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“Yeah, cause they’re great long-term boyfriend material.”
“I’ve done the long-term boyfriend thing and am over it. So yeah, that’s the plan. Weekend flings with hot tourists.”
She laughed. “There are soooo many of those too.”
“Maybe I’ll hang out with you and Lucas at the shop on weekends. There’s bound to be hot tourists getting tattoos at some point.”
“Sure. Even better plan.” Charlee shook her head at my ridiculousness as we fell into a companionable silence. Why couldn’t finding a man be as easy as finding girlfriends? It was so much less complicated. “Tires or a dick,” I said out loud.
“Excuse me?”
“I was just thinking of the saying, if they have tires or a dick, they’re bound to give you trouble.”
I might not have a boyfriend, but at least I had wine, my lake, and the ability to make my friend laugh. All good enough for me.
TWO
jax
“Shut. The fuck. Up.”
If there was anyone I didn’t expect to see in a town the size of Kitchi Falls, it was Gian DeLuca. But sure enough, there he was behind the bar.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Gian said, holding out his hand. I shook it, sitting down on a bar stool. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Me? What are you doing bartending here in the Finger Lakes? Don’t you own a marketing firm or something?”
“Still Yuengling?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I do own a marketing firm.” He turned to a woman who’d just come out of the kitchen. “Can you get the bar for a bit? Old friend,” he said, gesturing toward me.
“Sure,” she said. Before happy hour, this would typically be a dead time for a bar. But on a nice day like this one in a tourist town? People were here to unwind, and it was busy, but not packed.
Pouring himself a beer, Gian joined me.
“A friend of mine owns this place. He took his girlfriend out of town for the night. Doing him a favor by helping out.”
“You talk like you live here.”
“I do. Moved up from Bridgewater.” My old friend smiled. “For a girl.”
“Ahhh, now the pieces are coming together. Where’s the girl?”
“Mazzie has her own bar down the street. Sort of a honky-tonk, live music and all.”
“So your friend owns a bar down the street from where your girlfriend owns another bar?”
“Yep.”
“I see.”
“Small towns. You get it.”
I did. Grew up in the town next to Gian, and we met playing football. Hit it off right away and hung out all through high school. We stayed friends through college despite going to different schools, but drifted apart when I enlisted.
“Unfortunately, I do. Still live in Maplewood. Like you, I moved back for a girl. But unlike you, it didn’t work out.”
