Home wasn’t home anymore. That much was clear to me. All I had were the clothes on my back and my bike, and that was going to have to be enough. I rode for a long time, that first night. I knew the rest of the guys expected me at the bar, especially from the texts I was getting, based on the chimes of my phone I could only barely hear over the passing wind, but I just couldn’t do it. Haley would be there, curious about how everything had gone between Nadine and me, and I wasn’t willing to face that conversation. She had been so sure that talking would solve everything, but the situation had completely fallen apart. Even as the wind burned my eyes, I could still see Nadine sprawled out over my bed, relaxed, probably, in post-coital bliss, the man she’d been with freshly showered after whatever debauchery they’d done. I’d have to burn my sheets no, my mattress. Maybe just my entire house. The town. The desert. The mountains. Everything Nadine and I had shared. My bike, too, if it would rid me of the ghost feeling of her arms around me as we rocketed down the highway.
Okay, fine. I knew I was being overdramatic. I stopped the motorcycle and turned it around, regarding the lights on the horizon. I was too far out to see the weak glittering of Rio Seco, but I knew where it was, just beyond the towns I could see. It was so dark out here, though, that the stars in the sky were brighter than the lights here on Earth. I had to wonder whether that meant anything, me feeling closer to the stars than anything else on this planet.
It probably meant that I was feeling pretty damn isolated. Lonely, too, which was pathetic.
How had everything gone so wrong? Sure, what Nadine and I had was unconventional, but only because we were unconventional. There hadn’t been the traditional wooing and dating and all that. Our attraction had been swift, strong, and mutual, until it wasn’t. Until I’d fucked up or she’d decided none of this was worth it. I supposed the main thing was that I didn’t understand why she was being so cruel. I thought I’d been kind to her. She was staying in my house rent-free, of course. And, unless I was vastly mistaken, the passion that we’d shared was real. Cruelty was bringing another man into my house and sleeping with him in my bed. That was something I simply didn’t deserve. I couldn’t think of a single thing I’d done to merit the punishment of her bringing another man into the house.
I was forced to recall those troubling words she’d uttered to me all those weeks ago. “It’s not you. It’s me.” What that did that mean in relation to this particular situation? That I shouldn’t worry about how I’d brought this upon me? That all of it was at Nadine’s discretion? It was even more difficult to accept that idea than the notion I’d somehow caused this through neglect or offense or something else I wasn’t picking up on yet.
Only one thing was clear to me there was no way I was going home.
By the time I made it back to town, it was late enough that there wasn’t anyone at the bar, and I let myself in, relieved that Jack wasn’t here doing some late-night, elicit drinking that I would have to confront him about. That shit was illegal, and it wasn’t worth the drama we’d get to make it go away.
Plus, I wouldn’t have to submit to an interrogation about what I was doing at the bar so late at night, after it had been locked up.
I only barely resisted breaking into the liquor stash behind the bar myself, and exiled myself to the office. It was comfortable enough, the only part of the entire bar that was carpeted, and I could always console myself with a couple of gift bottles of booze kept in the desk drawers.
The burn of the liquor did little to compete with the burn of betrayal I felt, but there wasn’t much else I could do to mitigate the pain except fall asleep and hope it felt better in the morning.
It didn’t, but I had other things to focus on. There was the practicality of setting up shop in the office for the foreseeable future. I ran to the drugstore and got a few essential toiletries, including a sponge, since I intended to just clean myself up in the bar bathroom outside of opening hours.
And that all seemed to work for nearly a week, me avoiding everyone, especially Nadine, since I knew when she was scheduled to work, until Jack caught me in the office early one morning.
“What are you doing here already?” he asked, surprised. “You’re early, right?”
“You’re early,” I said, looking up from a pile of papers I’d just strewn across the desk to make it look like I was in the middle of something. “There were some things I wanted to look into, so I came over. What in the world are you doing here?”
“No real reason,” Jack said, shrugging before he plopped down in the chair across from me. “Couldn’t sleep, thought a change of scenery might help.”
“You were coming to the bar to nap?”
“Basically. The booth is pretty comfortable for sleeping. You’ve never passed out cold in it, but Sloan can back me up on that.”
I gritted my teeth in frustration. I’d been camping out on the floor, which was a little too firm for a comfortable night’s sleep. I hadn’t even thought of the booth, though if I had, Jack would’ve caught me asleep there just now.
“So what’s going on?” Jack asked. “What are you looking over?”
“It’s nothing that important,” I said. “Maybe I couldn’t sleep, either.”
“Uh-huh. More trouble with Nadine?”
There was no point in hiding it. Everyone had to have noticed by now that I was avoiding her. “Something like that.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” I wasn’t sure what talking would do. Talking hadn’t done me a lick of good so far.
