Chapter 2
Hayden
“It doesn’t hurt to chase your tail, it’s catching it that’s painful.”
~ Nora O’Sullivan
The door hadn’t even shut behind me yet and I realized I’d made a huge mistake agreeing to come down and meet Coop for a beer. All I saw was a fuzzy sea of people spread out before me at The Tipsy Cow. A quick, visual scan of the crowded bar had my heart palpitating, my chest tightening, and my vision blurring.
I’d never been one for crowds, but now they had the power to paralyze me. Four tours in Afghanistan could do that to a man. A guy bumped against my right shoulder. A few feet away, a server dropped a tray. My throat started to close and the room began to spin just as I felt a soft brush of fur beneath my palm and a warm weight against my thigh.
My head dropped and large brown eyes stared up at me. My hand ran through Ranger’s soft fur and I concentrated on that sensation. Like magic, my heart rate slowed, my vision cleared, and my throat stopped feeling like Darth Vader had me in an invisible chokehold.
When my body relaxed and my senses returned to normal, I leaned down. “Good boy. Good boy, Ranger.”
I could see the pride in Ranger’s eyes. He loved working and he was good at his job. As of last week he was an AKC certified therapy dog and an ADA certified service dog. I owed so much to Ranger. He gave me my life back and he inspired me to start a nonprofit that rescues dogs and trains them as therapy dogs for veterans.
Standing again, I saw the bar through a new, non-PTSD-tainted lens. It no longer looked like a death trap. I could hear laughter, and conversation, and country music coming through the speakers. The place was packed thanks to the popularity of Trivia Night. It was a new addition to the bar’s lineup. It was one of the many changes that Bryson had implemented at his sister Jade’s urging.
Over at a high top table was the woman responsible for there not being an empty space at the bar, who made my heart palpitate for a different reason, talking to the man that I’d come here to meet, Cooper Briggs. Cooper, Bryson, and I were inseparable growing up. We were nicknamed The Three Amigos after the Chevy Chase, Martin Short, and Steve Martin film.
When I left for the Army I’d asked Coop to watch over the most precious thing in the world to me. That was close to fifteen years ago and it looked like he was still keeping that promise.
Coop was listening intently to Jade as she spoke in the animated way that still made warmth spread through my chest. Watching her talk had always been one of my favorite pastimes. The O’Sullivan’s home sat on a few acres of land next door to my parents’ five-acre mini-farm. And me, my two brothers, Bryson and Jade had been friends since the day they moved in twenty-five years ago.
But right now, watching her talk, my mind wandered to a particularly hot summer day, even by Wishing Well standards. I was sixteen and had just earned my driver’s license. Jade was two years younger than me but she was mature for her age and because of her fierce independence and bold nature she’d always seemed older than she really was.
The day before her first day of high school, she came over to tell me all about how excited she was and what she was planning to wear. By the time she got to describing the half braid she planned to wear in her hair, I knew I was in trouble. Without realizing it, I had completely stopped working on the transmission that I was rebuilding in my Grandpa Reed’s truck and just stood against the grill, entranced.
I was captivated. Not by the subject, obviously. My wardrobe then and now consisted mostly of jeans and white T-shirts. I couldn’t care less about that shit. No, what I’d been fascinated by was her. The girl behind the fashion diatribe.
To this day, all these years later, I remember the exact moment I fell in love with her. She’d just finally taken a breath after talking non-stop for what would’ve gone down in the Guinness Book if judges would’ve been there. Her long, tanned legs were swinging off the side of the porch as she pulled her long, jet black hair up into a bun that sat on top of her head like a cherry on top of a sundae and she smiled and asked the question that changed my life.
“Are you ever going to sack up and kiss me?”
In that instant I knew I was in love with her. Maybe I had been for a while and I just hadn’t admitted it to myself. Without a word I walked over, pressed my lips to hers, and sealed my fate forever.
“Reed!” Bryson, called out from the far end of the bar, he raised his hand over his head.
As I shouldered my way through the crowd, Ranger stayed by my side. His body brushing against mine.
“Hey, man!” Bryson had a Guinness, with the perfect amount of head poured, waiting for me by the time I slid onto the barstool. Beside it sat a bowl with water for Ranger which I placed on the floor. “I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight.”
Bryson was one of a handful of people that knew about my PTSD so he was aware that crowded, loud places were triggers. It wasn’t that I was intentionally keeping it a secret, I just didn’t talk about it. About a month after returning home, Bryson and Coop had planned a fishing trip that turned out to be more of an intervention. They’d known something wasn’t right with me and we’d stayed out on the river until I’d admitted it to them and to myself.
“Coop called. He asked me to meet him down here.”
“He’s here.” Bryson scanned the room. “Somewhere.”
I knew exactly where he was. He was talking to Jade. I sipped my beer and tried to ignore the unwelcome emotion that showed up whenever I thought about Jade: regret.
It was strange to regret something that I wouldn’t change, even if I could. But that was the bitch about life, even when you do the right thing, sometimes it ends up hurting people.
Since I’d come home, I’d been trying to give her space, but it had been over a year and all the space in the world wasn’t changing a damn thing except creating more space. I determined then and there that I was going to change that tonight. I was going to talk to Jade. Or at least try.
“Oh, there he is. He’s at Kelsi’s table. Jade talked her into being on her trivia team tonight.” Bryson pointed past my shoulder to where his wife was sitting with Jade and Coop. When it came to Jade I had serious tunnel vision. It had been that way since that fateful hot summer day when I fell under her spell. I was starting to wonder if it was ever going to change.
