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"What?" April was holding her shot, laughing.
"Right here," the bartender said, pointing at a sign over the bar that read:
"Um. These don't even make sense." I laughed. "If the bar is in Center County, how do you ring up orders?"
The bartender pointed to the end of the bar, which curved significantly and held a register. "That's in St. Mary's."
"This is hilarious," April said, stepping back up to the bar with her drink. She looked at me and grinned, holding up the little glass. "Ready to taste?"
"Ma'am, sorry, but can I ask you to sit down first?" Wylie pointed to a bar stool.
"Oh, you're serious?" April glanced around as if she expected a cop to appear at any moment.
"We're always on the bloody edge of getting shut down," Wylie explained. "Depends on which county's turn it is to patrol around here. They split it up since we straddle the lines."
I chuckled. My new home was the best kind of weird.
Just as April was sliding onto a barstool, a scraping noise came from the other side of the almost-empty room, and a cat appeared. It paused, the scraping noise stopping, and looked at us with large evaluating eyes. Its fur was a silver grey, and it stood up in all directions.
"Come on Fluffy, it's okay," Wylie said in a coaxing voice. He glanced up at us. "His full name is a bit of a mouthful."
"His full name?" April asked, taking a sip.
"Mr. FluffyNuts," the bartender supplied helpfully.
April laughed, spitting the whiskey she’d just sipped. I laughed too, but hadn't taken a sip yet.
The cat chose that moment to emerge completely from behind the counter, his front paws pulling behind him a little cart with big wheels, which carried the back half of his body.
"Mr. FluffyNuts was a rescue," Wylie said. "About seven years ago, my uncle found him on the side of the road. His back legs were mangled by a car, so Uncle Beau and my brother Wade made him a cart."
"Oh my god." April's face was turning slightly red, and I suspected she was doing her best not to laugh any more.
"Half cat," I said.
Wylie lifted a shoulder in a half-shrug. "A little more than half, I guess. But you got it." He winked at them. “Though if you want the truth, the place has been called that for a hundred years, cat or no cat.” April and I exchanged a confused look. “Enjoy the whiskey, y'all. That first taste is on the house. Try the bourbon, too." Wylie disappeared back down the hallway, and the bartender moved to the other end of the bar to help the few other people who sat against its edge. Mr. FluffyNuts wheeled himself off to follow Wylie, and April grinned at me.
"What?" I asked, feigning innocence about the ridiculousness of everything we’d just witnessed.
"Craziest town ever," April whispered, poking me in the chest to make her point.
I shrugged.
"And YOU live here," she added, poking me again.
I caught her hand and held it to my chest. "Yeah," I said thoughtfully, keeping her slim warm hand trapped in my own. "Yeah, I do."
April tilted her head to the side and one half of her mouth lifted in a smile. "How do you feel about that?"
"I think I like it here," I said honestly, thinking about the warm contentment that had been spreading through me all night.
She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and seemed to be thinking about this statement. "Yeah," she said. "I think I can see why."
"I mean," I said, still holding her hand but dropping it to my leg, pressing it there, wanting to keep her close. "It's got an interesting mix of people, the only family I really have is here… and I have to start my life all over again somewhere. Might as well be here, right?" As I said these words, they solidified in my mind into a certainty I’d only just acknowledged.
"Do you really?" April asked, putting her glass on the bar so she could put her other hand atop mine, on my leg. "Do you really have to start all over, or do you just think that because you can't see anything else?"
"Well," I said slowly. "My entire life was based on being a pro soccer player. Now that I can't do that, I need a reset." I didn’t want to talk about what had happened. I wanted to focus on her, on today, tomorrow.
