Page 19 of Twisted Hearts

I didn’t want or need pity.

I needed to figure out how to be a fighter. How to live my own life.

“All right.” I rolled back my shoulders. Perhaps if I acted as confident as I wanted to be, the rest would follow. “Let’s go talk to Malcolm.”

Shannon’s smile almost blinded me with its brightness.

* * *

Outside,the weather was crisp, but the sun was bright, so I barely felt the chill on my arms as Shannon walked next to me on the sidewalk headed toward Malcolm’s place. Next door to her was an art gallery, and the soon-to-be opened bar was noticeable. Along the sidewalk, a few connected buildings up, were outdoor tables. Umbrellas hadn’t been set up yet, but I figured that’d come when they opened. There were stacks of metal chairs at one side behind a black wrought iron fence, and it looked like a typical outdoor patio seating area at any normal bar or restaurant. It was the sign hanging above them, wooden and chipped and aged like the bar had been there for decades and not brand new, that made my breath lodge in my throat.

Dreammaker’s Bar & Grill

Dreammaker.

Could there be a better name for a place for me when I was, for the first time in my life, trying to make my own dreams come true versus following others’ plan for me?

“Dreammaker’s,” I whispered. The name felt like bliss falling from my mouth, sparking a flicker of excitement in my veins.

“I know. Great name, huh?”

“Yeah.” Shannon kept walking, but I was stuck, feet rooted to the cement and staring at the sign. Gray whitewashed paint, navy blue writing.

I lived a life with more privilege than most people had in their pinkie finger.

But being able to make and follow my own dreams?

For me, that had never been a possibility. Mostly because my dreams had never aligned with what everyone else in my life wanted and expected of me.

Emotions, those pesky damn things that kept bubbling and rolling through me, threatened to overtake then a shadow cast in my vision.

Shannon stepped in front of me.

“You okay?” For once, she wasn’t smiling. Her brown eyes narrowed with concern.

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat, and for the first time all day,Ismiled at her. “Let’s do this.”

She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the heavy, black wooden door with a black metal handle, and for the first time in a long time, outside my friendship with Jillian, I envisioned friends, a group of them who cared about me more than status or social circle requirements. With all that new hope bubbling inside my chest, my steps steadied, and I followed this outgoing, friendly, beautiful woman inside.

I blinked repeatedly as soon as we stepped through the entrance. The bar was darker than I’d anticipated after being outside in the bright sun, and it took several moments for my vision to adjust. When it did, it was another jaw-dropping moment.

The worn and weathered sign out front plus the heavy black door might have alerted me to what I’d find inside, but this place was freakingepic.

Along the right side was a long row of booths that led back to two pool tables and dartboards. The center of the area was filled with a dozen high-top tables that each sat four bar stools. On the left was a small stage, and I instantly envisioned serving customers on nights with live music, shifting around a crowd of people, all high on life and drunk on beer. Beyond the stage was a massive L-shaped bar that ran along the left side of the bar and then the back before stopping at a hallway. Above the doorway was a sign for the restrooms. The wood looked like it’d been ripped off the side of a barn by someone’s bare hands, the edges jagged, the lettering stamped, or maybe charred into it. There weren’t neon signs, but there were wood-framed chalkboards and whiteboards along with posters for live music concerts above the booths.

“Wow. This is…”

“Country,” Shannon supplied, and I turned to see her smirking.

“Definitely country, but kickass country.”

It was all heavy wood, and even the bar top already seemed worn. Everything was rustic, like this place could have been there since the night “Friends in Low Places” first topped the country music charts. There was something…soothing about it, almost. This would not be a place for stuffy suits and women who only wore pearls and multiple-carat diamond jewelry stacked on their knuckles and wrapped around their throats.

This was a place where you came to have fun, to kick back, maybe do a little line dancing if the spirit moved you. You’d sing along with popular songs and become best friends with the women in the restrooms after one too many drinks.

It took me back to my college days when I could be whoever I wanted, and my heart instantly squeezed.I want to work here.

A man stepped out of the hallway at the far back. He was almost as gorgeous as the rest of the place with the same dark, weathered, southern features, carrying a stack of what looked like drinking glasses.

---