“Can you believe next week is Thanksgiving already?”
I stared at Jack. “You’re shitting me.”
“I shit you not. November’s getting away from us. Hell, it’ll be winter before we know it.”
“We never went on our fall foliage ride,” I said, feeling a little sad. “Dammit.”
“There’s always next year, and wildflower season in the spring,” Jack consoled me. “Just between you and me, I prefer wildflowers.”
“We should start talking about the annual Thanksgiving party,” I said, still dazed that I’d lost so much calendar time worrying about Nadine.
“Haley’s volunteered to organize us,” Jack said. “Anybody but me.”
“One of these days, you’re going to step up and take charge of something,” I said. “We’ll all be really surprised when you do, but it’ll happen.”
“Um, excuse me? Maybe we should skip over Thanksgiving prep and go right into the next Horizon MC fundraiser.”
I winced. “What do you have in mind?”
“Toy drive for Christmas.”
“Oh, that’s not so bad.”
“Then I want us all to dress up like Santa Claus and deliver them around the county.”
“Dammit, Jack.”
“Something I’m taking charge of,” he said with a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. “But maybe we should really be talking about when we’re going to have your beer tasting night here at the bar.”
I stared at him. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, seriously. I’ve been thinking about it, and I want to do it. I think it’s a great way to promote you, the bar, and the club, all at the same time. Are you at a good point in your brewing for this? I was thinking sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas. If not, we could shoot for Christmas.”
“No, no,” I said, surprised and pleased. Finally, some good news in my life. “After Thanksgiving would be perfect. How many kegs do you think we’ll need?”
“I’ll leave that up to you you’re the beer expert, after all.”
“Well, thanks, Jack,” I said. “This really means a lot to me. I’m going to have a really good night. People are going to be entertained and impressed.” My first inclination was to quiz Nadine about all the various marketing tricks I could use to get people interested, since it was her photo editing skills that had gotten Jack leaning in my favor to begin with, but then I remembered why I was avoiding her. It plunged me even further into despair, knowing I wasn’t going to share this joy with her.
“I’m kind of tired,” he admitted after a long yawn.
“Please don’t tell me it was talking about my brew that did it.”
“No, no. It was staying up all night that did it.”
“Does this happen a lot?”
“Happens enough.” He stretched his arms and stood up, apparently done elucidating. “Would it bug you if I had a nap in the booth?”
It only bugged me that I hadn’t thought of doing it first. “I’ll just turn on some music if you snore too loud.”
A couple of days later, Haley was in full Thanksgiving mode at the bar, chasing people around with a pen and pad of paper, trying to get them to sign their names to commit to different responsibilities for the club celebration. One of the responsibilities was bartender duties, and she was chasing Ace around, begging him to do it.
“You’re already a bartender, so it’ll be easy,” she said. “And no one’s going to order anything complicated. You know these things are beer and straight liquor events.”
“I don’t want to be behind the bar all night,” he said. “Ask someone else. Anyone else. I want to actually enjoy myself.”
“You will enjoy yourself. You’re not going to be stuck making drinks all night.”
“That’s exactly what being bartender for the night means. You should just outlaw that position. We’ll make our own drinks.”
“That’s anarchy, pure and simple,” Haley argued, and I laughed. She was right. It would turn into a free-for-all at the end of the night. Better to give one person the power.
“Who else would even do it?” she asked herself, flipping a page on her pad. “I’ll rule Jack out of everything. He’s impossible. Sloan would be a terrible idea. I wouldn’t wish bartender on Amy, even if she’d probably do it just to be nice. Nadine oh, she’s young blood. Ace! I can tell Nadine to do it and it’s something every rookie does. Think she’ll buy that?”
“Worth a try,” Ace said. “What do you think, Brody?”
I’d frozen, realizing that I was going to have to spend Thanksgiving with Nadine even though I couldn’t stand to even be in the same place as her right now.
“Well, if you don’t think she’d be up for it, what are you and Nadine prepared to bring to share with everyone?” Haley asked, her pen poised on the pad of paper.
“You… I… What?”
Haley gave me a blank stare. “You’re standing right there. I’m sure you heard me.”
“I’m sure I misheard you.” I willed it to be true. I really didn’t think I could do Thanksgiving with Nadine. Either I was going to have to skip the event or she was. “You’re going over the guest list for Thanksgiving, aren’t you?”
“That’s right,” she said slowly. “And I was asking you, right now, if there was anything special you and Nadine were planning on bringing, or if you just want me to assign you something.”
“You just assumed Nadine and I were coming together?”
“Um, yes?”
“That’s a terrible assumption to make.”
She blinked at me. “I thought…what happened to everything we talked about?”
“It’s just not going to work between Nadine and me. That’s all you need to know.” Saying that fear aloud made it feel even more real, though I supposed I should’ve started getting used to it. It was my future, after all. I needed to accept it.
