You’ll stay.” I bring my beer up and take a sip. Anything to wet my desert-dry throat. “We never really got to do this when we were younger.”

“Drink?” She smiles, though I’m not sure she means it in a friendly way. “That’s not true. We drank plenty.”

“No, I mean, in a bar. In front of the adults. In fact, I’m still consistently surprised to remember we are the adults now. Feels weird.”

She exhales—I think it’s a laugh—and looks down at her feet.

So, of course, I do the gentlemanly thing and follow her gaze along her long, trim legs and down to cute painted toenails.

“Nice shoes. Very summery . Franky having a sleepover with Bitsy? ”

She nods, though all she allows me a view of is the top of her head and mascara’d lashes flickering down to kiss her cheeks.

“He’s not pleased I came out.” Finally, she drags her eyes up and stops on mine.

“He doesn’t like changes in routine, and he’s accustomed to us watching television before bed and snuggling on the couch. ”

Lucky kid.

“He’ll be okay, though?”

“Yeah. We’re considering it an exercise in growth.” She sniffles and searches around me again because fuck, I know they continue to watch us. “I’m out here, uncomfortable as hell. And he’s there, also uncomfortable. We’ll reunite again in a few hours and lament a wasted evening spent apart.”

Wasted… even though she’s right here in front of me.

“Sounds like you and he make a good little team.” I bring my beer up and chug half the glass—is it possible to drown my bitterness? Here’s hoping .

Swallowing and wiping my lip with my free hand, I reach across and set the glass on a nearby table. “Must be nice having him in your life.”

Her brows furrow in consideration. “How do you mean?”

“Just… relationships can be tricky: with our friends, with lovers, with siblings, even. You and me? We know not-so-great relationships with our parents. But what you and Franky have is unconditional. It’s not complicated at all. It simply is .”

“Makes you wonder what the hell our parents were thinking,” she sighs.

She relaxes a little, dropping her weight and a layer of defensiveness.

“Back then, I figured what I have with my mom, and what you had with your parents, was just the way these things go. It wasn’t pleasant, and it wasn’t fair, especially for you and Chris.

But I thought it was reasonably normal.”

“And now?”

“Now—” Finally, she smiles, “My son is my best friend, and what we have is pure and wonderful and comes without conditions or an expiration date. He never has to worry that I don’t love him or if I’ll wake up one day and treat him badly for no reason at all.

And I never have to wonder if he’s lying or sneaking or, in his little heart, simply doesn’t like me.

” She meets my eyes and blushes the way she used to, back when she was sixteen and already world-weary.

She trusted me back then. She knew firsthand that life sucked, but she believed with her whole heart that I could—that I would—create a pocket of happiness she could climb into whenever she needed it.

Didn’t matter that I was broke and broken. She merely believed .

And shit, that belief made me invincible.

“Perhaps, someday, you’ll become a dad and get to feel this, too,” she murmurs. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced in my life.”

Maybe.

Probably not.

“Alana fucking Page!” Chris cuts through the staring crowd, louder than the rest, which is a bravery that only comes to him when tequila sizzles in his veins.

Then he crashes into her side and shoves a shot glass in her hand, clear liquid spilling over and dribbling along her delicate wrist. “I know a brewin’ fight when I see one.

” He smacks a kiss to the side of her head, strands of her blonde hair getting caught in his stubble as he pulls back.

“But I’m calling it for today, ‘k? We’re all gonna get along.

For tonight, ‘cos it’s my birthday, I’m declaring it so. ”

Confused, she leans back and scowls. “It is not your birthday!”

“It’s my half birthday,” he sniggers. “‘Cos Tommy and me’ve gotta share. I got sick of always getting the second hug. The second kiss. The second happy birthday, kiddo . So I’m claiming the summer, and Tommy takes the winter, and finally, we get to celebrate ourselves as individuals for once in our fuckin’ lives. ”

Surprised, she brings her eyes back to mine in question.