Slowly, I turn around, and I can’t help the relief that follows at who I see. A laugh bubbles from my lips as I hold my hand to my chest. “Dr. Reed Andrews.” I glance behind him, curious about who he might be with, but the only people around him are a few young college students and a trio of guys working up the nerve to talk with them. “What are you doing here?”
“Might ask the same of you. You never seem to wander into this place,” he says, leaning closer and shouting over the crowd.Looking at the two bottles of whiskey I’m holding first, and then at me, he quirks an eyebrow.
At almost exactly the same time, Stevie whistles loudly, and the large gold bell next to the vintage pinup girl poster sounds off. “Some fool ordered a Dealer's Choice. And since there are multiple Crowne women in the house tonight, you get your pick of who serves it.”
Jesus Christ.
“Dr. Crowne...” Reed teases as he watches me shift around to avoid being spotted. “What are you doing behind that bar?”
If he only knew how much I preferred it to being in front of a class. But I shake my head. “Just an errand for Birdie,” I say in response, trying to keep it light. “She knows you’re here? She mentioned wanting to have you again for dinner.” I try turning my body so that Reed is blocking me now. If Stevie spots me, she’ll make a spectacle.
He smiles. “I’m going to get going.”
“What are you doing here anyway?” I cover my mouth quickly. “I’m sorry, that’s none of my business.”
He shakes his head. “Had a drink with a friend.” Glancing around at the crowd, like he’s looking for someone, he holds up his hand to wave as he moves toward the doors. Shouting, he adds, “Don’t get into too much trouble.” He winces the moment my sister starts shouting from her perch on the bar.
I give him a wave and a smile as Stevie yells out, “Rub those nips and get ready to feed me some tips, boys!!!” I move from behind the bar and up the spiral staircase toward the second-floor balcony. Birdie does her tarot and palm reading up here. Sometimes she’ll do these things at the house or join her garden club. When I reach the top, it’s the perfect view to watch as Stevie kneels on the bar top as a man tilts his head back, face up in front of her. She pours a shot of tequila down his throat, and then leans over him with a lime wedge from her mouth, passingit from between her teeth to his waiting lips and lingering there with a more than heated kiss.
Chuckling to myself, I shove through the small crowd waiting outside the drawn curtain to find my grandmother enjoying music of her own pouring through a small speaker while shuffling a deck of tarot, a Philly blunt hanging out of her mouth.
I raise my eyebrows at her. “Getting warmed up?”
“Stop pretending you’re a prude, Wyn.” She holds the joint out to me, but I pass. “It’s from my garden,” she adds. “Andweneed to have a conversation.”
“Your bottles,” I say as I place them in front of her. “And yes, we do.”
“Good. Now, cut the deck,” she says, putting her tarot in a stack in front of me, as if I’m here for this right now.
“Nope.” I cross my arms. “Tell me what I walked into last night.”
With a sigh, she leans back, placing the blunt into a small jar next to her and covering it. Seconds later, a small flame encapsulates the roach and what’s left is just a jar filled with white smoke. A party trick she’s done for plenty of people over the years, and as much as I’m trying to remain stoic, my grandmother is my person. The steady. The magic of this family. “You first,” she says as her bracelets jingle down her arms and fingers intertwine at her lips.
Birdie knows there’s more to the assumptions that something awful happened to me.
“The place where I was before I came back...” I shake my head and take a breath. “I knew him. Well...I didn’t know him,” I correct. “Met him.” Clearing my throat, I keep going. “Julian knew me as someone else. And as it turns out, we’re both liars, and now he’s here. But the mess I saw him cleaning up before he stabbed me with a needle is a little more concerning, don’t you think?”
“Dramatic,” she interrupts under her breath with an accompanying eye roll.
“Birdie, yes. A dead body is a little more important than some guy.”
“Is it?” she asks. “Wyn, there’s so much you don’t know. And I’m not going to sit here and have you assume that I’m the only one who’s keeping the truth close.” She has a point. “Your mother needs to be involved in this conversation. But I want you to know that there is no unhearing it, so please think about whether you really want to know about the things that happen around here, or if you prefer, you can simply chalk it up to serendipitous timing in seeing Julian again.”
I open my mouth to respond, but I’m not sure I know what I want just yet. I keep thinking about what Julian said to me, thatwe’re nowhere near done,and I hate—or maybe love—knowing he’s right.
A buzzer goes off, signaling her night of fortunes and fun are primed and ready.Holy hell, my mother was extreme and over the top, but it was very evident where she got that streak.
Changing the subject back to the reason for coming here, I say, “This one would meet the three-and-a-half-year standard for being a straight Tennessee whiskey—” My words halt, I didn’t think about what that timing would have meant when I chose this. Birdie wanted to know what happened to me, and this was the last blend I made before I was taken. The barrel it came from was marked with the date, and unknowingly, I found myself on a freight train three days later, heading up the coastline and into the grips of a monster.Breathe. You’re not there anymore.I nod toward the bottle and run my fingers along the wax seal. The smooth texture keeps me present. “It’s a really smooth sip. Even better than I would’ve expected.”
“I already know it’s good, my darling. Maybe you’ll finally believe it’s good enough to focus on doing it full time?” she asks.The question settles in my gut. I know all of the details of how to make it, but the practicalities of just starting a business like that seems overwhelming and impractical.
I take a steadying breath when I say, “We’ve been over this; I have a doctorate. And a job that I worked really hard to make sure I could have?—”
She cuts me off, “Yes, I know all about that word that’s so special to academics—tenure. As if you shouldn’t ever do something else just because you worked your ass off to achieve something great.” She shakes her head with a huff. Birdie rarely comes right out and says things like that. She usually figures out a way to tell her opinion as if it’s mine. “I’m in a shit mood tonight.” Flicking out her wrists, she flips a card over so it faces me.
“It’s alright,” I say with a warm smile. “Want to tell me why?”
With another eye roll as her answer, she shifts and says, “It’s Five of Cups, right?”
