Page 1 of If Tomorrow Never Comes

Chapter One

Elliott

On the evening before her untimely demise, Elliott Holland went on someone else’s date.

Okay,possibledemise.

The mortality rate for what she was about to do was around 30 percent, so her odds were decent. Still, people rarely walked around knowing their exact chances of being alive three months from now, so it was hard not to ruminate on it, at least a little.

Tomorrow morning, she’d show up to the hospital at eight o’clock sharp for a week’s worth of massive doses of chemotherapy. Enough to completely obliterate her bone marrow, which would kill her if some Good Samaritan hadn’t donated their stem cells to repopulate her body’s blood supply.

It had sounded scary at first, but her innate bone marrow was complete shit. Had gone haywire twice and would likely progress to leukemia a third time if she didn’t go through with a transplant. The goal was to get rid of her own marrow, like digging deep to scrape out the roots of a dead tree, then refill it with someone else’s healthy cells.

It still sounded scary, honestly. But she had no choice. If she didn’t go through with it, she’d probably die of leukemia, and she wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

She also wasn’t about to walk into that mess without a little fun first, which was how she ended up in a cooking class, making a fancy soufflé with a hot stranger named Jamie. An hour ago, she’d been at a bar in the Old Market district of Omaha, wearing her cutest jeans and holding a cocktail in her hand. She’d be wearing a glorified sheet with her ass hanging out for the foreseeable future and wouldn’t be able to drink alcohol for even longer, so ... priorities.

“You sure you don’t want me to come?” her mom had asked earlier that evening, lounging on the hotel bed while Elliott swiped mascara across her lashes.

“If this will be anything like the other times I’ve been hospitalized—and I’m expecting it to be worse—I won’t have a moment of peace for the next few months.” She wouldn’t so much as fart without someone seeing it on a monitor. Even if things went well after the first few high-risk weeks and she was allowed to go back home to Lincoln while she recovered, her parents would hover like teenagers with backstage passes at a Harry Styles concert. “This is my last chance for some alone time.”

Her mother, bless her, though clearly disappointed, didn’t argue.

Once Elliott exited the hotel lobby and crossed the street, she passed several restaurants and wine bars with lilting music and muted conversation. A couple of them had potential, but she ultimately kept walking until drawn by the sound of laughter.

Tonight, she needed happiness and distraction, not solitude or a quiet that would lead to introspection. She’d have plenty of time for that.

She landed in front of a swinging wood door with the wordTavernetched across it. Single scraps of paper littered the window just to the left, blocking her view inside but advertising live music, trivia nights, and other themed events.

She pushed through the door, her eyes going wide with wonder. She’d expected a dim dive full of dark wood finishes, leather booths, and an impressive line of draft beer behind an oak bar. Instead, a trio of chandeliers sparkled back at her, casting starlight across the long,narrow space. Several customers sat at a sleek black bar top with bright teal and gold tiles cascading to the floor. Dozens of tiny alcoves lined the wall behind the bar, each filled with bottles of liquor and wine. A white ledge bordered the ceiling, and lush green leaves spilled over from colorful pots harboring several types of plants her mother probably would have known the names of.

The vibrant atmosphere was perfect for tonight. She considered claiming a two-top table, just to see how comfortable those emerald-velvet-covered armchairs were, but opted for the bar. Better for a single, and better for people watching.

She took her time perusing the cocktail menu and ultimately ended up asking the bartender, a burly man named Gus with full-sleeve tattoos and a bright-red beard, to surprise her with something floral and sweet. Her hopes weren’t high since he seemed more like the kind of man who knew his way around bourbon rather than vodka, but he flipped her unfair stereotype on its head when he brought her a beautifully concocted, pale-pink cocktail with a sprig of lavender.

She took a sip and stared at him. “This is the best drink I’ve ever had.”

He graciously ignored the surprise in her tone and swiped a towel across his side of the bar top. “It’s all in the garnish.”

The room filled quickly, and by the time she’d made it halfway through her drink and started on a plate of hummus and pita bread, a band began warming up on the stage in the corner.

Her phone buzzed and she smiled at the candid photo on the screen before putting it to her ear. “I wish you were with me right now.”

“Ooh, where are you?” her best friend Yuka asked. “I expected your mother’s sobbing in the background, but I hear music. Ergo, I wish I was there, too.”

“‘Ergo’?”

“It felt right.”

“I found a bar near the hotel. You’d love it, even if it’s way too cool for me. Mainly it just met priority number one in that my mother isn’there.” She loved her mom, truly. And Elliott would never be able to repay everything she and her dad had done for her during her diagnosis (both of them) and everything that came with it. Some days she got the feeling being the parent of a child with cancer was worse than being the patient.

Other days she called foul, believing nothing could be worse than the hand she’d been dealt.

“Fair.” Yuka knew better than anyone how suffocating parents could be. When Elliott first met Yuka in the pediatric cancer ward at the tail end of her successful neuroblastoma treatment, Yuka had never been unaccompanied. One or both of her parents had always been around. “A bar, though? Proud of you. Any cute men?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t really looked.”

“I’ll wait.”

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