Page 25 of When I Should’ve Stayed (Red Bridge #2)

Clay

Tad Hanson clings to the rocks glass, his knuckles tightening around it as I pull it from his grip and dump the rest of the vodka down the drain just like we agreed I would a long time ago.

His brother Randy stands at his back, ready to help him to his feet and drive him home to sleep it off, and I dig his keys out of the drawer at the back of the bar and hand them over to him.

“Thanks again, man,” Randy says, and I nod.

“Yesh,” Tad slurs, but he can barely hold his head up. “Thank dudes. Clays good.”

When it comes to Tad, it’s been this way for as long as I can remember, and to be quite honest, I don’t know if it’ll ever change. There’s a story there, in the falsely jovial eyes of a man who spends all his time with sheep, one that isn’t mine to tell.

I’ve heard pieces, of course, in the dim darkness of lonely afternoons in my bar spent numbing the intensity of his emotions. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens enough, and for Tad’s sake, I hope with all my chest that it stops at some point.

Randy loops Tad’s arm around his shoulder and gently walks him out, Tad hanging on him with brotherly affection and false jokes. He’s quick with wit and unbearably light sometimes, but I know the truth.

He uses it as a tool to hide the darkness.

The door slams shut behind them, and the piercing rays of the sun disappear, once again plunging the bar into its usual darkness.

I wipe down the counters and bus a couple of tables, readying myself for the evening crowd.

It won’t be bad tonight, given that it’s a Wednesday, but I’ll have a horde of regulars all the same.

After I’m done, I head back to the bar and grab the sandwich I got earlier from the sub shop the guy from Florida opened up a few months ago and pull up a stool to eat it.

I’m a man of the town and a friend to many, but since Josie left me, I’m also a man of solitude. I eat most of my meals alone when Bennett and Summer aren’t inviting me to join them, and I don’t pursue dating. I tried for a little bit a couple years ago, but I never made it past a first date.

None of them, no matter what they had to offer, were Josie.

I sing along to the station on the radio and flip the channel to catch some of the highlights for sports, but by and large, I’m just ticking time away until the crowd gets here tonight.

When I’m done, I toss out my garbage and run to the restroom for a quick piss and then get back to business as customers start to trickle in for the night.

It’s a steady flow without being overwhelming, and I’m glad I told Marty he could have the night off tonight to celebrate his anniversary with Sheila. It would have been pointless for him to be here anyway.

I pop the top off a bottle of beer and pass it across the counter to Nick Schmitt, the local lawn guy, and then head back to the other side of the bar to bus some empties. I pull them off the counter and look up just as the main door from the parking lot slams shut.

I’m shocked to see Bennett, so much so, I don’t stop myself from voicing it. “My God. What in the world’s going on? Bennett Bishop in my bar on a Wednesday evening? Must be the apocalypse.”

After all his past issues with alcohol, substance abuse, and debauchery in general, he makes a point not to loiter in bars—even if it’s mine.

Too many bad things have happened from it.

Plus, he normally reserves his nights for Summer, and now that she’s leaving the house less and less in an effort to keep her as healthy as possible, he’s mostly become a homebody.

He sits on a stool at the end of the bar I’m at, where no one else has set up camp, and I don’t waste time before settling up in front of him.

The bastard looks tired, and I know there’re a lot of reasons for that.

Everything that’s going on with Summer, being the main one, and the scuffle with Norah’s asshole ex-fiancé last week that landed him in cuffs.

Thankfully, the cuffs didn’t end in charges, just a few hours at the station.

“Well, howdy there, good buddy.” I smile at him. “What brings you in this time? Get in another shootout with some out-of-towner and spend the day in holding?” I tease. I know he’s still butthurting over the article Eileen ran in the paper, and nothing makes me happier than getting his goat.

“Give me a glass of bourbon, Clay,” he replies, already tired of me.

“Wowee, okay, then. Not in the mood for teasing, I see.”

Bennett sighs, and I waggle my eyebrows in front of him, waiting for him to break. If he’s here on a Wednesday night—his second time coming in here in about a week—it’s got to be good. And as I’ve mentioned previously, I’m a little desperate for entertainment.

