By the time our last patron—Sam, no surprise—was out the door, Mila was doing some kind of wave dance in her seat. Her entire upper body wiggled back and forth in her seat, her eyes all heavy-lidded, and there was something undeniably attractive about that, that sleepy kind of sexiness. But she wasn’t the least bit sober, which negated any sexual thoughts I’d been having about her.

“You’re cut off,” I told her, after she pushed the empty glass toward me.

She pouted, which did nothing to diminish her attractiveness. In fact, all it did was remind me of when I’d kissed her. How those lips had tasted under mine. But she was in a much different mood now, three days later, than she’d been then. If anything, seeing her with her guard down appealed to me on a level that was deeper than I wanted to entertain.

“But Aaaaames,” she said, drawing my name out like it stretched the length of the bar. “I needs it.”

“Needs? Are you a plural person? And besides, I don’t think alcohol is a ‘need’ for anyone.”

“It is for alcoholics.”

“That’s debatable. Are you an alcoholic?”

She sighed and dropped her head onto her arms, which were crossed on top of the bar. Her dark hair splayed all over, and I picked up a strand to move it from the drain. I may have held onto it a second longer than necessary, running my thumb over its silky strands.

“I’m going to have to pour you into a taxi tonight, aren’t I?”

She lifted her head, inadvertently pulling the strand from my fingers, and her eyes were watery and almost angry. “I’m not a liquid—you can’t pour me.”

I wanted to laugh, but I bit it back and held up a hand in surrender. Her eyes slid to the other end of the bar where Jennie was working, before they lazily slid back to mine. She looked dazed and if she hadn’t commanded my attention for most of the night, I’d have thought that she was on something besides alcohol. “What’s got you so upset tonight, love?”

“Love?” she asked, and then made a face like someone had just kicked her cat.

I regretted saying it. I was finding that being around Mila made me regret a lot of things I said. “It’s just a thing we say. It doesn’t mean anything.” I probably sounded more defensive than necessary, but the fact that I’d let it slip from my lips disturbed me. I picked up the wine glass and held it up to Jennie, who caught my eye. I drew a finger across my throat and nodded at Mila, sending a very clear CUT HER OFF message, which Jennie nodded to and came down to my end.

“I thought I made it clear not to continue serving her earlier.”

Jennie looked up innocently at me, but since I knew her better than I knew even my sister-in-law, I didn’t waver, didn’t let up. She dropped the act and handed me the rag. “Come on, Ames. She’s had a shit day. It was just wine.”

“Don’t be daft. She was already pissed when she came in.”

Jennie shrugged and turned toward the sink, placing empty glasses inside of it. “She was thirsty.”

I stepped over to her and snapped on the water faucet. “Ever heard of water?”

“Nope, sure haven’t. Thanks for enlightening me.” She turned to move away, but I stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

“I think she needs a friend or something,” I told her, turning my back to Mila as I dipped the wine glass into the soapy water. I didn’t think I could be the friend she needed in that moment.

“Well, I’m not her friend.”

“Come on, Jen. Don’t be difficult.”

Jennie shoved against me. “That’s all you are is difficult, Ames. I’m not her friend.”

“You can pretend to be. Just like you pretend with everybody else here,” I waved a hand to all the patrons she’d served. “Just…” I closed my eyes briefly before looking at her again. “Talk to her, okay? For me? Girl talk isn’t my forte.”

Jennie looked at me peculiarly, a new light coming into her eyes. I moved away before she could interrogate me too much, and started grabbing the stray glasses still on the tables.

Lotte hit the bell by the warming lamp. “That’s it, right?”

Her blonde hair was a mess and her face was bright red. I nodded at her. “I’ll be up in a few. I can close up.”

She leaned across the pass through. “Thank you,” she said in the most grateful voice before disappearing.

By the time I rounded the bar again, Jennie was capping the bottles that didn’t have pour caps. And Mila? Well, Mila was currently draining what looked to be another glass of sangria.

When Jennie started untying her apron, I grabbed her elbow and spun her to face me. “Are you fucking mad, Jennie?” I hissed.

She shook me loose and glared up at me. “She’s already drunk, Ames. You let her drink to get drunk.”

“I didn’t let her get drunk. She came in that way.”

Jennie flicked her gaze to Mila and then waved at her nonchalantly. “Well, she was drunk enough that anything else was basically just a bandage.”

“That’s not how alcohol works.”

She rolled her eyes and handed me her apron. “She’s had a rough day. Be nice,” she said in a low, warning voice.

Why did I suddenly feel like I was in the wrong here? “I am nice,” I said. “I didn’t charge her for anything after the shots you served her.”

Jennie raised one blonde brow. “A free refill, huh? Funny how she seems to get a lot of those from you.”

