Frankie whirls around like she’s been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, lips clamped, eyes wide, curls bouncing.

“I thought drinking with lunch was a cardinal sin,” I say, shoving my hands into the pockets of my jeans, trying to look her in the eye and not anywhere else. “Shows weakness of character, general moral degradation, all that rubbish.”

She smiles, slumps back against the bar.

“You scared the bejesus out of me,” she says.

“Good thing you’ve drunk plenty for courage.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve earned it.”

“Long hard day of vacation, then?” I ask, deliberately winding her up. “Did the servants at the manor house burn your scones this morning at breakfast and overboil your tea?”

Now she’s grinning, leaning loosely against the bar, shoving one hand through her hair like she’s trying to tame it. It doesn’t work. I’ve got the feeling that trying to tame her hair never works, and I think again about sinking my fingers into it, feeling her curls against my palm, pulling her closer—

“They were out of my favorite jam, didn’t even lay my clothes out on my bed for me, and my personal maid pulled my hair while she was brushing it,” she says, her eyes sparkling. “I’ve got a tough life, Liam.”

“Certainly sounds it,” I agree, deadpan. “I imagine it would drive me to drink as well.”

I don’t know why I went down this particular path. I rather wish I hadn’t, as talking about the manor leads to talking about the people at the manor leads to her fiancé, Little Lord Prick, and he’s the last thing I’d like to think about.

“I’m on a girls’ day out with my future sister-in-law,” Frankie sighs. “We have... some differences. And I should get back before she realizes I’m not actually in the ladies’ room and comes looking for me, or — uh, shit.”

Her eyes focus on something over my shoulder, and she stops mid-sentence.

“She’s come looking, then?”

“Jesus, she’s like a bloodhound,” Frankie mutters, then clears her throat. She plasters on a smile, tries shoving her hand through her hair again.

“Elizabeth! Hi. I was just coming back from the bathroom when I ran into the one person I know in Shelton besides you guys, and we just got to chatting right here by the bar, sorry for taking so long, but you know, what a weird coincidence!”

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph she’s a terrible liar. I doubt the double shot of whiskey is helping things much either.

“You do know the bathroom’s in the back?” the sister-in-law says.

She’s on the tall side, back ramrod straight, blonde hair and one of those pinched faces that speaks of perennial displeasure. I get the feeling that she’s unaccustomed to using the words please or thank you very often.

“That must be why I couldn’t find it!” Frankie says, her voice just a little too loud. “Anyway, Liam here... works at the flower shop in Shelton, the one where I picked up some flowers the other day when I had jet lag and woke up at like six in the morning and no one else was awake. Remember?”

“Not particularly,” the other girl says, looking at me coolly, a bit like I’m a horse she’s paid for but now she’s got doubts. “You work in a flower shop?”

Her eyes pause on my full-sleeve tattoos, and I curse Frankie for lying and not even coming up with something believable.

“That’s right,” I say. “How’s that bouquet doing?”

“It’s lovely,” Frankie says, her eyes a shade too bright as she pushes herself off the bar. “Anyway, it’s been nice chatting, but I guess I got so lost that Elizabeth had to come find me, so I should get going!”

Elizabeth doesn’t move, just looks at me, cocking her head to one side.

“What’s that flower shop called again?” she asks. “I swear I never can remember the name.”

Goddammit, Frankie.

“Shelton Flowers,” I say, since that’s as good a guess as any.

“Shelton Flowers,” Elizabeth repeats slowly. “Lovely, I’ll look you up sometime. Sorry for Françoise.”

I frown, open my mouth to say there’s no need to apologize but they’re already gone, winding their way between tables with Elizabeth right behind her. I watch them disappear into another room of the pub, somehow not quite sure what just happened.

Well, I saw Frankie and she lied about how she knows me, that’s for certain. It’s not as if I thought she was coming to have a drink at the Hound’s Ears with the Little Lord’s full blessing, but now I know for a fact that it’s her little secret and mine too, I suppose.

And she drinks whiskey with lunch, the voice in the back of my mind whispers. Maybe not always, but sometimes at least.

I shake my head, walk away from the bar, back toward the door to see if Harry’s gotten here yet.

Best to forget it all, I tell myself for at least the third time that day alone. The girl, the lying, the drinking, everything.

* * *

Three days later, my phone rings, a number I don’t know. I’m brushing my teeth before going to work, and I ignore it since people I don’t know are rarely anyone I’d actually like to talk to. I ignore it twice more while I’m in my shitty Vauxhall, winding along the road between my cottage and the pub.

Once I’m there, watching a batch of old codgers silently drink their ale, it rings yet again and I roll my eyes getting it from my pocket.

“I don’t bloody want to — oh, Christ,” I say, answering the thing.

“So you are alive,” Sheila says. She owns the Hound’s Ears, so I do answer her calls.

“Is someone saying I’m not?”

“Just the younger Lady Winstead, who just rung me in quite a huff insisting that your phone number was incorrect and demanding the correct one,” she says. “Naturally I called to check, but it seems correct to me.”

I narrow my eyes, watching two men talk animatedly at the rear of the pub.

