Page 6 of Until the Storm Breaks (The Midnight Men #1)

“Maren!” Old Eddie waves from his usual stool at the end of the bar. “Heard the prodigal sons are back. Jack and Calvin.”

“That’s right, Eddie.” I slide him his usual—Rainier and a shot of Jameson.

He shakes his head. “Shame about their mom.” Eddie was drinking here when Susan still owned the place.

I nod. “She was one helluva woman. Speaking of which, how’s Martha?”

“Still mean as a snake.” He grins, showing the gap where he lost a tooth in a bar fight forty years ago. “Just how I like ‘em.”

I laugh, already moving to the next customer.

“Maren, honey.” Dolores Henderson leans across the bar, her lipstick slightly smeared, perfume thick enough to cut through the bar smell. She’s already two wines deep, that point where she gets confessional. “Is Calvin Midnight really back?”

“Seems like it.” His name’s going to follow me all night, isn’t it?

“My book club loved his essays. We read them twice!” She clutches her purse against her chest. “Do you think he’d sign my copy?”

“Um, sorry but I wouldn’t know, Dolores,” I say with a shrug.

“But you live right there,” she pleads. “You must see him.”

I force a smile that probably looks more like a grimace. “How about a soft pretzel with beer cheese?”

At the mention of beer cheese, Dolores abandons her interrogation entirely. “Oh, that sounds perfect, honey.”

I punch the order into the system and head to the kitchen window. “One pretzel with cheese, Jay.”

The thing is, everyone knows about Calvin Midnight here.

Local boy makes good. Writes a book of essays that goes viral.

Gets called the voice of his generation by some blogger who probably uses “zeitgeist” in everyday conversation.

Then... nothing. Radio silence. Hasn’t published anything in ten years.

But they don’t know him the way I’ve gotten to know him through Susan’s stories.

How he wrote the book after his father Hank died, barely sleeping, trying to make sense of the loss.

How the sudden fame that came a few years after the book was published rattled him.

All those people claiming to understand his grief, wearing it on tote bags and quoting it in their Instagram bios.

How he’d call Susan, overwhelmed, saying he felt like a fraud because the words that saved everyone else couldn’t save him.

No. They don’t know any of that because he stopped coming home.

My phone buzzes. Text from an unknown number, but I recognize the area code. Seattle.

Calvin: This is Calvin. Got your number from Dominic. The raccoon is currently in my cabin. Advice?

I stare at the message. He texted me. About Gerald. Like we’re... what? Neighbors who text about wildlife?

Maren: Don’t make direct eye contact. He sees it as a challenge.

Three dots appear immediately.

Calvin: You’re joking.

Maren: I’m deadly serious about raccoon etiquette.

Calvin: He’s eating my protein bars.

Maren: Those are HIS protein bars now. You need to accept that.

Calvin: Lol. He’s also judging my dinner choices. Apparently microwave burritos aren’t sophisticated enough for his palate.

Maren:

Calvin: Any other wildlife I should know about?

Maren: Just the local eagle that steals sandwiches from the porch. He’s partial to turkey. Sweet dreams.

A pause. Then:

Calvin: Please tell me you’re joking this time.

Maren:

I almost smile. Almost. Then I remember how I attacked him the second he got out of his truck, and then that awkward dance in the tiny hallway earlier, both of us trying to navigate around Susan’s absence and each other.

But I save his number anyway. Just in case of future raccoon emergencies. That’s all.

By nine, the dinner rush has mellowed into the comfortable hum of regulars nursing their drinks.

The bar feels warm tonight, that particular kind of warmth that comes from bodies and conversation and the kitchen running full tilt.

I’m restocking clean glasses when my eyes drift to the photo on the wall above the register.

Susan and I on the day I officially took over the bar, her arm around my shoulders, champagne glass raised.

She’s beaming with pride, and I’m grinning like I can’t believe my luck.

Seven years ago, but it feels like yesterday and a lifetime all at once.

My hands stop moving. I realize I’ve been drying the same glass over and over, the bar towel squeaking against already-dry glass.

“Need a break?” Lark asks softly, noticing my stillness.

“Yeah. Just... give me a minute.”

I duck into the walk-in cooler, pulling the heavy door shut behind me and letting the cold air shock some sense back into me. I lean back against the stack of beer kegs, their metal surfaces cold even through my shirt, and just breathe. My breath comes out in visible puffs in the chilled air.

Susan was supposed to be here this summer.

Not literally here in the bar, since she’d stopped coming once she started forgetting people’s names, but here in the world.

Teaching me her blackberry jam recipe like she’d been promising for years.

Sitting on the porch with her coffee and crosswords, calling out clues she thought I might know.

Still being my person, my anchor, the woman who became my family when I had none left.

