Page 27 of Forgotten Pieces

“You okay?” he asks, still standing.

“That was far from an alarming situation. I’ve been in worse. Besides, I’m not a damsel. I don’t need a hero.”

He sighs as he takes his seat. “I’m no hero Tacoma.”

I hate that I am engaging. It’s the last thing I want to do with him. I want him to leave this town. I was never supposed to see him again. “That’s not what I heard.”

“Well don’t believe everything you hear,” he says. Grumpy Ryder has returned. He swirls the last remnants of his whiskey around in his glass before tossing it back. He pushes the glass forward without a word and goes back to scowling at his phone.

“Glad we had such an enthralling conversation,” I mumble as I grab him a refill.

Another hour passes and we still don’t talk. He drinks his whiskey slowly, not muttering a word to me. Eventually the other people at the end of the bar leave. No one else has come in so it’s me and Ryder. I want to ask him if he’s done so I can close early but I’ve seen that face before. Eight years ago. I know he is in his head but I am no longer the one that he talks about it with.

I sit on a stool behind the bar and text my sister to see if she is free for a pool day at Summer’s tomorrow. I scroll through Instagram and Facebook and Twitter, which I never use, and when I look up Ryder still has his hand around his near empty whiskey glass, his eyes still glossed over as he looks at his phone.

I’ve had enough of this. I can’t take the quiet and I sure as hell can’t keep looking at Ryder and keep my mouth shut. I grab a shot glass and the whiskey he drinks and walk over to him. He must not notice me approach because when I slam the bottle down on the bar he jumps and knocks his whiskey glass over.

I rush to grab a towel and clean up the small mess. I pick up his phone and go to wipe it off when he yanks it out of my hand but not before I notice the screen. He wasn’t mindlessly flipping through social media or reading the news. He was staring at a picture of a bunch of Marines hanging out on a base laughing. I can only assume it is his team.

“Are those your guys?”

His eyes pierce me with a rage I’ve never seen from him before. We have an unannounced staring contest. I don’t think he is going to quit until he looks away and puts his phone in his pocket. “Can I pay my tab?”

Normally I wouldn’t object to that because it means I can close. But the way he is looking at me, reckless, despondent, I don’t feel comfortable having him walk out of this bar. “How about you have a drink with me instead?”

He shakes his head. “No, I need to go.”

“Seven for a secret.” I’m hit with memories as I say it. Of all the times we said that to each other. When we needed a friend. When the world was putting too much on our shoulders. We acted the same way, shutting down and shutting people out. But one of us always said those words and we had no choice but to talk. It became our code for our time together.

I can’t believe I let those words come out of me. I haven’t said them in over eight years. And I can tell by the look on Ryder’s face he is just as surprised.

But what surprises me even more is when he sits back down in his chair, grabs the whiskey, and fills both of our glasses.

“You hated whiskey,” he says to me.

I laugh. “I still do.”

“You ordered it at the wedding.”

“Old habits die hard, I guess.” I lift my glass to my lips and swallow the burning nectar. I only drank whiskey with Ryder. He knew I hated it, but he would never bring anything else when we met up.

“I have to admit. I was surprised when I saw you walk in.”

“Why’s that?” he asks as he takes a sip.

“Harper told me you were living in a rental in Towson until you could move into your house here. Sawyer’s is a bit far to stop by for a drink.”

He clenches his jaw before he speaks. “Yeah, well I was helping Mac out today.”

“Ahh, good old handy work. Keeps the mind free,” I say as I’m trying to keep the conversation light before the inevitable.

“Something like that.”

I study his face as he goes back to staring at his glass of whiskey. I study the lines that are beginning to feather around his eyes. He used to only have those when he laughed. I study his beard, the squareness of his jaw you can just make out from underneath it. He used to always be clean shaven. I wish I could study his eyes, the ones that drew me to him years ago, the brown so dark it’s almost black. So instead I study his lips. Those haven’t changed. They are full and plump and I remember they know how to kiss. That thought shakes me. “So are you gonna talk about it?”

“About what?” he asks, eyes still peering into his glass.

I almost want to rip the glass out of his hand. “The reason you had that ghostly look in your eyes for over an hour. You didn’t even move.”

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