He watches me pass without a word.
I don't know what he heard or didn't hear, and right now I don't really give a damn.
I get in my car, and start the engine.
I sit there for a second with my hands on the wheel and his flannel around my shoulders and the ghost of his hand still warm against mine.
Then I drive. Not home. Not yet.
Backroads is closing when I get there.
The parking lot is almost empty—just Tildie's car and the delivery truck that comes on Thursday nights.
The neon sign in the window flickers between OPEN and something that's mostly just the O and the N.
Ellie's bar. The heart of the club's world, even when it's quiet.
I push through the door.
The place smells like fryer grease and spilled beer and the lemon cleaner Tildie uses on the bar top after close.
The jukebox is off.
The chairs are up on half the tables.
Tildie is behind the bar, wiping down the counter with the focus of a woman who finds meditation in repetitive motion.
She looks up when I walk in.
Takes one look at my face— scrubs, messy hair, Coin's flannel hanging off my shoulders like a neon sign that says I MADE QUESTIONABLE DECISIONS TONIGHT—and reaches under the bar for a bottle.
"You've gotthelook," she says, pouring two whiskeys without asking.
"What look?"
"The 'I'm about to have feelings and I need someone to talk me out of them' look." She slides a glass across the bar. "Or into them. Depends on the night."
I sit down on the barstool and take the whiskey, but I don't drink it yet.
Just hold it, the way Coin holds the coin, like having something solid in my hands will keep the rest of me from spinning out.
"It's Coin," I say. Because there's no point pretending, not with Tildie.
This woman can smell bullshit from a mile away, and she's been watching me circle this thing for weeks with the quiet patience of someone who's been through it herself.
"I know," she says. She takes a sip of her own whiskey. "I've known since the hospital."
"How?"
"Honey. I've watched you walk into this clubhouse for weeks and look for him in the room before you find your own brother. That told me everything I needed to know."
I take a sip of the whiskey. It burns going down and settles warm in my chest.
"He almost kissed me. On the porch. Tonight."
"Almost?"
"He pulled back. Said I'm Garrett's sister."
