As always, he lets me throw together whatever I please. When I return with another glass, he’s happy to compliment it as well, giving life to the butterflies in my stomach.
“Where were we?” The words come out too airy, too practiced. “Right. The weather…”
Hayes huffs—almost a laugh—and momentarily looks away to take in the glass panes painted in water droplets. “Still awful,” he rumbles before his famous scowl dips away again. “But the company’s improving now that you’re back.”
His words throw me off to the point where I’m dizzy. I forget how to form words, and the fluttering wings in my stomach are making me all tingly.
Maybe I’ve inhaled too many fumes in the kitchen, but it sounds like Hayes is being flirtatious. That can’t be.
Yet here he sits, watching me with something dangerously close to affection, turning my bones to liquid heat with just a few rough words.
“Well,” I manage, voice suspiciously high, “guess I’ll have to stick around then.”
His answering hum vibrates through the bar top, straight into my traitorous pulse.
At this rate, there’s no doubt that I’m in trouble.
2
Hayes
The sky hangs low today—a brooding, iron-gray canopy threatening to crush the valley beneath it.
Despite an entire week passing since the start of this shit weather, it’s only gotten worse. If anything, the last few days have been building up to this point.
The angry darkness isn’t just coming; it’s prowling, swallowing the mountain ridges whole as the storm gathers its breath. Most folks will take shelter and cancel the weekly gathering at the Hollow Oak. But a few distant thunderclaps won’t keep me from the only reason I bother leaving my cabin anymore.
Not when Kelsie’s there.
Mondays always start the same. Every dip in the mountain road jolts my bad hip on the way down. Every step through the bar’s doorway sends a twinge up my leg.
Then we find each other, like we both look forward to the day. The way she looks at me, unlike any of the other locals, a lack of pity in her gaze, makes the pain worth it.
When Dalson first started inviting me to the bar for drinks, I knew right away I wanted no part of it. He’d clap me on the shoulder—his grip too tight, like he was trying to shake sense into me—and insist I couldn’t spend the rest of my days holed up in my cabin, treating society like the plague.
He should understand why I stay away from it all. Like me, he hates the pitying stares and all the judgment that comes with it. However, unlike me, he’s more optimistic. He enjoys making friends and trading stories. It’s why he helped start these gatherings once a week.
Like me, the man is lonely. The only difference between us is that he doesn’t try to spend every second with the woman of his dreams while he’s shooting back drinks that his doctor would scold him for.
At the bar, I don’t have to worry about any of the patrons taking a look at my cane and curling up their nose because of how much room I take up to move from one place to the other.
But that’s only because half the folks laughing too loud over their whiskey have chunks missing too—some we can see, arms or eyes gone, and some we can’t, carved out from the inside. The lucky ones wear their scars where the light hits.
Me? I drag my leg behind me like a curse every damn Monday. The pain licks up my spine like fire, but I bear it. Every step, every wince—it’s worth it.
Dalson thinks I’m becoming a social butterfly when, in fact, I’m more of a moth drawn to a flame.
It’s a miracle none of the men in this joint haven’t already tried to ask Kelsie for her hand. Even while I’m sober, the words have weighed against my tongue.
I don’t have the right to watch her the way I do. Like she’s already claimed, already mine.
She’s half my age, bright-eyed and unbroken, the kind of woman who wouldn’t spare a second glance for a limping wreck like me. But that hasn’t stopped my eyes from following her movements each time she appears at the bar.
For months now, I’ve studied the way she tucks loose hair behind her ear, the way her fingers tremble whenever she’s near. Hell, I’ve memorized the shape of her lips with each conversation we share, giving me something to think about during my time all alone in that cabin.
If Dalson knew my intentions for showing up, he’d encourage me to talk to her even more to make a new friend. Someone who isn’t my age, haunted by the same curse.
What I want from Kelsie isn’t anything innocent. When she looks my way, she doesn’t have the slightest clue. Her smile is too genuine, too carefree whenever she aims it in my direction.