“I swear, my sister can talk anyone into anything.”
Yes. She could. A particular night of skinny dipping in the river came to mind. As the son of the county Sheriff, I’d always tried my best to stay out of trouble as a teen. But, if there was anyone who could get me to cross a line, it was Jade.
“Looks like Jade’s working her magic on Coop, too.”
Magic.
That was the perfect word to describe what Jade was.
“Hey, man.” Bryson lifted his chin toward me as he stacked glasses. “I heard that you were looking at the old tire warehouse.”
News in small towns traveled fast, but news in Wishing Well traveled at the speed of light. I nodded as I took another sip of my beer. I’d been waiting for the right property for months and that was it. The tire warehouse had gone out of business when I was in middle school and the building had been abandoned ever since. The bank owned it now and with my savings and a VA loan I was able to get a low-interest rate.
Bryson stepped away for a few minutes to help some patrons down the bar before coming back and picking up right where he left off. “How’s it look? I haven’t been out there since that party senior year.”
That party was a good example of how being the sheriff’s son can really suck. Once it was discovered and shut down by my dad, all of my friends got off with a warning that if he caught them out there again, he’d call their parents. He was my parent.
“Yeah, that’s the last time I’d been in there, too. It’s seen better days.” Still, the second I walked in, I could see its potential. It was the perfect training and rehabilitation center for rescued dogs.
His chin rose as he asked, “You gonna take it?”
“I already did.”
“Damn, man. That’s great!” Bryson reached over the bar and slapped me on the shoulder.
“I’m glad you think so. I’m gonna need some help getting it in shape.”
After coming back to Wishing Well I’d started working for Coop’s older brother, Sawyer, at his construction company. Over the past year, I’d earned my contractor’s license and had been promoted to foreman, overseeing two of his four crews. But both crews were between jobs for the next fourteen days and I planned on spending all my time at the warehouse.
“Just say the word, and I’ll be there,” Bryson assured me tapping his hand on the bar top.
His wedding ring clinked when he did and it reminded me that my friends were settling down, getting married, starting families. I’d only ever imagined that life for myself with one person who wanted nothing to do with me, and I had no one to blame for that but myself.
“Did you see the hot blonde with the legs?” Cooper’s voice whispered in my ear as his hand clutched my shoulder.
Well, not all of my friends were settling down. Coop was not the settling down type. The weather report in hell would have to be below freezing before that would happen.
“Is that why you asked me to meet you down here?” I responded without even looking over my shoulder.
“No.” He took a seat on the stool beside me and glanced down the bar. Bryson and Shelly, the other bartender, were both busy with customers. He turned back to me.
The look in his eyes was serious and the tone of his voice grave as he told me, “Jade’s here on a date.”
“Oh.” I did my best to keep my expression blank. No one knew about my feelings for Jade. Not my brothers. Not her brother. Not even Coop.
He’d guessed that there’d been something between us because the day I left for boot camp I’d asked him to look out for her and try to be there for her. But I’d never admitted anything to him.
“Did you hear me?” he asked, non-rhetorically since it was difficult to hear over the music and talking. “Jade is on a date.”
“She’s single. Isn’t that what she’s supposed to do?” I lifted my beer and tried to swallow down the sour taste that was in my mouth from saying those words.
“Who’s single?” Bryson asked as he joined us.
“Jade,” I answered casually.
Jade’s parents had forbidden her from dating until she was sixteen, so our relationship had been a secret. During that time I’d gotten used to acting and responding to things as if nothing were going on between us.
Bryson’s eyes shot between mine and Coop’s. “Why are we discussing my sister’s relationship status?”
I shrugged my left shoulder.
“I was just telling Hayden here,” Coop’s fingers dug forcefully into my shoulder, “that Jade is going to be doing some kind of dating show.”
A dating show?
He hadn’t said shit about a dating show, he’d just said that she was dating. That was worse than hearing that she was just dating.
“Oh, right.” Bryson put ice in a glass and stirred it with a long spoon. “My mom told me something about that. It’s not a dating show though. She’s just going on random dates and then going on her friend’s podcast to talk about them.”
Random guys.
“Yep. Six of them. Well, five, since she chose me to be her grand finale. And who could blame her?”
Of course she did. In the year that I’d been home she’d asked Coop to go to two weddings with her as her plus one. I knew that there was nothing going on between them but it still killed me every time he was.
“She’s on one of her dates here tonight.” Coop lifted his chin toward her table.
Not able to resist, I turned my head and looked over my shoulder. Like always, my eyes found her immediately. Her jet black hair shimmered even in the dim lighting of the bar. Her full, red lips were like a homing beacon. The guy that was seated beside her had his back to me, so I wasn’t able to see anything other than broad shoulders and blond hair.
“Coop!” Tanya yelled as she pushed her way to the back corner where Coop was posted against the bar. “Two of my friends bailed! Can you please join our team? If you don’t then Maisy and I won’t be able to play.”
I stretched my neck and saw that Maisy Turner was seated at the table next to Jade and her mystery date.
“I’ll do it,” I offered as I stood.
Coop’s head spun in my direction and I could feel the smug, knowing grin on his face without seeing it.
“Looks like you’ve got yourself a team, Tanya,” Coop said as his hand landed on my shoulder again.
I didn’t care. I just wanted a front row seat to Jade’s date.
And I’d just secured one.