"Hey." He slides onto a seat. He peels off the wet layer and folds it over the back. "Terrible night out there."
"It's January in Oregon. They're all terrible nights."
He grins. "That's what I like about this place. The honesty."
I pour him a bourbon, Elijah Craig, neat, the one he's ordered every night since he walked in here, and set it on a napkin. His fingers brush mine when he picks it up.
"Holly." He turns the tumbler between his palms, slower than usual, like he's working up to something. "There's a place on the harbor—the one with the blue awning. Italian, I think. Supposed to be good."
"Morretti's? Yeah, it's good."
"Want to go there and have dinner with me?"
He doesn't dress it up or leave himself a way out. Just says it. Six months of Rex and I can count on one hand the number of times he's asked me for anything that wasn't physical.
"Dinner, together?" I repeat.
"Saturday. Seven. I'll pick you up." Tyler takes a sip of his bourbon. The opposite of everything Rex is, and I don't know if that's the point or the problem.
"I work Saturdays." It comes out before I can stop it, and it sounds like an excuse even to me. "But I can ask Sal to cover."
"Only if you want to." He says it like he means it, which makes it worse.
"I want to."
Tyler smiles. "Saturday, then." He finishes his drink, leaves a twenty under the glass, and pulls his jacket on. "Night, Holly."
"Goodnight, Tyler."
The door closes behind him and I stand there with the twenty in my hand, staring at the water streaking the window where his reflection vanished.
I said yes to dinner, and the guilt hit before the door closed behind him. Not because Tyler doesn't deserve a real date. Because I'm not sure I can give him one when half my head is still counting the days since I saw Rex last.
I bus the tumbler instead.
Sal dries a pint at the far end of the counter. She's been watching—of course she has; Sal sees everything and comments on nothing until the moment you need her to—and she moves the towel in slow circles, patient as tide.
"Four hundred years I've tended bars," she says. "Only two kinds of people sit in the same seat every night. The ones who've found their place." She holds the glass up to the light, checks for spots and then sets it on the rack. "And the ones who are afraid to look for it."
I don't respond.
The clock above the register reads eleven. I run last call, close out the remaining tabs, and Carl and Micky shuffle past with matching nods. Old Gene wakes up when I touch his shoulder, blinks at me like he's not sure what century it is, and lets Griz steer him toward the exit. Sal handles the register while I wipe down tables, restock the garnish trays, and flip the chairs.
The Anchor is mine for these last few minutes. The quiet after close: beer-soaked wood and lemon oil and the ghost of a hundred conversations absorbed into the walls. I've loved this place since the first night I walked in with a résumé I'd printed at the library and a backpack that held everything I owned. Sal hired me before I finished my second sentence. She told me later she hired me because I didn't flinch when Griz opened the door. I told her I'd been pouring drinks at my mother's fundraisers since I could reach the counter and men like Griz don't scare me. She laughed—deep and grinding, the whole bar felt it—and said that worked.
I pull on my jacket, grab my keys, and shoulder the back door open.
The cold hits my face and I stand there for a second, blinking into the downpour. The alley behind the Anchor smells like wet asphalt, dumpster and salt from the harbor two blocks south. I throw the deadbolt, test the handle, and walk around to the street.
Rex's motorcycle sits across the road.
Parked under the awning of the hardware store. Engine cold, water pooling on the leather seat, beading in the stitching where his weight has worn the cushion thin. The chrome pipes have gone dull. His helmet hangs from the handlebar, swinging in the wind.
He's been here. Sitting in the dark on a wet bench or standing in a doorway, watching the Anchor through the fogged windows while I poured drinks and cleared tables and said yes to a man who asked me to dinner. Close enough to walk through the door. Close enough to sit down and order his bourbon and say one single word.
But the bike is empty and Rex is gone.
I stand on the sidewalk staring at that motorcycle, water running down my face, soaking through my clothes, and I don't move or wipe my eyes because the wetness on my cheeks is weather and nothing else. But the tight knot I've been carrying under my ribs for twenty-three days loosens, and what replaces it is worse. It's clarity.
