PAPERS FLUTTER AGAINST THE cork board, held in place by various thumbtacks, nails, and an occasional toothpick with the foil at the end that Machlan uses in Crave’s famous cheeseburgers. There’s nothing particularly interesting tonight. A coon dog that went missing out by the lake and a carpenter from Merom looking for help. Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of jokes, shift schedules for the factory, and some pictures from when a couple of the Illinois Legends football players were in a while back.
Mach works behind the bar, wiping down the bottles that line the counter below the oversized mirror. He’s the youngest out of us all. He shares my dark hair and a little above average height, but he’s more like our sister in that he can be a hard nut to crack. Things are right or wrong with Machlan, and he’s not above doling out justice when it’s deserved. A time or two this has put him into spots with Kip since he took the position of Sheriff.
As if on cue, Mach leans against the bar across from me. “Blaire called this morning.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to make sure I got my bartender license renewed. Apparently it was on her calendar as a ‘to-do’ item,” he grins. “How does our sister even know when it renews? I mean, I wouldn’t have known if my accountant didn’t remind me last week, but I pay her for that shit.”
“You know Blaire,” I say, peeling at the label of the beer bottle I just finished. “She just likes holding it over our heads that we need her. It’s her way of feeling relevant.”
“I think that fancy corner office in Chicago should make her feel relevant.”
“But to us?” I ask. “If she wasn’t our older sister, would we even give a fuck that she’s a lawyer with some hotshot firm? What do we care about law degrees?”
“Lance cares. He’d love to find some chick who could moan eight-syllable words as she got off.”
Laughing, I lean back in my chair while Machlan heads down the bar to refill a customer. He pauses long enough to have a quick conversation, making the guy I haven’t seen before feel welcome, but doesn’t hover.
No one sits at the far end of the bar to chitchat. They’re not even really there for the beer. They’re there to get away from something, maybe even everything. Then again, maybe the majority of people in a bar are there for that purpose.
I mean, I am.
Crave was my last-ditch effort to rid myself of a certain woman with the most aggravatingly irresistible vibe. A woman I’d love to fuck until she can’t respond with her quick comebacks anymore. Until all she can say is my name.
My phone glows on the bar-top. Swiping it on, I lift it to my ear. “Were your ears burning?”
“Should they have been?” Blaire asks.
“Machlan was saying you called him today and now my phone rings. Are you missing us, big sister?” I tease.
“Hardly,” she scoffs. Despite the gruff, I hear her smile. “Just thought I’d check in with you guys. I haven’t seen you in forever.”
“That’s because you’re too good for us these days.”
“Damn right I am,” she jokes. “I had a case end today that I thought was going to kill me. I might sleep for a week now.”
“You will not.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I just took on another case this afternoon.” She unloads a slew of put-downs in a very ladylike fashion, the words muffled as a car honks in the distance. “Sorry about that,” she says, coming back to the line. “Some asshole didn’t understand how crosswalks work. So what are you doing?”
“Drinking a beer.”
“Do you ever do anything fun?”
“All the time,” I deadpan.
“You’re a liar.”
“Don’t start on me, Blaire,” I warn, resting my elbows against the counter. “I don’t want to hear your shit.”
“You have to hear it from someone, and Lord knows neither of our brothers is going to give you sage advice.”
“Who said I needed advice?”
“You did when you just told me you’re drinking a beer on a Monday night,” she sighs. “Look, Walker, you need prodded along. I know you’re all ‘I’m fine,’” she says, mocking me, “but you’re not. You’re bored as hell. You’re grumpy. You’re stuck in a cycle that—”
“Blaire.”
“What?”
“Stop it.”
“This has gone on long enough, Walker.”
I know where this is going, and I’m not heading that direction. “I swear I’ll hang up on you.”
She groans in the line. “If Mom were here, she’d tell you the same thing.” With the reference to our mother, the octave of her voice drops and you can almost hear the mortal side of her that we don’t see often.
“But she’s not,” I almost whisper.
“I miss them, Walk.”
Blaire’s admission makes me gulp. Of course she misses our parents. We all do. None of us expected them to not come home that Fourth of July. We didn’t know they’d be hit in their boat and capsize, losing their lives on Lake Michigan. I know she misses them. I do too. But to hear her, the stoic one, the real badass of the family despite Machlan’s attempts to prove otherwise, say it out loud throws me for a loop.
