“Hey, woman,” Bart said, tapping his knuckles on the bar to get my attention. I rolled my eyes and ignored him. Though he was a customer, I didn’t respond to that type of greeting.

“You’d better watch your mouth talking to her like that,” said the man next to him, another regular named Jerry. I liked Jerry, who was always polite and took care of any trouble that might be brought to the bar. I worked alone most of the time and had little patience for bullshit. “She’s a firecracker.”

I grinned at him, then shot Bart an annoyed look when he waved me over.

“What do you want?” I asked, putting my hand on my hip. “Say please, you swine.”

Instead of being offended, Bart laughed. Most of the customers had gotten used to my flippant way of talking to them. I wasn’t warm and fuzzy by any means, but I did my job well and got along with everybody who came in. This place had been in my family for years and the regulars were almost like an extended family I’d grown up with, before I inherited the place when my parents died.

“Another beer,” he said. I glared at him, unmoving.

“Please,” he added, giving me a toothless grin. Bart’s teeth had rotted out years ago and he always said he was grateful that he didn’t need them in order to enjoy the booze. I took his mug and refilled it from the tap, then passed it back to him.

“I’d better get a good tip from you tonight,” I said, and he winked at me and gave me a thumbs up before taking a slurp.

“Did you hear that Eric Kyle is coming back to town, Jules?” asked Jerry.

“Really?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Eric Kyle was someone I’d graduated with, the only person who nearly took my spot as valedictorian in high school. We’d been neck and neck in every competition in school and had competed throughout to best one another. We’d never exactly gotten along, and I was surprised that he wanted to come back after all he’d done and earned. After he’d graduated college, he’d gone on to start a real estate business that had quickly blossomed into a multi-billion-dollar success. He owned properties all over the world and his business had only expanded in the years since he’d started his company.

Jerry nodded. “Word is he wants to buy more land around here to expand his property. Maybe wants to build a development or two.”

I wrinkled my nose, grimacing. The last thing anyone wanted in this small town was a bunch of overpriced apartment buildings that would bring in people who’d otherwise turn their nose up at anybody who lived outside the city. Just the thought of it annoyed me. That a rich man could come in and change the entire landscape of a town he barely had anything to do with was an irritating thought, especially since it was Eric Kyle. I’d always thought him exceptionally arrogant, too proud of himself and his accomplishments. There was absolutely no humility in him, and that was something I couldn’t stand in a person. I’d come from a humble place and knew that I was no better than anyone else; I couldn’t relate to Eric’s self-importance, especially since I’d spent most of my life taking care of my parents and then raising my ten-year-old daughter by myself.

“Didn’t you guys have a thing in high school?” Jerry asked. “I remember seeing you two together an awful lot.”

I shook my head. “We were just paired up a lot on projects,” I told him. Since he was the only other student in the school who was also in the gifted program, we’d had to work together on almost every group project throughout our four years of high school. I hadn’t gotten to know him well in that time—we’d always been polite to each other but were never friends.

“I didn’t even like him,” I added. Jerry laughed.

“I have a feeling nobody’s going to like him much if he comes here trying to take over,” he said. “Gotta wonder what he’s thinking.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I doubt he cares. People like that never care about how they affect the people around them.”

“You really don’t like him, do you?”

I hoped that if Eric did come to town I wouldn’t have to see him. But if he was looking to acquire land, he might have his eye on mine. The bar was only a block down the road from the Kyle house and sat on a good deal of property. If he was buying up land and made an offer on the place, I wouldn’t sell it for any amount of money. There was no way he would be able to convince me otherwise.

“I don’t like those types of people,” I told Jerry. “Rich ones. Eric Kyle thinks he’s better than all of us and always has done.”

“That’s true,” said Jerry. “His whole family looked down on the rest of the town.”

“I remember,” I said, my voice dry. Though he hadn’t always been a billionaire, Eric still came from one of the wealthier families in town. His parents hadn’t been well-liked amongst the neighbors and neither had their son once he’d grown up to exhibit the same distaste for those who had less than him. “I hoped we’d seen the last of them.”

“The Kyle house has been empty for a long time,” Jerry said, nodding. “But I guess that’s about to change.”

“I guess so,” I said, shrugging. “We’ll see what happens.”

“Either way, we’ll always have the bar,” said Jerry, grinning as I refilled his mug.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully, and I found myself watching the clock for the last hour before closing. My daughter, Madison, would be fast asleep by the time I got home, but I looked forward to the moment every night I got to peek into her room to see her sleeping, her sweet face peaceful.

---

Finally, it was closing time and Bart wobbled out, half-drunk and stupid. I didn’t worry about him getting home as he lived not far from the bar and his wife usually expected him to be drunk and met him halfway once two o’clock came. I locked up the bar and got into my car at the end of the night, driving home slowly with the window rolled down. The air was crisp on my skin and made me feel refreshed after the stuffiness of the bar.

Once I got home, I put my things down and locked the door behind me. My babysitter, Cindy, sat on the couch reading, and she smiled at me when I walked in.

“She in bed?” I asked.

“She went to bed at nine,” Cindy said, nodding. “She said she didn’t feel good.”

“Did she say what was wrong?”

The girl shook her head. “Just that she felt lousy. She told me not to call you. She didn’t want to worry you while you were at work.”

I nodded. That was Madison, too grown up for ten. She always wanted to take care of herself and would hardly let me baby her, though it was in my instinct to treat her like she was still the little girl I used to cradle to sleep at night.

I paid Cindy and she left after a moment, closing the door behind her. I didn’t waste any more time before creeping down the hallway to my daughter’s room and opening the door. I was surprised to see her sitting up in bed, the lamp beside her table on, reading a book under the covers. Though she was an avid reader, she was also a heavy sleeper and was always asleep when I got home.

“What are you doing up?” I asked her, folding my arms over my chest and leaning against the doorway. She grinned at me.

“This book is so good, Mom,” she said, gushing. “I can’t stop reading.”

“You have school in the morning,” I reminded her. “You’re going to be in such a bad mood tomorrow.”

She shook her head, giving me a mischievous look over the top of her book.

I went and sat on the edge of her bed, giving her a fake stern look as I took it away and marked the page, then sat it down on the table next to the bed.

“It’s time for sleep, sweetie,” I said, stroking her hair. I kissed her forehead and laughed when she gave an exaggerated pout, which quickly turned into a grin when I smiled at her.

“Can I finish my book tomorrow?” she asked.

“When you’re done with your homework, sure,” I told her.

“Are you going to be home tomorrow night?” she asked, and my heart clenched in my chest. Lately I’d been working a lot, taking up extra shifts at the bar. We were down a person and I couldn’t afford to hire another one at the moment. Though business was usually good, it would slow down unpredictably sometimes, and the past couple of months it had been tough to pay the bills. I tried not to let on to Madison that we were in trouble—I didn’t want to worry her, but since her father had left, it had been much harder making ends meet.

I shook my head sadly. “I have to work,” I said. “But I’m taking Saturday night off.”

Her face brightened. “Can we go see a movie?”

I smiled at her, touching her cheek. “Maybe,” I said. “If you go to sleep.”

She nodded, snuggling deeper under the covers. I kissed her forehead again and tucked the blanket under her chin, then turned the lamp off and headed into the living room. I sat down on the couch and took my shoes off, relieving some of the pressure of having been on my feet all day. I lay back on the couch and took a deep breath, trying not to think about the money situation and instead focusing on how to make the most of the time with my daughter on Saturday.