I didn’t expect Haley to look so devastated, or maybe I would’ve softened the blow caused by those careless words. I just couldn’t really help it. I was just as upset as she wasmore so, even that I couldn’t find what it would take to keep Nadine with me.
“I’m sorry, for what it’s worth,” Haley said softly. “I really thought you all had something.”
“Maybe we did have something. It just couldn’t last, though.”
“I’m just so confused,” she confessed. “Is there something else I’m missing?”
“Something else you’re missing?” I demanded. “Seriously, Haley? I’m on the front lines of this bullshit and I feel like I’m missing every goddamn thing.”
Haley recoiled and I just added another tally to the column of reasons why I hated myself. She was the last person I needed to take my frustrations out on. She was only trying to help.
Ace saw the altercation and stepped in. “What in the hell are you two bickering over? It’s practically the holidays. Santa’s already watching.”
“No Christmas before Thanksgiving,” Haley managed to say, mustering a smile. “We were talking about Thanksgiving planning.”
“And about what an asshole I’m being,” I said, giving a rueful smile that I hoped Haley realized was an apology to her. “Nothing but coal in my stocking, when Christmas does finally roll around.”
“Ugh. Ace? I can’t even with Brody. Can you take over Thanksgiving planning?” She made a graceful exit, and I was glad she didn’t bring up Nadine again until I blurted it out as soon as she left.
“Assign me whatever you want,” I said quickly, as Ace cocked his head at me. “Bartender, even. I don’t give a shit. Just assign Nadine something, too. Something different. I don’t know.”
“Why?” Ace stopped his inventory and scooted a little bit closer. “Aren’t the two of you going together?”
“I really doubt it,” I said.
“Well, what in the hell happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“See?” Haley put her hand on her hip, on down the bar, unable to fully extricate herself from the conversation. I couldn’t blame her. I couldn’t extricate myself from my misery. “He’s being difficult.”
“This is why you shouldn’t date people you work with,” Ace said, nodding sagely. “If you break up with them, it can make the entire environment toxic for everyone. What if your breakup sinks the bar?”
“Who’s sinking the bar?” Jack walked out of the bathroom just in time to add to my misery. “The bar’s doing great. Who’s going to change that?”
“This idiot,” Ace said, jerking his thumb at me. “He’s going to sink the bar because he and Nadine broke up or whatever.”
“We weren’t even together,” I said. “I don’t know. Were we?”
Jack burst into exasperated laughter. “You were the only one who was there, in that relationship with Nadine, Brody. None of the rest of us know for sure. If you don’t know, how would any of us?”
“Just forget about it,” I said, flicking my hand dismissively. Because God knew I wished I could.
“Should we not invite Nadine to Thanksgiving?” Ace asked, propping his fist up on his chin. I hated that pose. It was one he slipped into each time he thought he recognized a problem that required the therapist-level advice he thought he was capable of doling out from behind the bar.
“We can’t not invite Nadine,” Jack pointed out before I could say anything. “She works here at the bar. She’s friends with all of us well, maybe everyone beside Brody. Not inviting her would be a slap to the face.”
“And she already knows about it, anyway,” Haley added, carrying racks of clean glasses back behind the bar. “That would make it even more awkward.”
“More awkward than Brody pouting and making everyone else miserable?” Ace asked.
“Could I speak for myself, please?” I demanded, sick of this shit. “I’m sitting right here.”
“Earlier you didn’t seem to want to talk about it,” Jack said.
“I caught her with another man,” I said. “That’s what I didn’t want to talk about.”
Haley recoiled. “What?”
I shook my head and wiped my mouth. Thinking about it made me sick. “I came home the other night and she had a guy there. At my house.”
“That doesn’t sound like her,” Haley said, visibly troubled. “It really doesn’t.”
“Who of us really knows her, though?” I asked dully, shrugging. “It’s not a big deal.”
Ace gripped my shoulder. “It is a big deal. You’re upset about it.”
“I’m not upset.” I was gutted.
“Tell me you at least kicked her out of your house,” Jack said.
“I hope she’s just had the sense to leave,” I admitted.
“You haven’t been back to your house?” Ace asked.
Jack’s mouth twisted into a scowl. “You’ve been sleeping in the office, haven’t you?”
“Why not? It’s my office.”
“You could’ve told one of us,” Ace said. “You could’ve had at least a couch to crash on.”
“Or a bed,” Haley added. “Like the one Chuck and I have in the guest bedroom of our house, you know. Idiot.”
“I didn’t want to cause anybody trouble,” I said.
“Brody, that’s exactly the kind of trouble you trust your friends with,” Jack said. “That’s what we’re here for. There’s no need for you to suffer by yourself.”