The fuck does Elizabeth Winstead want with me?

I don’t like it. I didn’t like meeting her and I don’t like the gnawing suspicion I’ve got that she’s figured out who I am and that I’m familiar with her future sister-in-law. Even though I’m new to Shelton, I’m well aware that the Winsteads do own most of the town and could easily make my life here quite difficult.

I started over once. I’ve only just got myself a fairly normal life where I go to work and come home and no one ever wants to shoot up together. I’d rather not start over again.

“I don’t generally answer calls from numbers I don’t know,” I explain.

“I’m not surprised, it’s a wonder you answer my calls, you cranky bastard,” she says.

There’s a pause, and I can practically see her taking a long drag of her cigarette.

“But you used to be in a band, yeah?” she asks.

I raise my eyebrows, lean back against the bar.

“Yeah.”

“Think you could hook up a microphone and a few speakers?”

“That’ll depend on the microphone and the speakers.”

“She’s got some high-class gala tomorrow night and whoever she had booked to set her up has backed out, said she’d pay you double to do it and pay me to give you the night off for it,” Sheila goes on.

By now, I’m honestly not sure whether Elizabeth Winstead knows who I am. She could well have found out that there’s some bloke who used to be in a band without knowing he’s the same one she saw talking to Frankie at the bar.

Wait.

There’s a fucking thought.

Frankie’ll be there.

I’ve not seen her since we met by accident in the pub, but I’m quite sure that if her sister-in-law is throwing some gala, she’ll be there on the Little Lord’s arm. It’s the last place I want to see her, but I do want to see her.

“Liam,” Sheila rasps again. “Can I get you to take one for the team or what?”

I think of Frankie, wriggling out of her jacket, or glassy eyed the other afternoon. She’s the absolute worst reason I’ve got to do anything.

And yet.

“Yeah, I’ll do it,” I say. “No guarantees, though, I’ve not touched sound equipment in almost years.”

And before that, I had people to do it for me, I think.

I don’t say it out loud. Sheila thinks I was in some garage band, not selling out stadiums.

“Well, you’re better than nothing,” she says, and hangs up.

“Love you too,” I say into the dead line.

From the bar, Arthur gives me a funny look, then goes back to drinking.

* * *

When I get home, there’s a letter in the mailbox. It’s card-shaped, thick and cream-colored, addressed to a Mr. Liam Fenwick in lovely cursive handwriting. Los Angeles return address, festooned with postage to get it across the pond.

I think I know what this is. It’s fucking obvious, but when I take it inside I still put it on the kitchen table so I can contemplate it after I put the kettle on, watching it a little suspiciously while I wait for the water to boil.

When I finally open it, I’m right, of course. It’s an invitation to Gavin and Marisol’s wedding, to take place in two and a half months, in Los Angeles. The RSVP card asks whether I want sea bass, chicken, or filet mignon, and it even has the right kind of international postage. All I have to do is check ‘accept with pleasure,’ fill out my name, and send it back.

I sit there and stare at it for a long, long while. I don’t know that Gavin really wants me there or if he’s just being polite. He’s probably got some fancy wedding planner. Maybe I ended up on a list by accident, maybe his new PR person whose name I forget thought that he should invite me because it looks good.

Maybe he genuinely wants me there. Maybe he misses me, too.

I haven’t seen him in a year in a half, and the very last time I did was an absolute fucking wreck. I told his girlfriend — the one he’s marrying now — he’d been cheating on her and that he’d never loved her.

I was lying, of course, because Gavin’s always been head-over-heels for Marisol, but I was jealous. Jealous that he found someone, jealous that he could get better and I couldn’t, jealous that it wasn’t just the two of us getting high in the back of the tour bus any more.

The very last thing I remember of him, I was sitting on the floor of a spare bedroom in his massive house, blankets over the windows. Re-creating the squalid apartments of years past, recapturing some sort of fucked up lost brotherhood.

I had a needle in my arm and he came in, looked at me. Disappointed that I’d taken the last of it.

So I tossed him a baggie, he left, and minutes later I nodded out. When I woke up the next afternoon, still leaning against the wall, the room stuffy and awful, his house was a wreck and he was gone.

But tonight’s not about Gavin. Tonight is for sticking to a plan and calling Darcy, who’s probably going to shout at me, but I do deserve it.

I think I’m getting better at this. The first time once I was finished I had two long glugs of whiskey, straight from the bottle, but the most recent I didn’t have a thing.

I take another sip of tea, then dial her number. I swear even the ringing on the other end sounds like it’s halfway across the globe, and it goes five times before she finally answers.

“Hello?”

“Darcy, it’s Liam.”

“Liam. Are you finally calling me to apologize?”

I see the news has made the rounds.

“That’s right.”

“Good. Let’s hear it, you fucking asshole. Start with the part where you put us all through the wringer by almost fucking dying.”

Despite myself, I smile, because even after all this time, Darcy is Darcy, and I did miss her. I missed all of them.

“Darcy,” I start. “Along with a variety of other things, I’m terribly sorry for nearly dying...”