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In the meantime, Mazzie and her boyfriend had been just about the best thing that happened since I was able to snag the Small Business Association Veterans Administration loan.
“Lucas,” Mazzie exclaimed, pulling me through the front door. The singer inside was even better than he sounded from the street. It was a solid rendition of “Folsom Prison Blues,” and like I’d told Mazzie, I had no problem listening to Johnny Cash next door. There was no need for her to turn it down, though the noise when our hours overlapped was something she worried about. “Come here,” she continued, “there’s someone I want you to meet.”
I couldn’t decide if Mazzie being so outgoing was a good or bad thing. On one hand, she seemed determined to help make my shop a success by telling anyone and everyone about me.
But that was the problem too. The less the people in my hometown knew, the better.
“Brooke. . . Lucas Warner. He’s the guy I was telling you about. Lucas, this is Brooke.”
Mazzie had told me already that Brooke wanted her first tattoo after her baby was born. I stuck out my hand. “Nice to meet you, Brooke.”
“Same to you. I’m so excited to get my first tattoo when you open.”
“Excuse me, guys.” Mazzie left us to greet more people at the door.
“The place is slammed,” I said, glad to see it. “A honky-tonk in the middle of Kitchi Falls. Who would’ve thought?”
“It’s a great fit,” Brooke said. “But I’m not exactly an authority on this town. Just moved here two years ago.”
“That’s what Mazzie told me. Must have been a big change from the city.”
“Probably not as much as a change from military to civilian life.”
Immediately, I changed the subject. “So what d’you think of the new bar?”
“I think it’s incredible,” Brooke said as Mazzie came back. “I just can’t wait to come back when I can actually partake,” she said, indicating her lemonade.
“Idea,” Mazzie said to me. “How about I buy you a bourbon or three every night we’re open and you can stand there like that, leaning on the bar. Bringing me customers.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” If Mazzie wasn’t attached, I might have put a flirty tone on that. But she was, and so off-limits. Which was fine by me. She was absolutely the long-term type, and I was anything but.
“One hundred percent. I don’t know what it is about you, but even with all these good-looking Grado-family boys running around, you’re the chick magnet tonight.”
“Maybe,” Brooke said, “it’s because the Grado boys are all taken.”
She would know. Brooke was married to one of them.
“Nah. Women don’t care about that when it comes to eye candy.”
While Brooke and Mazzie debated that particular point, I scanned the room as the sounds of a new song, “Sweet Home Alabama,” filled the bar. And that’s when I saw her.
It was as if every bit of air in the place had been suddenly sucked up with none left for me. Of course, I knew it would happen eventually. Kitchi Falls was not a big town, and I knew she was still here. But some kind of warning would have been nice.
A string of weak moments when I looked her up on social media had prepared me for the woman she’d become these past ten years. In high school, when we dated, Charlee Donovan had been one of the prettiest girls in the school.
Now?
Incredible.
Hips I’d love to grab, a body made for fucking, long dark hair that my fingers itched to twist around . . . that was all just the beginning. Those eyes. Those lips.
“I can’t tell if you want to fuck, marry, or kill her,” Mazzie said. I’d been nabbed. “Who is she?”
I turned away as Charlee and Natalie moved to the other end of the bar.
Both Mazzie and Brooke were fairly new to Kitchi Falls, so neither would know our history. But Brooke’s husband, who had been a year behind me in school, could tell them easily enough. No reason to lie.
“An ex,” I said. “We dated for almost a year when I was a senior and into the summer. She was a year behind me.”