“You all like Nadine,” I said. “There was no way I was going to ruin that friendship for everyone.”
“I don’t think anyone wants to be friends with her with the way she’s treating you,” Ace said. “I mean, I’m just speaking for myself here.”
“He’s speaking for all of us,” Haley said. “You should’ve said something sooner to avoid all this bullshit.” Her eyes told me she would’ve been giving me different advice if she’d known the whole truth, but I just shook my head at her.
“The way she was treating you ignoring you and flirting with anything that walked through that door,” Jack said, drumming his fingers on the bar. “Was that the beginning of all this?”
“I don’t know. I guess.” I heaved a sigh and put my forehead against the bar. “I honestly thought it was just a tactic to make me jealous. That she was just playing games. The sex… Sorry, Haley.”
“I heard nothing,” she said, putting the glasses away with crash after crash. “And I’m going to straighten up in your office, so you can say whatever you think you need to say.”
As soon as I heard the door down the hall close, I sighed. “The sex was magnificent,” I said. “I thought it was a thing. Like some kind of kink. It worked, whatever she was doing. I wasn’t sure whether she liked me or hated me, but the sex was so good that it almost didn’t matter.” Except that of course it mattered. I’d been confusedaroused, but confused the entire time. I’d wanted her to like me. I cared for her so much.
“But then she had another guy over…at your house,” Jack said. “Was that a game?”
“I didn’t stick around to find out,” I said.
“I hope you kicked his ass,” Ace said, cracking his knuckles.
“I just left.” Pathetic, but true. Hurt had been the overwhelming emotion in that moment. Hurt, and then confusion. I’d left because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
“Look, we just won’t mention Thanksgiving to her,” Jack said. “It’s as easy as that. I’m sorry this is happening to you, but that’s at least one thing we can do spare you having to see her or interact with her at the party.”
“I don’t know, Jack. That’s pretty petty.”
“It’s not petty if it helps you feel better.”
“But it doesn’t make me feel better at all. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m doing a shit job of trying.”
“You’re in love with her.”
I groaned at Ace. “Would you think less of me if I told you I couldn’t get over her? That I still loved her, even now? I feel like such an idiot.”
“Love is idiotic,” Ace said, nodding. “You can’t help who you love, or why.”
“Like you love Katie,” Jack said, nodding back. “Why even?”
“You’re such an asshole,” Ace complained, swatting at Jack. “You adore Katie. Don’t lie. She knows it, too.”
“I do not adore Katie. Katie is a plague.”
“You just wait. You are going to find someone just like her one day, someone we’ll all complain about.”
It was nice to just sit there and listen to the two of them banter. It took my mind off my own problems. Ace was right, though. For as much as they bickered, everyone knew that Jack and Katie were quite fond of each other. It was only fitting since they both loved Ace so much.
“So how are you going to move forward?” Ace asked me during a lull in the insults flying between him and Jack. “What’s the plan?”
“The plan is there is no plan,” I said. “I have no idea what to do.”
“No Thanksgiving invite,” Jack said.
“She doesn’t have anyone,” I protested. “She has to come to Thanksgiving.”
“She has whoever she invited to your house,” Ace reasoned.
“She has all of you, is what I’m saying. It would be cruel to keep her from the people she cares about just because I’m having a tiff with her or she’s having a tiff with me.”
“So you want her to come to Thanksgiving?” Jack asked.
“If she wants to come, I don’t want to keep her from it,” I said.
“At least evict her.”
“Where would she go?”
“To anyone who would take her.”
“Maybe she can stay in the guest room at Chuck and Haley’s,” Ace suggested.
“I don’t want to put her out,” I said.
“God, you have it bad,” Jack said, eyeing me. “You’re hopeless.” He meant it as an insult, but it came out a little wistful.
“Believe me. I wish I didn’t.” Because it hurt so much, to love her so much even after discovering her betrayal.
“What do you want out of it?” he asked.
Lots of things. A resolution, maybe. Closure, at the very least. Some miraculous reversal of fortunes and the ability to move forward with each other. To love her. For her to love me back. But the undercurrent framing all of those wishes was something I couldn’t ignore.
“I just want Nadine to be happy,” I said finally. “That’s all.”
“Goddamn.” Jack was shaking his head, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen a sadder smile on anyone.
“You can say that again,” Ace said, yanking out three shot glasses and pounding them down on the bar. He swiftly filled the trio with whiskey.
“I can’t have whiskey right now,” I protested, but the words fell flat.
“Medicine for the lovesick,” Ace reasoned, nudging one over to me. Jack obediently took his. “To that bitch, love. She hurts us so good.”
“To love,” I said, reluctant, the whiskey burning its way down to the very pit of my stomach. It did little, though, to exorcise the area of my heart that still held out hope for Nadine.