Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
“Not really.”
“Then why did you just say Josie’s house?”
“Her sister is in town and a complete fucking toddler. I was just making sure she didn’t get herself killed.”
“Her sister is in town, and she’s a toddler?” I drop the keg as it slips from my hand, distant memories of Josie and her sister Norah and her horrible mother at Grandma Rose’s funeral swimming in my mind. Bennett grunts at the weight, but he’s got enough muscles. He’ll survive. “How the hell do you know that? Why do you know that?”
“Well, technically, she’s not a toddler,” Bennett corrects, grunting to pick up the keg on his own. “She’s a grown-ass woman with a penchant for terrible life choices.”
I’m fully aware that Norah, Josie’s only surviving sister, isn’t a toddler. But I’m also aware that her baby sister Jezzy, who is no longer alive, was just a toddler when she died. Ben doesn’t know that, but I do. I know everything there is to know about Josie Ellis. So much so, that I sometimes wish I could forget she exists.
But I can’t. My heart refuses to forget a single conversation, memory, or moment that includes her.
I stare at Ben, waiting for him give me something, fucking anything, more, but I swear this asshole must have lost his mind or bashed his head in or something because he’s not getting to the point. I know he knows I’m not over Josie. He knows.
Having known each other our whole lives and all, he should know me better than anyone.
“You can take a breath,” he says so teasingly my head nearly explodes. “I didn’t even see your ex.”
He adjusts the keg in his arms and rolls his eyes, walking toward the back door while I follow him.
“But her sister…what happened with her, Ben?”
It’s a big fucking deal, Norah being in town, and Bennett is painfully failing to realize that. With all the shit Josie and her sister have been through and the basically no contact they’ve had since Eleanor dragged Norah away from Grandma Rose’s funeral that day, her sister wouldn’t just show up here for a fun time. And I know with certainty Josie wouldn’t be ready for it to happen at all.
Bennett sets the keg down on the bar with a thud, explaining simply, “On my way back into town, after picking up your kegs, she waved me down for a ride.”
It’s a basic fucking answer, and instantly, I’m even more annoyed. Why is he being the absolute dictionary definition of taciturn today?
“And what did Josie say about her sister being in town? Was she surprised? Angry?” I offer, thinking maybe, just maybe, if I make the question multiple choice, it’ll entice him to answer. “She doesn’t have the best relationship with her family.”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I didn’t hang around for the family reunion,” he says on a sigh, seemingly just as aggravated with me as I am with him. I know he’s got important shit of his own—our sweet, now seven-year-old Summer is the most important girl in the whole wide world—but I still don’t appreciate the attitude. “Now, are you going to help me move your last two kegs out of my truck, or should I just do it myself?”
“You’re such a dick sometimes, Ben.”
“Me?” he snaps with a laugh. “The guy who drove forty minutes to pick up your kegs and is currently helping you move them into your bar?”
“The guy who doesn’t know shit about anything, even though he was all up in the shit today.”
He puts his hands to his hips and stares hard at me. “I take it we’re still talking about Josie right now?”
I groan and grind my teeth, busying myself with changing out the old empty keg for the new, and try to talk myself down from strangling my very dear best friend.
My bar will be full soon, and as much as I hate it, Josie Ellis will still want nothing to do with me.
I have to let it go before it eats me alive. I have to let her go. At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself for the last five fucking years.
16
Josie
Saturday, July 31st
I take another sip of tea and scroll through the article in the Red Bridge Newsleader one more time. Local Bar, The Country Club, Takes on Extended Hours
You’d think, after almost five years have passed by, I wouldn’t feel anything from reading it. Wouldn’t have a twinge of pain inside my chest at the mere sight of his bar’s name. But as always, it’s a special form of torture to read about Clay and imagine all the things we could have been.
Eileen spotlights how well he’s doing and what led him to make the decision to open a few hours earlier in the afternoons. And for as much as it stings, I still love to see him succeed.