Page 15 of When I Should’ve Stayed (Red Bridge #2)

Clay

I pace the alley behind The Country Club and check my watch again, only getting more pissed off when I see what time it is.

I’ve been waiting for an hour for Bennett to show up here with the beer kegs I need to be ready for the afternoon rush, and if he doesn’t get here soon, before I open, the guys who come here when they get off at Phelps are going to riot.

In their world, a hard day’s labor ends with a beer, a ball game, and a home-cooked meal at home, in that order.

It sounds barbarian and a little sexist, but I assure you, these guys are the salt of the earth and the best humans you’ll ever meet. If their wives are cooking for them, it’s because they want to.

Still, they have a routine, and I’m a carefully crafted part of it.

If it weren’t for my damn father’s quarterly check-in call, I would have gotten them myself.

Instead, I spent two hours making up facts about green pitch and fairway length and ended the call with a false promise for a future tour of the pro shop.

Yeah, my dad still thinks The Country Club is, in fact, a country club.

We’re going on a decade of this charade, and it’s honestly just become comical at this point.

I mean, I don’t need his money. Hell, I don’t even need my trust fund.

Red Bridge keeps my watering hole in steady enough cash flow to live comfortably.

I could quite literally tell my father to eat shit and be fine.

It also helps that my view of money and how much you actually need to enjoy your life is vastly different from the way I was raised. I have Red Bridge to thank for that.

Which begs the question, why do I even keep up with the lies to my father?

I guess there’s a masochistic side of me that wants to see how long he’ll continue to be the surface-level dad he’s been since the day I was born.

His follow-through when it comes to me is statistically zero-in-a-million.

He’s never put in more effort than a phone call in the ten years I’ve been here, and I can pretty much guarantee he never will.

A glint of sun catches my attention as Bennett’s truck finally rounds the corner into the alley, and I let out a huge, relieved breath at the sight.

“Hi, honey,” Bennett greets, climbing out of his truck with an annoying smirk and slamming the door behind him. “I’m home.”

“What the hell, man?” I ask, still annoyed that he’s had me out here pacing my ass off without even so much as a phone call. “What took you so long?”

“Relax.” He opens the tailgate, and I help him roll the first keg to the back of the bed and out. “I had to make a few pit stops.”

“Pit stops?” I scoff. “You said you’d be here over an hour ago.” We each grab one handled end of the keg and carry it toward the bar, waddling funny, thanks to the weird distribution of weight.

“You do realize I’m here because I’m doing you a favor, right?” he says in a tone I know is supposed to be snide. But I’ve done this fucker enough favors to last a lifetime, so he can suck my dick.

“Where were you?”

“I had to make sure Josie Ellis’s sister made it to her house and get gas.”

“What did you just say?” I ask, freezing completely and yanking Bennett to a stop as my heart kicks up to a fucking gallop at the mention of her name.

It doesn’t matter that it’s been almost five fucking years since we split up at this point.

You never get over the love of your life. Period. “You were at Josie’s?”

“Not really.”

“Then why did you just say Josie’s house ?”

“Her sister is in town and a complete fucking toddler. I was just making sure she didn’t get herself killed.”

“Her sister is in town, and she’s a toddler?

” I drop the keg as it slips from my hand, distant memories of Josie and her sister Norah and her horrible mother at Grandma Rose’s funeral swimming in my mind.

Bennett grunts at the weight, but he’s got enough muscles.

He’ll survive. “How the hell do you know that? Why do you know that?”

“Well, technically, she’s not a toddler,” Bennett corrects, grunting to pick up the keg on his own. “She’s a grown-ass woman with a penchant for terrible life choices.”

I’m fully aware that Norah, Josie’s only surviving sister, isn’t a toddler.

But I’m also aware that her baby sister Jezzy, who is no longer alive, was just a toddler when she died.

Ben doesn’t know that, but I do. I know everything there is to know about Josie Ellis.

So much so, that I sometimes wish I could forget she exists.

But I can’t. My heart refuses to forget a single conversation, memory, or moment that includes her.

I stare at Ben, waiting for him give me something, fucking anything, more, but I swear this asshole must have lost his mind or bashed his head in or something because he’s not getting to the point. I know he knows I’m not over Josie. He knows .

Having known each other our whole lives and all, he should know me better than anyone.

“You can take a breath,” he says so teasingly my head nearly explodes. “I didn’t even see your ex.”

He adjusts the keg in his arms and rolls his eyes, walking toward the back door while I follow him.

“But her sister…what happened with her, Ben?”

It’s a big fucking deal, Norah being in town, and Bennett is painfully failing to realize that.

With all the shit Josie and her sister have been through and the basically no contact they’ve had since Eleanor dragged Norah away from Grandma Rose’s funeral that day, her sister wouldn’t just show up here for a fun time.

And I know with certainty Josie wouldn’t be ready for it to happen at all.

Bennett sets the keg down on the bar with a thud, explaining simply, “On my way back into town, after picking up your kegs, she waved me down for a ride.”

It’s a basic fucking answer, and instantly, I’m even more annoyed. Why is he being the absolute dictionary definition of taciturn today?

“And what did Josie say about her sister being in town? Was she surprised? Angry?” I offer, thinking maybe, just maybe, if I make the question multiple choice, it’ll entice him to answer. “She doesn’t have the best relationship with her family.”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know ?”

“I didn’t hang around for the family reunion,” he says on a sigh, seemingly just as aggravated with me as I am with him.

I know he’s got important shit of his own—our sweet, now seven-year-old Summer is the most important girl in the whole wide world—but I still don’t appreciate the attitude.

“Now, are you going to help me move your last two kegs out of my truck, or should I just do it myself?”

“You’re such a dick sometimes, Ben.”

“Me?” he snaps with a laugh. “The guy who drove forty minutes to pick up your kegs and is currently helping you move them into your bar?”

“The guy who doesn’t know shit about anything, even though he was all up in the shit today.”

He puts his hands to his hips and stares hard at me. “I take it we’re still talking about Josie right now?”

I groan and grind my teeth, busying myself with changing out the old empty keg for the new, and try to talk myself down from strangling my very dear best friend.

My bar will be full soon, and as much as I hate it, Josie Ellis will still want nothing to do with me.

I have to let it go before it eats me alive. I have to let her go . At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself for the last five fucking years.