“Not maybe.”
Billy leaned back. Looked at the ceiling. “Did you sleep?”
“No.”
“Eat anything?”
“No.”
“Right.” Billy stood. Picked up the bottle. “We're going out.”
“We're not going out.”
“Sure, we are.” He was already moving toward the door, jacket off the hook, keys from the bowl on the shelf. He looked back. “You've been sitting in that house alone since last night processing the consequences of thirteen years of terribledecisions. That's enough of that.” He held the door open. “Get up, Judah.”
Judah looked at the empty glass on the table.
He got up.
St. Francisville at noon on a weekday had no curated interest in being discreet about witnessing things.
Mrs. Cormier saw them first, coming out of the hardware store with a bag of something and a look that sharpened immediately into focus. Billy was holding the bottle, which he'd brought becausewhy not, and Judah was following with his glass, moving it toward Billy for a refill every few minutes. Safe to say he was committed to the process.
“Pastor Beaumont,” she said.
“Mrs. Cormier.” He stopped. Made eye contact. His voice was steady — the years of standing at a pulpit did something to a man's voice that bourbon couldn't fully dismantle. “You look well.” That was a lie. She lookedold.
She glanced at the bottle in Billy's hand.
“Anesthetic,” Billy said pleasantly. “He's having a crisis of faith. Completely normal. Happens to the best of ‘em.”
“William—”
“Saint Paul himself, drunk in the road outside Damascus. Or thereabouts.” He steered Judah forward with a hand between the shoulder blades. “Have a blessed afternoon, Mrs. Cormier.” And as they got further, Billy hissed, “the nosey bitch.”
She stood on the sidewalk behind them with her hardware store bag and her story ready to be spread like legs in mid-July.
Randy's was open.
Oddly, it was always open. The sign said noon but the door was unlocked by eleven and sometimes by ten if Dice had come in early to do inventory and gotten bored. Or just drankthrough the night and wanted company that wasn’t wasted come morning.
Reed's truck was in the lot. Cole's bicycle was locked to the post out front, which meant he'd walked from wherever he'd been and then decided against walking home.
Billy pushed the door open.
The bar was dim, cool, smelling of last night's beer and synthetic cool that could’ve come only from an old, rattling AC. Reed was at his usual stool at the far end. Cole was eating something that might have been lunch. The jukebox was between songs.
Dice was behind the bar.
She looked up when the door opened. Looked at Billy, then at Judah, then back at Billy with an expression that took in the bottle, the hour, and realized questions were not mandatory neither particularly necessary.
She reached under the bar and produced two glasses without being asked.
Reed turned on his stool. Looked at Judah. Cole put his fork down.
Nobody said anything.
Judah sat at the bar. Not at the far end, not in the middle — at the near end, close to the service well, close to where Dice was standing. He put both hands flat on the wood and looked at them for a moment.
