Page 18 of Unforgettable

Adam nodded, and I could see the sadness in his eyes. They were darker blue like mine and swimming with emotion. He acted all tough and pretended that nothing affected him, but I knew better. It was all just that, an act, and I knew our parents up and leaving him hurt even if he didn’t admit it.

“Where are you going?” Mom asked, like she was surprised I was leaving.

“Anywhere but here.”

Dad sighed as I retrieved my purse from the side table, which was still decorated with Mom’s ornate china. There hadn’t ever been much “stuff” in the house, but they hadn’t packed at all, likely waiting for the movers to do it all for them so they wouldn’t have to lift a finger.

“Amanda, why must you always cause a scene? This is a good thing for your mother and me and that’s what you should be focused on instead of storming out of here.”

I didn’t want to engage, but his dismissive tone grated on my last nerve. “I’m not storming, Dad. I am walking, striding, strolling—”

“Sauntering,” Adam added with his head hung.

“Yes, good one. I’m sauntering out of here. Not storming.”

Dad sighed again, and it sounded like my childhood. “Why must you always be so—”

“Oh, wait, wait,” I stopped him with feigned excitement. “I know this one. ‘Why must you always be so dramatic,’” I said, doing my best to drop my voice as low as my father’s with the same disdain I felt drip from each of his words.

“Amanda,” Mom started, but I held up a hand to stop her.

“Adam, I’ll see you soon. Text me when you want to move in.”

And then I walked, strode, strolled, and sauntered out of the house for possibly the last time and headed straight for the bar.

SEVEN

Reed

“Expect the Unexpected.”The weathered sign hung from its usual spot just above the entrance to Murphy’s Law, rattling against the facade of the building each time a strong gust of wind whipped through. Even after renovations, Rhonda, the owner of the bar, left the sign hanging above the entrance like a warning to all who entered.

But other than the two signs, the place was almost unrecognizable. After Hazel was kidnapped by Luke’s ex-wife, Valerie, and held hostage upstairs in the bar, and before Valerie was subsequently killed by Josh, Rhonda decided to expand her renovations to cover more than just the two bars themselves. She practically gutted the place but kept the same contemporary Irish pub style.

There was lots of green and gold, but with a more simplistic look to bring it into the twenty-first century.

It was our place in college and continued to be our place even after we all graduated. Me, Josh, Amanda, Luke, James, Devon, Blakely and at one time, Valerie could be found somewhere in the bar at least once each weekend. Although we had added Hazel, our group had dwindled. Valerie was dead—good riddance—and Blakely had dropped off the face of the earth after she helped Valerie kidnap Hazel.

And as much as we all missed the familiarity of the old Murphy’s, the changes were good. The fact that it looked completely different after so much bad had happened there was the fresh start that the place needed.

When I stepped inside the bar, I was greeted by warmth and immediately relaxed until I was accosted by the god-awful sounds of karaoke night.

The older man on the small stage was butchering “Don’t Stop Believin’” as I made my way to the main bar in the center of the room. It was a huge, circular bar with more barstools than you could imagine and shelves and shelves of liquor in the center.

I shrugged out of my jacket and plopped my ass on one of the green stools, bracing my elbows on the dark wood bar top to wait for Josh.

Grady, one of our favorite bartenders, slid a beer in front of me, and I tried to summon a smile in return. He was in his midfifties and made his money in the oil business before he retired and started working as a bartender at Murphy’s. After his wife died, he spent more time in Murphy’s than anyone else. Rhonda finally told him, in her sweet, affable way, that he could either get the fuck up off the barstool and get behind the bar or find something better to do with his life than drinking it away.

So, he got behind the bar and has been serving us as well as providing unsolicited advice ever since.

I wondered what he would have to say about the predicament Josh and I currently found ourselves in. He’d probably tell us to get our heads out of our asses and that Amanda wouldn’t want either of us so there’s no point in arguing about it.

But I couldn’t imagine anyone telling us anything that would persuade us not to go after her. I hadn’t stopped thinking about Amanda since we’d been together at the rehearsal dinner, but it all started long,longbefore that.

We met in college, just as the rest of us had, but even then, I felt an instant connection to the bubbly, hilarious, yet slightly dramatic blonde that walked into my freshman biology class. She sat down next to me, frazzled that she was later than she wanted to be and immediately struck up a conversation about the proximity of parking lots and garages and the absurdity of the price of parking anywhere on campus.

Coincidentally, Josh, who was my freshman roommate, was also in that class. He was sitting next to me and was also listening to the cute blonde ramble on about the likelihood of ever making it to class on time since she had to “haul ass” from the other side of campus.

We were both immediately enamored, even as she prattled about bus and bike routes. And when the girl with her dark-rimmed glasses finally took a breath, we both promised that even if she was late, we’d always save her a seat.

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