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With a furrowed brow, A-hole Anderson wiped his pants with the black cloth napkin to no avail. Aww, I hoped I ruined his day. Bless his heart. “Guess I better go wash this off,” he said.
“Listen, Anderson, I have to get back to the office, but I’ll think about what you said,” Patrick said, clearly not wanting any part of this scene or the wine-covered slimeball. The poor bastard tried to get him to stay but the councilman couldn’t get out of there fast enough, so he huffed over to the men’s room, and I cackled inwardly—Get ’em, Abigail!
“Hey Abigail,” a deep but sweet voice called behind me, and I jumped. Thank god I didn’t have a full glass of wine on me.
“Rex, I didn’t see you there,” I said, with my hand over my heart, catching my breath.
Rex smiled with those annoyingly white teeth against his tanned skin. “You taking a lunch break?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“Me too. Care to join me?”
“Sure,” I said, nodding to the seat on the opposite side of me from the one Anderson had vacated.
Rex slid onto the barstool, leaning against the bar so his arms flexed and moved beneath the black fabric of his tee. He and I went way back, as most people in this town did.
Once upon a time, I’d nursed a debilitating crush on the man. Rex Montgomery had made my sixteen-year-old heart skip a beat every time I saw him. It started back in high school when he and my brother started working together here at Sullivan’s. Both were dishwashers at the time. A few nights a week, I’d answer the door to find him standing there with that cute smile of his, his scarred eyebrow giving him just the right amount of bad-boy edge. It was teenage girl catnip. Then he and my brother would run off in my brother’s dusty old Bronco, and I’d replay our inane interactions in my head and scribble Mrs. Abigail Montgomery in the margins of my notebooks.
I wasn’t even sure why I’d liked him. Rex was not a bad boy, despite the scar. He was basically a Boy Scout. He didn’t have a mischievous bone in his body. Not like I did. There was one night when we almost kissed in my backyard when Mama wasn’t home and Gabe was making out with Debby Reagan in his bedroom. But it never happened. And I always wondered if it was the garlic bread I’d had for dinner that night. Probably the reason I hardly ever ate it anymore, even though I hadn’t felt the desire to kiss him since my frontal lobe had fully developed.
It was for the best. A good guy like him deserved an equally good woman. Besides, my brother had always seemed to hover near when one of his friends looked at me for a few seconds too long. And I’d learned my lesson about men early, thanks to my ex. My brother had done me a favor.
“Here you go—aw, man, what happened here?” Speak of the devil. Gabe was back with my lunch. He came around the bar to assess the spillage.
I stood by shaking my head. “I dunno. That guy must have slick fingers or something.”
“I’ll get the mop.” Gabe lifted his gaze and finally recognized that I wasn’t alone. “Oh, hey man,” he said to Rex. The two old friends greeted one another with the same handshake they’d been doing since junior year. “You here for the usual?” Gabe asked, and Rex nodded. “We still on to watch the game on Friday?”
“I’ll be there,” Rex assured him, and my brother disappeared into the kitchen once more. I kept my eyes on my salad and tried to ignore the pinch of jealousy at their easy friendship. Gabe was right about one thing: I was living in a big ole house all by myself. And it was lonely.
Then Rex’s voice made me glance up. “Bastian! Two times in one day, what are the odds?”
Bastian?
“Pretty high in this small town,” Bastard, I mean Bastian, said.
“Man, you’re a mess. What happened to you?” Rex asked, and Sebastian glanced at me.
“A little wine spill. I guess the bar isn’t very level. With these old, run-down buildings, what can you expect?”
Rex held up his calloused hands. “All I can say is Sullivan’s is in compliance with the fire code.”
“You two know each other?” I butted in.
“Yeah, Sebastian and I go way back.” Way back? Charlie mentioned that he was Lydia Radcliffe’s grandson, but it didn’t seem like anyone really knew him. What were his ties to our town? Rex shot him that Boy Scout smile. “Why don’t you join us for lunch?”
Why was Rex being so polite? Sebastard and I shared a look as if to say, There’s no way I’m sitting next to you again. Nice to know the feeling was mutual.
I grabbed my tote and gave them a closed-lipped smile. “You know what, I have a showing coming up, so I’ll have to pass. You two have a nice catch-up.” I shoved my salad into a takeout container, then patted the wine-stained man on the shoulder, wishing I could shove him through the window. “Enjoy your time in New Elwood.”
THIRTEEN
SEBASTIAN
I didn’t have proof, but something told me the woman in the red skirt knocked over my wine on purpose. But why would she? I hadn’t been here long enough to have any real enemies. Well, any more than one. I watched her walk away and thought of Charlie. She definitely would have doused me in wine, given the chance. Maybe the women here were all cut from the same cloth. That’d be the first good thing I’d found in this town.
Rex and I settled back at the bar while he ate his hamburger and fries but offered me the pickle just like when we were kids.