“I thought of her yesterday,” she says, a lump clearly in her throat. “There was a woman her age with the same long, black hair in the courthouse. She laughed a high, almost singing sound, and my stomach hit the floor. I couldn’t stop looking at her . . .”
“It’s almost her birthday,” I say softly. “Dad would start bugging her right about now, asking her what she wanted.”
“And she’d say she already had it.” Blaire sighs into the phone. “I gotta go. I’m meeting a client in twenty minutes and I haven’t even found a cab yet.”
“It’s ten o’clock at night, Blaire.”
“So it is,” she sighs again. “Talk to you later.”
“Be careful. Love ya, sis.”
“Love you. Bye.”
The phone slides across the counter, hitting the napkin dispenser before stopping. The stranger takes another long draw of his drink, his fourth since I got here. Maybe I’m just not going at it hard enough.
Picking at the label on the bottle in front of me again, I allow my mind to go to the place it wants to go every time I stop purposefully focusing on something else—to Sienna.
I can’t make heads or tails of this woman. She’s too easy. Too sweet. Too confident. I’ve never seen a woman with the guts she has to do things like she does. I just don’t know what to do with her.
The money is one thing. There’s no way I can afford to go in the red on that kind of cash on a regular basis, although I see why she did it and I kind of love her heart for it. I wouldn’t have charged Dave anyway and MaryAnn’s husband would’ve worked off whatever their insurance didn’t pay. But I’m still on the hook and can’t afford to be out this much again. My customers’ money keeps the lights on.
All of that is fair enough, but not the reason I try to shove it out of my mind. I try not to think about it because as much as I tell myself to be angry with her, I can’t. Every time I tell myself to find a way to get a hold of her and tell her not to come in tomorrow, I don’t. Each attempt I make to convince myself she’s a potential thorn in my life that I really don’t need right now, I fail.
The proposition of her coming into Crank to help is idiotic and driving me mad. Will she come? Will she not? Will she be even more impossible to shake off or finally bare some flaw I can’t overlook? All afternoon, it’s been a series of questions, of “what-ifs,” of the dumbest fucking scenarios that I have no business toying with.
“Fuck it,” I mutter, tipping the rest of the beer back. It slides down my throat with ease, the cool liquid pooling in my gut and joining the churn.
“Fuck what? Actually, let me guess. Peck gave me a head start,” Machlan snickers. “Seems as if you’re gonna have a helper in the shop.”
“Not my idea,” I point out. “It was Peck’s.”
“He said you weren’t exactly against it. And I can’t see what there is to be against if he painted the picture accurately.”
Ignoring his leading, I keep things factual. “She owes me a lot of money,” I explain. “And it just seemed . . .”
“ . . . like a good idea. You don’t have to admit that out loud because I might tell somebody, I get it. Lips are sealed.”
I motion for another beer and wait until he places it in front of me. “It’s a terrible idea. There’s nothing good that can come out of this,” I say more to myself than to him.
“Well, based on Peck’s description, I can think of lots of good things to come out of that,” he grins.
“You know what I fucking mean.” I stare at him, hoping he drops his angle.
Blowing out a breath, he nods. “I do. I get it. You get her in there helping out and then you like her and God forbid you like someone. That would totally ruin your reputation as the loner.”
Glaring at him, I swipe my phone off the counter and jam it in the pocket of my jeans. “I’d hate for people to confuse the two of us.”
“I was going to suggest letting Peck take a shot at that, but I can see that wouldn’t go over well,” he jokes. When I don’t budge, his lips frown. “Fine. Moving on . . . Let me toss an idea by you.”
“Shoot.”
“The two lots behind the bar are for sale. I was thinking about trying to buy them.”
“For what?” I ask, half in the conversation, half wondering what Sienna is doing.
“I have lots of ideas. We could build a room for meetings and wedding receptions and that shit. We could build a couple of apartments and rent them out.”
Machlan’s talking too fast, his eyes darting around too much to be telling the truth.
“Why don’t you tell me what you’re really thinking?” I ask.
“That is what I’m thinking.”
“Sure.” Standing up, I snag a twenty from my pocket and toss it on the bar. “Go get into wedding receptions. Seems right up your alley.”
I wait for him to give in, but he doesn’t. “Have it your way. See ya tomorrow,” I call out.
Stepping out into the late summer heat, I stop and breathe in the warm, humid air. It reminds me of nights at the lake with a girl in my arms and barbecues and homemade ice cream. All things that annoy me to pieces.