When I come back out, Lark’s waiting by the garnish station, restocking cocktail onion jars. She looks up when she hears the walk-in door seal shut behind me. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I head straight to the register and pop it open, pretending to check the coins. “Just needed a second.”

“Want to talk about it? Or want me to distract you with inappropriate questions about Calvin?”

I smile at her tone, that particular Lark mix of genuine concern and deflecting humor. “How about literally anything else?”

“So tell me, is he still hot in that ‘I read Proust for fun’ kind of way?”

“So much for anything else,” I say, trying to sound exasperated but probably failing. “He’s grieving his mother. And I’m not interested.”

“Liar,” she says immediately, not even pretending to believe me.

“I’m not. And based on our interactions so far, he definitely isn’t either,” I say, moving coins around as if I’m actually counting them.

The truth is, even if he was interested, Calvin Midnight is exactly the kind of bad idea I don’t need right now.

He’s only here until the estate gets settled, then it’s back to Seattle.

And men like him date other writers and professors.

Not bar owners. Plus we got off to a rough start.

Three solid reasons right there. More than enough reasons. Definitely enough.

“Uh-huh. So what did you guys talk about?” She sets down the jar and leans against the bar, arms crossed.

“I dunno. He accused me of hoarding hot sauce,” I offer lamely.

“That’s... weirdly specific.” She shakes her head. “But also kind of funny. Now, how many times have you read his book? Really?”

“I don’t keep track. It’s a good book,” I say defensively, grabbing a roll of quarters from under the counter to restock the coin slots, even though we probably have enough.

“It’s a book written by a man you’ve been half in love with since you were twenty.”

“That’s not—” I stop, because what’s the point?

Lark sees through me like I’m made of glass, always has since she started working here five years ago.

Fine. Maybe I had a little crush when I first read his book.

The way he wrote felt like he’d looked straight into my heart and described what lived there.

But that was the author, not the actual man who’s currently living next door and making everything complicated. “Can we just pretend he’s not here?”

“Sure. We can pretend lots of things. Like how you don’t have that quote tattooed on your ribs.” She whispers the last part, cheekily pinching my waist where she knows the ink sits hidden under my shirt.

“Lark!” I hiss, glancing around as if she just spilled state secrets.

“What? I’m just saying, if my crush moved in next door looking like a boxer-professor hybrid, I’d at least fix my hair.”

I touch my messy bun self-consciously, feeling the pieces that have escaped throughout the shift. “I hate you.”

“You love me,” she says, grinning as she walks away.

The rest of the night passes in a blur of orders and small talk and the comfortable rhythm of service. Lark keeps shooting me knowing looks every time someone mentions Calvin, which is often. Small towns are like that. He hasn’t been home in ages and new gossip spreads faster than spilled beer.

By the time I’ve cleaned up and locked down, it’s nearly one. I head out into the night—Lark left hours ago in her beat-up Honda that runs on hope because her shitty ex took the truck in the divorce. I start the walk home. It’s only just under a mile, and I need the air.

Laila meets me at the edge of the property, tail wagging like I’ve been gone for years instead of hours. She falls into step beside me, and we crunch along the gravel drive in comfortable silence. The July air smells like saltwater and Doug fir and that green scent of everything growing too fast.

Inside my cabin, I grab clean clothes and slip into the shared bathroom, careful with the door.

I shower quickly, conscious of the thin walls and the late hour.

When I walk back to my room, still toweling my hair, I collapse on the bed, landing on the book hidden underneath.

I should move it. Put it on the shelf where it belongs, spine out, nothing to be ashamed of.

Instead, I shove it to the side and pull the blanket over me. It’s now past one in the morning. I wonder if Calvin’s asleep over there, or if he’s lying awake too. If the cabin feels wrong to him, knowing Susan lived there.

It’s strange how absence carves space in the world.

That’s the line I reread obsessively, the one that guts me every time. But it’s not what I chose to ink on my skin. No, I picked the reckless one, the one that made me feel brave: Some storms are good enough to dance in. Even if they ruin everything in their path.

Yeah, well. Calvin Midnight would know all about storms that ruin things. About writing beautiful words about destruction being worth it, then running for shelter the moment real damage threatened. When his mother’s mind started slipping, when things got messy and hard, where was he?

I close my eyes and try not to think about the way he looked this morning.

Try not to remember that I have those lines tattooed on my ribs, hidden where no one can see.

Two sentences about embracing chaos, and here I am, serving the same drinks to the same people every night, playing it safe.

Try not to think about my own notebook, full of crossed-out first lines and stories that never make it past page three. At least he finished something once.

I pull the pillow over my head, as if that could muffle my thoughts. But trying not to think about Calvin Midnight is like trying not to hear him through these walls. Impossible.

And getting harder by the minute.