Georgia takes a seat at the bar and gives me a broad smile, her wild auburn hair glinting in the dim lighting. “How’s your night?”
“Great. Yours?”
“Fantastic.” Her eyes flit to her husband, talking with the guys, and I know she’s feeling grateful Alexei doesn’t play anymore.
He used to get hurt. A lot. It stressed her out.
He’s talking with team analyst Darcy Andersen and her fiancé, Hayden Owens. Alexei’s eyes are on his wife, though.
One second,she mouths to him, and his chin dips in a nod, his expression serious but affectionate.
“How’s the apartment?” she asks me. “I miss that place.”
I give her a flat look. “No, you don’t.”
The apartment we used to share is old and gross. Practically falling apart. The only reason I’m still there is because it’s incredibly cheap and a few blocks from the bar.
Her nose wrinkles. “No, I don’t, but I miss living with you.”
Before she married her most hated enemy for his citizenship and her inheritance—we don’t talk about that, they’re in lovenowand that’s what matters—Georgia and I were roommates. Since university, actually. Since my mom passed suddenly, my father abandoned me when I needed him most, and Georgia took one look at my utterly alone twenty-year-old ass and basically adopted me.
“You should probably make an appearance soon, though,” I tell her. “Garth is renovicting people left and right, and you’re still on the lease.”
As rent prices skyrocket in Vancouver, scummy landlords find a way to get rid of tenants, renovate, and then triple the rent. We signed the original lease a decade ago, so Garth isveryeager to jack the rent.
She makes anughnoise. “Garth is the worst.”
“The worst.” I return to mixing drinks and she leans her chin on her palm, her eyes moving over the group of happy people in the bar. “It’s nice having everyone here, isn’t it?”
My heart gives a sharp tug and I make an acknowledging sound.
Moments like this, with everyone enjoying themselves, talking and laughing. Hayden and Luca horsing around while Alexei tells them to knock it off.
Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Pippa Hartley sits in a booth, practically encased by her goalie husband, Jamie, the subject of many of her sappy love songs. A guy who only smiles for her and their dog, Daisy.
Across from them, Pippa’s sister, Hazel—sharp, funny, fiercely loyal and inclusive, begrudgingly head-over-heels for Rory, who can usually be found whispering in her ear like he is right now. Or getting drunken tattoos for her.
Hayden breaks off from tussling with Luca and drops into his fiancée’s lap. After a breakup a few seasons ago, the now-lavender-haired Darcy Andersen actually thought her best friend Hayden would be fine with wing-manning her—as if he didn’t have a thing for her since the day they met in university, years prior.
In three short years, my bar has become the third place. They have home, they have work, and they have the Filthy Flamingo. People celebrate birthdays here. Hayden and Darcy had their engagement party here. Pippa played on the little stage here, before she was famous, before she even knew what she was capable of.
Here, people fall in love. Partner up and pair off, staring into their other half’s eyes while they dream up their whole futures together.
Georgia sighs with the wistful, happy expression of someone madly in love. Someone who belongs. “We’ve found ourselves an incredible family, haven’t we?”
My heart gives a sharp pang. I love these people, but I’m not one of them. I’m not meant to be, which is fine—I don’t need anyone or anything. I’m not like my mom was, radiant and outgoing.
Like so many times since I opened this place four years ago, my fingers find the sticker beneath the bar, something I slapped up the day I opened. A cartoon fox. The edges peeled up long ago so I have a layer of clear tape over it, and the smooth ridges of it under my fingers calm me.
My mother loved foxes because she said they representtransformation. Ten years later, I have so little left of her except her old record player, her records, and my memories of her.
Clever, adaptable, and resilient,she always said about foxes.Curious and observant. Very shy,she said,but that’s okay.Being solitary is how they protect themselves.
Like me. I’m the quiet one. The one in the background, on the outside, looking in. I’m meant to be alone.
That doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy moments like these, though. Surrounded by warmth and happiness.
Sometimes you don’t know you’re in the good old days until they’re already gone. Another thing Natalie Hathaway said all the time. I grab the instant camera from beneath the bar and snap a photo of Georgia. The flash goes off, and she gives me a surprised look as the photo spits out of the camera.
