“Speaking of moms, did yours have a nice birthday?”
It’s such an innocent thing to ask, and I hope Darren understands I’ve done my best to time it well. He’s busy with work, and Noah is inches away from me, so if he waves me off with a word or two, it's fine. The only potential complication would’ve comein the form of a flannel-clad ex-husband who’d flip him off and call him out, demanding to know it all.
But Beau isn’t here.
“She did, yeah,” Darren says, bottle caps and coasters becoming his playthings. “Good food, good drinks, an emotional kick neither of us deserved, and then more good drinks.”
Trivia comes and goes, and I remain quiet when Noah slowly nods. “You told her your father has been in here.”
“I think I had to. She knows my bullshit better than anyone, and I’m probably lucky she didn’t make me spill it over the phone weeks ago.” He stops then and laughs at Noah. “Like you don’t fucking know how that works. There’s no way you can keep anything from V.”
“It’s been a long, long time since I’ve bothered to try.”
We all chuckle, and then Darren looks at me, silently asking me to wait, as though I had plans to run off while he serves a group of four that just walked up to the bar. From where I stay, I watch Riley, their rhythm steady, and a wider glance helps me find and forget a bartender whose name I haven’t learned. Noah and I have missed another question or two, and I don’t care when I’ve never accepted a prize before and wouldn’t have started tonight. When Noah bumps my knee with his, I tune back into the host long enough to answer something I think most people probably get correct, and raise an eyebrow when Darren comes back as casually as ever.
“Are you good at seeing through Lucy’s shit?” he asks.
“I have to be now. I think I owe it to her to be good at itnow,” I amend, shaking my head. “Michelle was always better with Lucy, and I hate that I didn’t pay closer attention to things when I should’ve. I wasn’t absent by any means, but I told myself Michelle could handle everything, and that wasn’t fair to any of us. Then when Michelle got sick—I don’t know. Lucy’s never let many people get close to her, so for a while, it had to be me. And over the past year, with her moving away, and her priority being her new job and not new friends—”
I shrug and tap my fingers against my glass, falling silent as I remember unfair periods of mourning and ignorance that wasn’t bliss. Lucy and I really only have each other, but maybe I’m trying to see through her before she sees through me.
A loud whoop from a table in the far corner distracts me from any other wayward regrets, and I smile as the host comes around to collect other players' scoresheets. Noah makes small talk I don’t mind, Darren serves a dozen guests, Riley doesn’t miss a step, and the new guy does fine without V being here to look over his shoulder.
The next round of trivia is as typical as anything around here ever has been. I get nine out of the ten correct—one of them a lucky guess—and finish my second beer.
What happens after that isn’t exactly unusual, but while I’d been prepared for it in WeHo, something about it throws me here. Noah leaves to use the restroom, but I’m only alone for as long as it takes a stranger to step into the same space, an unfamiliar hand on my thigh.
“He comin’ or goin’ with you tonight?” the man asks, noddingin Noah’s general direction.
His drawl is out of place in Southern California, even in a country bar, though it reminds me of Beau. I take a moment to look him up and down, probably in search of other similarities, but only his cowboy hat and boots keep the comparison going. I shake those off easily, finally staring at the attractiveness I tried to ignore at a glance, his lighter hair and smaller build making me wonder for the first time whether I might have a type.
“Neither. He’s a friend,” I say, stopping before I can tell him that the same is true of a few others at Trailhead.
“Can I buy you a drink?”
I’ve barely opened my mouth to answer when a full pint glass lands within reach, beer spilling over the side when the delivery isn’t gentle. The new guy laughs, and I don’t need to turn my head to know Darren doesn’t, a silent claim made in a way I find surprisingly endearing. Possessiveness has never been my thing, nor do I think it’s Darren’s, but maybe we’re both unclear about where erasable lines should have been drawn.
I’m close to asking for a marker, just to settle it right here. The palm pressed to my inseam feels really damn good, but I’d ask him to take the touch back if I knew I belonged somewhere else.
My hand covers the one I don’t know intimately, and that feels good, too. “I’m okay for now, but thank you.”
Noah is back, hovering nearby while he studies the situation. He’s spent enough of his adult years here to be well-versed in ridiculous gay bar mating rituals, even if this isn’t quite that, so I’m not surprised when there’s a small smile on his face as hisgaze drifts from me to the stranger to Darren and back again. He stays quiet, though. Darren mumbles something. This handsome man nods, a knowing grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“If you change your mind, I’ll be over by the pool tables. Withmyfriends.”
I squeeze his hand, slower to let him go than I should be when I’ve already turned him down, and he winks before he goes, Darren mumbling all over again.
“I think that’s the most I’ve ever seen you touch someone back,” Noah says, handing me a blank answer page. The trivia host must have passed them out when I wasn’t paying attention, and I’m sure we’ve already missed a question or two of the current round. I don’t care, still distracted a couple of times over when Noah slides onto his stool and goes on. “Do you think you’ll go talk to him later?”
“No.”
That single syllable carries enough weight to keep Noah from pushing for the explanation he might’ve wanted a few seconds ago, but it doesn’t stop Darren.
“Jake touches us back all the time,” he argues.
“Okay, yes, he touchesus, but we’re not trying to get into his pants.” Noah takes a quick sip, nearly choking when he has something else to say. “Oh shit, I’ve gotta tell Beau and Adrian.”
“Tell them what?” I ask.