I open and close my mouth in shock. That’s the first time she’s ever said anything like that to me. My divorce was only finalized a year ago. I’d hardly consider that enough time to pack it up and move on with someone new.
But maybe she’s right. Maybe this is the push I need to figure my shit out and move forward. I love my grandma, I know she wants what’s best for me but maybe living here—notin the attic with the ghost, but in the free guest room—is still holding me back from healing.
I’ve been struggling since my divorce. Financially, mentally, emotionally. Maybe it’s time to take the leap, find a new place to live, maybe even a new friend. Hell, living with a stranger might be a wild option. Maybe they’ll have some skeletons of their own, or if I’m lucky, just some ghosts.
“Okay. I’ll start looking for a new place,” I say, my voice full of resolve now. If she wants me to leave, I will.
“Great!” she squeezes Eduardo’s hand again as he smiles at her.
“It was nice to meet you, Eduardo” I give him a polite nod. “Thanks for saving my life.”
He smiles back.
Despite my happiness to see her taking another chance on love, all I can think about is the past men in our lives—my grandma’s, my mom’s, my aunts, and mine—who’ve let us down. The ones who’ve cheated, disappointed, or just not lived up to their word. The ones who’ve broken trust and left us skeptical and hurting.
I hope Eduardo doesn’t repeat the pattern that seems to follow us into every new relationship that we start.
I shake my head and stand, heading up the stairs to my bedroom to start looking for places to rent in town.
Chapter 5: Alessia
“Aly, can you take care of table six, please?” Natasha, the Brookhaven Brews bar manager, calls out, gesturing at me with the pen she keeps always tucked neatly behind her ear. She scribbles something onto the sheet of paper in front of her.
“Yeah, no problem.” More tables mean more money, which is exactly what I need now that my grandma dropped the news that she’s kicking me out.
I grab the two full pints sitting on the bar and head toward table six. After placing the beer down and taking their food orders, I return to the bar. Natasha looks extra stressed tonight, though, to be fair, she always does lately.
She’d told me recently that the owners of the bar offered her part ownership if she agrees to take on more hours. At first, she’d jumped at the idea—it sounded like a great deal, especially after the thrift shop she worked at in town recently shut down. But lately, she’s been regretting it now that she realizes it means more work, and not much more pay.
With the dinner rush finally tapering off, she leans her elbows on the bar and gives me a long, scrutinizing look.
“You look stressed,” she says.
I like Natasha. She was one of the first people I clicked with when I moved to Brookhaven to help my grandma and escape the memories of New York City. I walked into her bar during a busy shift one night and begged her for a job. She’d handed me an apron and a serving tray and told me not to tell the owners that she’d hired me without their permission, and I’ve been working here ever since.
Shortly after that I got hired at the elementary school, but I’ve kept up with the bartending shifts to supplement my income. It’s also been a nice way to socialize while not having to put myself out there too much.
Natasha’s got this understated beauty about her, dark blonde hair that sometimes looks golden and other times almost brown in the right lighting. Big, round brown eyes. And she never wears a stitch of makeup.
At thirty, she’s close to my age, but unlike me, with my heavy use of sarcasm and dark humor, she’s a free spirit. From the little she’s shared, her parents are billionaires, but they had a falling out years ago and loathe the fact that she didn’t fall in their footsteps.
Hence her strong desire to work at the bar, doing a job she loves instead of some corporate gig they expected her to do.
She’s an Enneagram type 7 with a six wing if you’re into that kind of thing. When she’s working, she’ll get overwhelmed sometimes, but outside of work, she’s the life of the party. No strings attached. The only times that we interact is here at the bar, but I can tell if I wanted to, she’d be down to meet up outside of here for a drink.
“You need a date,” I say, pointing my order-taking pen at her serious face and wagging it up and down dramatically.
She rolls her eyes. “Youneed to date.”
“No, I need some dick.”
That gets her laughing. “I need that too.” She rests her elbows on the bar top and sighs heavily. “It’s been… so, so very long.”
“I have a cousin,” I offer.
Her brow furrows. “I thought you said there were no boys in your family?”
“There aren’t. It’s complicated.” And it is. Sort of.
