Page 51 of When I Should’ve Stayed (Red Bridge #2)

Clay

“Looking good, Clay,” Tommy Franks says as I slide a beer across the bar. “Glad to see you up and moving. You gave us a scare there, man.”

After the accident and the emergency surgery where Dr. Sarens had to sew up my spleen, the bastard kept me in the hospital for what felt like forever.

And once he discharged me, Josie rode my ass to take it easy and rest. But two days ago, after I followed up with my doctor and he removed the sutures in my abdomen, I finally convinced her that I was good enough to come back to work.

So, here I am, back to work. Back to living.

Back to serving the people of Red Bridge their favorite booze.

Thank fuck. A guy like me isn’t meant to sit on the couch and stare at the walls.

Sitting still has never been my forte. I need to be out and about.

Socializing. Mingling. Doing shit. And the one and only watering hole in town sure as shit isn’t meant to be closed for this long.

The people were about ready to take to the fields for some good old-fashioned booze bonfires, zero degrees outside or not.

“Thanks, Tommy,” I tell him and clap my hand down on the bar. “Consider this one on the house, and I covered what you already had on your tab. Don’t know how I’ll ever repay you and Doug for what you did for me that night. Probably owe you my life.”

“Actually, I think you owe Josie your life,” Tommy says after he takes a sip of his beer. “She’s the one who kept you from bleeding out until we got there.”

“Next time you see her, mind telling her that for me?” I request. “Because every time I try to tell her, she acts like she didn’t do shit.”

“Oh, I will,” he says and stands up from his barstool with his beer in hand. “And how about the next time you get a shard of glass shoved in your stomach, you leave it in place until we get there?”

I laugh at that. “That was a pea-brained move, huh?”

Tommy grins. “Didn’t help you, that’s for damn sure.”

Note to everyone, if you ever find yourself in a situation where a shard of glass or some other object is hanging out of your body, leave it there and let an actual doctor decide what to do.

Per Dr. Sarens, if I would’ve left the glass be, I wouldn’t have lost so much blood, and he wouldn’t have been sweating bullets in surgery.

“Cheers, man,” Tommy adds and lifts his beer in the air. “Glad to see you here and doing well.”

I offer a grateful nod, and he heads toward the pool tables. And for the next hour, I spend my time taking drink orders, chatting with regulars about the accident, and joking around with Marty Higgins and his wife Sheila.

It feels good. Being here, surrounded by some of my favorite people in Red Bridge.

And it makes me think about Josie and our wedding and what an awesome time it’s going to be.

I love this town and the people in it, and I can’t even imagine how much I would have missed out on if I’d stayed in fucking New York.

“Well, well, well…” I look up from the register to find Bennett striding toward an open barstool with a smiling Summer on his hip.

I know toddlers aren’t traditionally brought into bars, but Summer isn’t just any toddler and The Country Club isn’t just any bar.

It’d be different if Bennett were here to booze himself into oblivion, but that shit’s behind him.

If he’s here, it’s solely for the company.

“It sure is good to see you. How ya feeling?”

“Like a million bucks.”

“Yeah?” Bennett asks, surprise in his voice.

“Honestly? Yeah.” I nod and wipe off the bar with a clean rag before swinging it over my shoulder. “It’s good to be back in action.”

“Reddys! Reddys!” Summer exclaims, and it takes both Bennett and me a hot minute to figure out what she’s saying. But when she points a little index finger toward a container of cherries on the bar, Bennett laughs.

“You want a cherry, Summblebee?” he asks her, and she claps her hands excitedly.

“Yes!”

I don’t hesitate to cut up a few red cherries and put them in a cup before sliding them over toward Summer. Bennett carefully sets her on a barstool and stands behind her while she grabs one and shoves it into her mouth.

“Good, Summer?” I ask her, and she nods.

“More!”

Bennett chuckles. “Slow your roll, greedy. Finish those first.”

“You want anything to drink, sweetie?” I ask her, leaning forward on my elbows to meet her eyes. “Water? Vodka? A beer?”

“Beer?” she questions and Bennett sighs.

“I swear to God, Clay, I’ll put you back in the hospital.”

I laugh at that and get to work on making Summer a cup of water with a lid and a straw. Once I slide it over to her, she takes a drink. “Beer, Uncie Cay?” she asks, and I laugh.

“No, sweetie, that’s water.”

“Want beer!” she demands, and even Bennett can’t avoid a laugh.

“I can’t wait for the day you and Josie have kids,” he says tauntingly, but Summer has already forgotten her request entirely and gone back to eating her cherries.