“Fuck off,” I muttered, turning around just as Mila was leaning clear across the bar, pushing the wine glass all the way to the edge. I made it to her before the glass tipped over and crashed to the floor. “You’re cut off,” I told her, in my nice voice, and ran the rag over the drops she’d spilled.

Mila frowned and sat back. She looked on the edge of sleep in that moment, her eyes closing and opening and closing and opening repeatedly.

“Mila,” I snapped, trying to wake her up.

“Yes?” she asked softly. This was such a different woman than the one I’d slowly come to know. She was quieter, darker, and I found myself missing the brighter way she had about her—but still compelled to understand this facet of her perplexing personality.

“Don’t go to sleep in my pub,” I said and winced, knowing it sounded mean. Not nice. “What’s your hotel this week called?”

“Oh. You’ll call me a taxi?”

“Yeah.”

“Four something. I think.” She grabbed her backpack purse and opened it, reaching blindly in. A clatter of things hit the floor and rolled behind her, but she seemed completely oblivious. She paused and looked at me with her head cocked sideways. “What am I doing again?”

“I don’t know.” I sighed, watching her trying to shove things back into her bag with gummy hands before I gave up and came around the bar, picking up tubes of lipstick and other makeup I couldn’t identify. I took the bag from her hands and she laid her head down, looking at me as I put everything back into it.

“Ames?” She was looking at me, her face blank but her eyes full.

“Yes?”

With the softest of whispers, she asked, “When your wife died, did you ever wish you had died with her?”

It was as if she’d swung a bowling ball right at my chest. I gripped more steadily onto the barstool beside her, because her question had rocked the very earth beneath my feet.

Instead of answering I swallowed and said, “You don’t remember the name of your hotel, do you?”

Slowly, she shook her head and closed her eyes, seemingly already forgetting her question. Within seconds, I saw her entire body settle, indicating she’d fallen asleep.

I ran a hand through my hair and sighed, hoping to bring more air back into my lungs after that catapult she’d launched into my chest. And then I caught Jennie’s attention and mouthed, “Lock the door on your way out,” with a meaningful nod toward the door before I slung Mila’s backpack over my shoulder and then eased her out of the stool and into my arms.

I caught Lotte in the kitchen on my way back, whose eyes grew larger upon seeing Mila in my arms and asked her to help Jennie in my brief absence. “I’ll still clean up,” I promised her as I unlocked the door to our flat.

Carrying Mila up the steep steps proved more challenging than I’d expected, but I’d managed without making too much noise. Asher’s room appeared to be completely dark, and after pausing on the landing, I determined that my noise in going up the stairs hadn’t awoken him.

I momentarily debated laying her on the couch, but didn’t want her to wake up in such a public space as our communal room so, as gently as I could, I eased open the door to my bedroom and laid her on the bed after I peeled back the covers.

Immediately, she curled up and rubbed her head into the pillow. Moonlight seared through my window, slashing across her on the bed. Her head was turned toward the wall, away from the light, so it didn’t disturb her from her soundless sleep. Seeing the sunglasses still on top of her head, I sat on the edge of the bed and slid them off.

They got caught in her hair, so as gently as I could, I plucked all those annoying strands out of the bend in her glasses before setting them on my nightstand and then going back downstairs to finish out the night. Lotte looked at me oddly, but I just waved her off. I checked that Jennie had locked the door and then finished the rest of the kitchen.

When I returned to the bedroom two hours later, Mila was still asleep, and appeared not to have moved even an inch on the bed. Seeing her dark hair spread across my white pillow in the exact same position as I’d left her in made me feel a little sad for her. A feeling I never thought I’d feel for her, because she radiated so much happiness and energy all the time. Even in sleep, her face was scrunched up, but she made no noise of discontent.

I sighed and sat at the foot of the bed, glancing between her and my hands, wondering what had caused the mood she had been in when she arrived at the pub earlier tonight. The fact that I wondered about this bothered me, because—as I continually had to remind myself—she was such a new presence in my life. I didn’t have any right to worry about her; she wasn’t someone I needed to worry about, and yet, for some inexplicable reason, I did.

What had made her sad? What had caused her to drink to the point that she did?

I thought of what she’d asked me right before she’d fallen asleep.

“When your wife died, did you ever wish you had died with her?”

Because it was safe, because no one sober could hear me, I whispered my answer to her in the dark of the room. “No. My only wish was always that I’d have died instead of her.”

And then I grabbed the extra pillow she wasn’t using, a blanket from my wardrobe, and bedded down on the floor at the foot of my bed. I could sleep on the couch, I knew, but for reasons I didn’t want to examine too closely, I didn’t want her to be alone.