He adjusts his hand along my mouth, still covering it and pinching my nose at the same time.Shit.
“I said. Calm. Down,” the low, deep voice repeats.
I stop moving, but my mind races for a way out of this. I’ve learned to follow directions the hard way. The scars on my palms and along the left side of my body burn in my subconscious.
I hear a muffled calling of my name from the other end of the phone that’s been kicked into the dirt and gravel of the parking lot.Birdie. “Wyn? Wyn, sweetheart, are you still there? Where are you?”
It’s an interruption that works as a distraction. He moves us closer to where the phone lays, out in the open, under the night sky. His hand moves a fraction away from my mouth, his wrapped arm loosening slightly, enough to allow me to let go, exhale from my gut, heavy my limbs, and drop. Deadweight.
I never hit the ground. It’s not enough. Instead, something pricks the base of my neck, then a stinging burn follows in the same spot.
No, no, no, no, no.
I know what it feels like to be stuck with a needle. I’m being drugged. Shadows quickly drench the outline of my field of vision like an old movie vignette. “No,” I try shouting again, but it doesn’t sound as loud as it should.
I move fast enough that I loop my fingers into my back pocket, and with the little energy I have, I raise my hand out and come down as hard as I can on his thigh.
“God. Fucking—Fuck,” he groans just as my arms become as heavy as my legs. But he doesn’t drop me or hit me. He gently places me on the wood-planked floor. Being drugged doesn’t feel freeing. It’s panic held in a soundproof box. I try to even my breathing. Placing the tips of my thumb and middle finger together, I raise them to my mouth. The whistle I try for is pathetic. There’s no way it’ll be heard. I hold on to consciousness for as long as I can. I take in every detail I see—a worn-in cowboy boot the color of the whiskey I just bottled this morning stepping beside my head, and in contrast to the stark-white shiny plastic-like pants that mold to a large, looming form. I blink and take in the white PPE coveralls, the sleeves of it tied at his waist. I fight to keep my eyes open. No shirt, a bare torso leading to shoulders, each capped with?—
That can’t be possible.
Dark shapes that look like paper airplanes turning into birds as they move to the center between his shoulder blades. Wordsand then a compass below it. His hair is pulled back tightly at the nape of his neck. I look at his hands and see one brown leather cuff fastened to his wrist, peeking out above his black latex glove.
“Julian?” I rush out as quickly as my lips allow.
He turns immediately toward me, steps closer, and towers over my weighted body. If it weren’t so dark in here, I’d see hazel eyes studying me.
I know it’s him.
But he doesn’t say my name, or anything in return. I only hear the sound of blood rushing in my ears.
The only thing I know, with every fiber of my being, is the person who made me feel something again, the charming stranger who I haven’t been able to scrub from my memory, a jeweler who made me smile, who made me feel lighter and more confident, who moaned the dirtiest things I’ve ever heard, is somehow here, right now. And he lied. Again.
Chapter Two
Naomi
10 months ago
“I’m goingto need a shot of your whiskey and an ice-cold IPA.”
I glance at the clock above the jukebox. Sure enough, it’s quarter past seven, and it's within a fifteen minute window that I can expect the same request every night.
“Dammit,” Boss mumbles from his stool. On an exhale, he adds, “Thought we were in the clear tonight.”
“Wanna say that while you’re looking me in the eye next time, fucker?” Viv says as she sidles up to the bar. She has more attitude than most people know what to do with. And that’s saying something, considering where I grew up and the people who raised me, but Viv has the kind of energy that makes youhate and love her all at once. It doesn’t help that Boss used to be married to her.
I give her a nod as I pull a frosted pint glass from the cooler. “Rough day?”
She hums to herself before she starts rambling off a roster of all the ways people are the biggest problem with the great state of Montana. The audacity of tourists stopping to take pictures of her bison, and how her new horses are stubborn as all get-out.
This bar is the opposite of the one I grew up around. It’s slow and quiet. We work at a comfortable pace, and there’s an easy layout, where I know every exit and can see every place a person could enter. The predictability of happy hour visitors and theme days like trivia, football, and the newest, podcast flight nights, puts me at ease. It’s a small part of the world, where everyone tells it like it is instead of gossiping behind people’s backs. The one thing I don’t miss from my hometown is the rumors.
“You can’t tell me there’s a single brewery in all of this big, beautiful country that makes an IPA as good as those boys down near Missoula.”
I give the regular a small nod, but I wholeheartedly disagree. While IPAs are nowhere near my favorite, there’s a small craft distillery up in the Northeast that makes some of the best beer my near-perfect palate has ever tasted. But I don’t share that. I don’t need to be asked more questions. There isn’t much I can share about myself that doesn’t stretch the truth. I can also understand loving something because it’s local. Hell, I grew up in a household that rooted for local everything.
“Be right back,” I say, moving toward the small galley kitchen. It isn’t that kind of place with a menu, but we have some decent snacks. “Shit,” I huff out, looking down at the scrape along my elbow as I pull out a bottle. The textured wood paneling is a hazard sometimes, but it fits the vibe of the establishment. The seventies are preserved here in a way that’sfamiliar and homey. Seats peppered around the bar have been refurbished in a green leather that wouldn’t be my first choice, but somehow, it works. And the metal lamps perched at each end of the bar add their own shadowy flair. I liked it the moment I stepped foot inside. Even the taxidermy bison head that hangs with intention along the back wall, watching over everyone.