“Clay. Bourbon, please. Then I’ll consider talking.”

I figure that’s fair enough, so I grab a glass from down below, flip it up, and set it in front of him.

After one scoop of ice, I grab the bottle of bourbon to my left and pour until it’s nearly touching the rim.

Bennett picks it up and takes one sip, and then another, and drinking it down to half the glass while I watch.

Intrigue builds as I consider how much he seems to be teetering on the edge of control. I wait patiently, wiping at the counter and grabbing drinks when people approach, and after several minutes and an end to foot traffic, he finally starts to talk.

“Breezy’s been on my ass about finding an assistant again. Says the bills are piling up, and I need to start selling shit so I can keep Summer at home and give her the care she needs.” His words are bitter and a necessity all at once.

I nod, just once. I know the last thing Ben wants to do is sell his paintings to rich pricks who only see his art as a money investment, but I know without even having to ask, he’ll do whatever it takes—whatever his sister Breezy says he needs to—to take care of his little girl.

“So, I put that old interview ad up at Earl’s again, and someone actually found the damn thing and came to paint the barn yesterday. Summer and I took a ride down there to see it, and for once, someone actually did something worthwhile.”

“Great.” I love when a solution to a problem comes together.

“Yeah,” he scoffs, his eyes alight with the cruelty of fate. “Except the someone is Norah fucking Ellis.”

Damn, talk about ironic. He’s been annoyed with Norah Ellis ever since she arrived in Red Bridge, something about her basically throwing herself in front of his truck to get a ride into town.

I consider him carefully, noting the line of his tense shoulders and the absolute grind of his jaw.

This is more complicated than a woman he hates, and his problems are way too big to focus on that anyway.

There’s more to this, as there so often is when it comes to the dynamics of men and women, but I don’t know if he even fully realizes it yet.

“And?” I eventually question.

“ And? We’ve had a lot of shit between us in the short time she’s been here, Clay, and not one piece of it is good.

You think it’s a good idea I hire her, make her a permanent fixture in my life?

In Summer’s?” He shakes his head, completely aggravated with what I understand now is an overwhelming wave of emotion he doesn’t want to have.

He doesn’t hate Norah Ellis. Deep down, he likes her. A lot. And liking someone, wanting someone, when he knows his time with Summer is limited, is an inconvenience for which he’s not spent any time preparing.

For Summer’s illness to weaken her slowly and for his heart to break into a million pieces while he watches? Yes.

Having to share not only her but his affection with someone else? Not at all.

He stares down at his glass while I stare at him, working through all the ways I could tell him what I’m thinking. There are a million and one ways, sure, but very few of which he would find himself receptive to.

I settle for the root of the issue, the one I think he feels the deepest in the sharp stab of his nerves. Bennett is a grump and a prick and a hundred other things, but what he isn’t is selfish when it comes to anything surrounding his daughter.

He can handle it if his heart breaks. But he can’t handle the same for his daughter.

“You’re afraid Summer is going to like her, aren’t you?” I ask gently, leaning a hand into the counter and waiting.

He rolls his eyes, his mood sour, but his words bely his look.

He knows it as well as I do…Summer Bishop is an unconditional lover.

She spreads joy and compassion, and even being seven young years old, she’ll be unable to stop herself from being the little angel that fixes the sadness in Norah’s eyes.

“Are you kidding? All that fanciness? She’ll fall in love. ”

“Maybe…I don’t know, Ben,” I say as softly as I can in the din of the bar. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing, you know? Maybe a little Norah Ellis in your lives is exactly what you need.”

I know Josie Ellis is exactly what I’ve always needed in mine.

Because for as much as love can break us…it fixes us even more.

Bennett considers me closely before sucking back the rest of the glass and leaning into his hands. I knock gently on the bar directly in front of him and leave him to his thoughts to serve the crowd on the other side.

I think mindlessly about Josie on the water tower yesterday and of the unhappy ending we had nearly five years ago.

I think of the paths of our lives and how it appears they’re about to intersect a whole hell of a lot more.

I sure hope we don’t crash and burn again.

Lord knows, we’re still trying to survive the first time.