Sure, she’ll probably bring it up again at a most inconvenient time—like an eventual parent-teacher conference—but that’s why kids build character.

I can’t wait to have some of my own.

“Oh, get real, Ben. You and I both know you’re not capable of the fun uncle role like me,” I tell him and add a few more cherries to Summer’s cup. “You’re too much of a sourpuss, dude.”

Bennett flips me the middle finger behind Summer’s head. Poor schmuck knows I’m right .

I grin. “Love you too, Ben.”

His phone rings in his pocket, and he digs it out with a deep sigh, further fitting into his stereotypical role.

“Shit. I gotta take this,” he mutters, nodding toward Summer for me to take over. I walk out from behind the bar and take his place behind her on the barstool, ready to make sure she doesn’t take a tumble. For any kid, it’s dangerous; for her, it could be catastrophic.

Fuck . Now that I’m thinking on it, I’ve got to figure out some safer seating.

Bennett scoots out the front door to be able to hear his call, and I dig inside her little pink Disney Princess backpack to find a coloring book with crayons.

“You want to color, sweetie?” I ask, setting out the book and crayons on the bar in front of her.

Summer’s face turns from focused on cherries to smiling over Disney Princesses in an instant.

“Color!” she demands, but when I start to pick up the pink crayon, she shoves my hand away. “No, Uncie Cay. Mine.”

I grin down at her as she picks up the pink crayon, her little toddler fist clenching tightly around it, and starts to scribble lines of pink all over Snow White’s face.

If Summer had a choice, she’d make everything pink.

That’s evidenced by the fact that she’s currently wearing a pink T-shirt with jeans with sparkly pink shoes and a pink bow in her hair.

Pink is Summer’s favorite color. Pretty sure it has been since the day she was born.

“Uncie Cay, color!” she requests, and I jump into action, picking up a green crayon and coloring on the opposite page where a mermaid—I think her name is Ariel?—is in the ocean with a few smiling fish surrounding her.

“Pitty!” Summer exclaims when she sees that I’ve colored the mermaid’s tail green. I don’t need an r to know she means it’s pretty. “Pitty Pi-tty, Uncie Cay!”

“Thank you,” I tell her with a smile. “And so is yours. I love her hair.”

“Piiiink,” Summer says proudly. “Pitty pitty pink.”

“What are you two up to?” The question comes from behind me, but the voice is more familiar than my own.

I glance over my shoulder to find Josie standing there, her diner apron still around her poodle-skirt waist. She hates that damn uniform, but in my opinion, she’s a sight for sore eyes in anything she wears.

I feel like it’s been weeks since I’ve spent any real time with her.

Between Camille needing Josie to work a bunch of her shifts at the diner and her sleeping at Rose’s house for the past ten days while she tries to go through everything, her surprise visit in my bar is more than welcome.

I’m glad she’s finally found the strength to make strides in moving on, but I wish she’d let me help her.

“Oh, you know, just coloring Disney Princesses,” I say, but I also pull her into my arms and press a smacking kiss to her lips. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“Missed you too.”

“Tell me you’re sleeping at my place tonight. I can’t do another night without you.”

Josie’s lips turn down in a frown. “I’m still trying to get through more stuff… I don’t know…”

“Then I’ll come stay at Rose’s.”

“You don’t need to do that, Clay.”

“You don’t want me to stay there with you?” I question, desperately wanting to break this long-ass streak of us not sleeping in the same bed and barely seeing each other. Ten fucking days without my wife is ten days too many.

“It’s not that.” She shakes her head and averts her eyes for a long moment. “It’s just that… I don’t know… I think it’s a job I need to do alone.”

I’m trying to give Josie the time and space she needs. I know the past few months have dumped a mountain of bad shit on her. But fuck, it’s hard. I want my wife, you know? I want her in our bed and in our apartment. Because that’s the reality. It’s not my place anymore. It’s Josie’s and my place.

I start to open my mouth, to push her a little more on me staying over at Rose’s with her tonight, but Josie pulls her eyes away from mine to press a kiss to Summer’s forehead and look down at the pages of her coloring book. It’s probably for the best. I know I have a tendency to push too hard.

“Oh, Summer, I love your picture.”

“Pitty?” Summer asks and Josie nods.

“Very pretty.”

“Piiink.”

“I see that.”

“Lovvv pink.”

“You might love pink as much as my sister Norah does,” she says, and I’m shocked at the admission. Josie hardly ever talks about her mom or sister anyway, and since Grandma Rose’s funeral, hardly has turned into never.

“Siss-ter?” Summer questions and Josie nods.

“Yep. My sister.”