Page 46 of On the Rocks

He placed his hand on his torso and winced dramatically. “Right through the kidney. It still aches sometimes.”

I shoved at his shoulder, feeling the firmness of the muscle against my fingertips. “Liar.”

“I’m serious. Especially when it rains.”

“Oh my god, what are you? An old man?”

“I don’t know if I’m gonna make it,” he grunted, hunching over in his seat.

I rolled my eyes. “Honestly. I barely bumped you.”

“You bulldozed into me like you were late for last call at the bar. I’m surprised I didn’t have to call an ambulance to wheel me off the sidewalk.”

“Are you really trying to milk this? I’d like to remind you which one of us used to play a sport where getting tackled was the norm.”

He stopped feigning an injury long enough to change lanes. “You know what, you’d actually make a good linebacker.”

“Missed my calling, huh?”

“Most definitely.” A beat later, he laughed out loud.

“What?”

“I’m just envisioning you on the field, swimming in shoulder pads and a helmet. It’s almost adorable.”

“I’d be menacing.”

“Yes, I’d be terrified.” He reached out and tapped his finger against the tip of my nose. I batted his hand away. “I’d mostly be worried you’d get trampled.”

“Whatever. I should be the quarterback anyway. You used to say I had a good arm, remember?”

Aiden thumped the wheel. “That’s right! I forgot we used to throw the ball around between games.”

I hadn’t. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine I was there again, in the crisp air of a New Jersey autumn evening, making increasingly terrible throws that went absolutely nowhere near him on purpose so I could watch Aiden hustle around the field, diving for the catches and rolling around on the grass, showing off for me. My chest filled with something heavy, and I shoved that memory aside. “You think you could use another set of hands tonight? All joking aside, it would be nice to say hello to your dad and see the progress he’s making on the bar.”

“You know what?” Aiden said. “That sounds great. You can come pick his brain about your speakeasy idea.”

The Red Lion was a messy work in progress. I liked it immediately.

“Watch your step,” Aiden said, pointing out a loose floorboard in the entryway. “I swear to god these things keep popping up. Feels like a Whack-a-Mole game.”

I walked carefully into the main space. Dull light spilled in through grimy windows and a thick layer of dust coated the floor, highlighting the spaces where old booth seats and tables had been ripped out to provide access to the walls for refinishing. My favorite part was the exposed beams and uncovered brickwork which gave the place an undeniable charm. Once construction was done and the place was cleared up, I could tell that the Red Lion was going to be exactly the kind of space I’d like to pop into for a quiet drink.

“My god! Is that Cora Newport?” a voice boomed.

“In the flesh!” I said as Tony came around the bar and swept me into a warm hug. I was surprised at the surge of emotion it brought. Hugging Tony was like stepping back in time into a world where Aiden and I were still together, and my biggest worries were passing my exams and convincing my parents to let me push back my curfew.

That was a world where my dad was still alive, back when I was too naive to truly understand what it was to lose someone or have my heart broken.

“It’s good to see you,” Tony said, stepping back to take me in. He still looked the same. Older of course, with deeper laugh lines and creases by his eyes and streaks of grey in his black hair—Aiden had gotten his fair coloring from his mom. But his smile was the same, and so were the glasses he used for reading perched on the end of his nose.

He’d abandoned a set of instructions on the bartop when he’d come around to hug me. Aiden picked them up. “These for the new light fixtures?”

“I keep telling him we don’t need the instructions,” a woman said, stepping out of a back room I assumed led to either a kitchen or a stock room. “Do you know how hard it is to hang a light fixture?”

Aiden arched his eyebrow. “No?”

“It’s not,” she said, deadpan. “There’s literally nothing simpler. But Einstein over here wants to read all the fine print before changing out some wires.”

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