Page 10 of The Interns

4

Reed

Reed saluted his good friends, Dustin and Sara, and joined them at the bar of their favorite local watering hole.

“Well, look at this suit walking in here. You’re way overdressed for this place,” Dustin said before throwing back the last of the bourbon in his glass.

“Stop it,” Sara warned with a nudge to his arm. “It looks good on you, Reed. Much better than that ugly brown uniform you used to wear.”

She had made no secret over the years how grateful she was that, as a firefighter, she got to wear navy and gray instead of the drab beige and brown he wore at the sheriff’s department. And as for Dustin, as a mechanic at Reed’s father’s body shop, anything more than coveralls was fancy to him.

“Hey stranger!” Willa smiled brightly as she returned to her spot behind the bar after dropping off a round of drinks at the table in the corner. “Dev!”

Her husband popped his head out from the service window behind the bar, probably expecting her to call in an order to the kitchen, but he looked pleasantly surprised to see his best friend sitting down at the bar instead of a new check hanging on the rack.

“Good evenin’, everybody.” Reed hung his gray suit coat over the back of his bar stool and loosened the tie around his neck as he sat.

Dev joined Willa behind the bar. His Braves hat was turned backwards and his white apron was pristine since it was early in the evening. “How’s the city treating you, man?”

“It’s been interesting so far,” Reed answered distractedly, his attention focused on Dustin’s face as he slipped his loosened tie over his head and attempted to slide the knot up to tighten it.

“Get that damn thing off me.” Dustin batted Reed away and immediately went to work undoing the tie from his neck. “I still don’t get why you’re doing all this.”

“He’s doing this so he can come back here and clean this town up,” Willa said pointedly. “For us, for sweet Gracie and Lily, and for all of our future babies.”

Willa glanced at Dev as she placed a drink in front of Reed and refilled Dustin’s empty glass with her best bottle of bourbon. Her regular patrons were too cheap to pay for top shelf booze, so she always ended up giving it away to them rather than let it collect dust, hence why Dev and Willa’s bar was their favorite…even if it was the only one in town.

“Don’t you get any ideas with that baby talk now,” Dustin said to Sara.

“Stop.” She swatted at her boyfriend’s arm again. “You are coming back, Reed, aren’t you?”

“Oh, I’m definitely coming back,” he assured her after taking his first sip. “This is home.”

Sitting there with his closest friends, the top button of his dress shirt undone, and sleeves rolled up, he finally felt like himself for the first time this week. In fact, he had never felt more certain about who he was or where he belonged in his life.

This was a scene he hoped would play out a few times a week for the rest of his years once this associateship and then his last year of law school were over. After working as a sheriff’s deputy for three years, he grew accustomed to life as a full-fledged adult, so going back to school felt like going backwards, but he kept reminding himself it would be worth it. Twenty-eight would be a good year.

“Good.” Willa leaned in, resting her arms on the bar. “So now that I know we’re not gonna lose you, I wanna hear all about your fancy office.”

“It’s…” Reed chuckled to himself as he struggled to find a way to describe the new digs that he found a bit soulless compared to the old brick buildings that lined Main Street in Clayville. “Shiny? I don’t know. There’s a lot of glass and steel around there. I’m on a high floor overlooking the city, so I can see Stone Mountain on a clear day which is kinda cool. There’s a coffee machine in the breakroom that I still haven’t figured out how to work yet.”

“And the people?” Dev asked.

“They’re nice enough.”

“Well, that’s a ringing endorsement if I ever heard one,” Dustin observed.

“She’s—” He stopped himself. He didn’t even know how he felt about Maya because she had her guard up around him despite his best efforts to get to know her. “It’s just a different world. I’m gonna take the experience and the sorely needed cash, and never look back. But enough about that. I wanna hear what I’ve been missing around here.”

“Nothing,” Sara said. “Same old shit as always.”

Her response was met with a grunt from Dustin and crickets from Willa and Dev. There was a certain charm in things staying the same while his world was barely recognizable lately.

“I’m working on some stuff for the new menu,” Dev offered. “I haven’t perfected the recipes yet, but I’d be happy to make you something.”

“I’m good,” Reed answered, bringing his hand to his belly. It wasn’t Dev’s cooking that was in question since he was a classically trained chef with high hopes of making the town’s local bar and grill into a destination restaurant for locals and tourists alike. “I had a big lunch today. Still full.”

“Whatever, skinny. Let him make you something,” Willa insisted.

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