Page 47 of Puck Daddies
I breathe. It comes in clean and goes out clean. I didn’t expect that part.
Meg leans close so no one else hears it. “You found your new voice. I knew you would.” She goes back into host mode. People buy more honey. They buy more candles. They ask the shelter about fostering. Everything I wanted to happen when I said yes to the song is happening.
For the first time in years, I don’t feel like a man who lost himself. Tenor was how I introduced myself to rooms. Then I became the guy who used to sing and couldn’t. I’ve been the hockey player who doesn’t sing for long enough now that the word singer feels strange in my mouth.
Tonight doesn’t fix everything, but it moves a piece back into place. I have a voice. It’s not the old one. That’s okay.
I do the rounds. People clap me on the shoulder. A kid asks me if singing is hard. I tell him practice is hard, and singing is the partthat feels good after. A woman asks Meg if we’ll do more music at the shop. She tells her yes without making it a promise I can’t keep.
Right at seven thirty, a man in a courier jacket steps in holding a flat envelope. He checks a clipboard, looks at the banner, then at Meg.
“Meg Bridges,” he says.
“Yes,” she answers, coming forward. “That’s me.”
“Notice of change of ownership and notice to vacate,” he says. He holds out the envelope. “Service complete.”
The room doesn’t hear it. The music is playing low and the crowd is loud. I do. I’m three steps away. Fitz does. Hudson is at the other end of the counter and starts moving before I do.
Meg takes the envelope and keeps her face polite. “Thank you,” she says. The courier leaves. She reads the first page. Her mouth tightens. She flips to the second page. She taps a line with her finger, then taps it again.
“What,” Hudson says, low.
“Building sold.” Her voice is even in a way that meanshold your reactions. “To Harbor Street Holdings, LLC. The mailing address is Addaway Corporate Park.”
We all see it at the same time. This was Luke.
Meg breathes, lifts her head, and gives the smallest shake. Not here. Not now. She folds the papers, hands them to me without looking at my face, and says, “Stockroom.” Then she smiles at a woman waiting at the counter and says, “What can I get you?”like she didn’t just get the wind knocked out of her. She takes care of the woman with composure that I marvel at.
Fitz is already moving around the counter. Hudson catches Tom’s eye to get him to cover the front. When she’s done, I follow Meg through the back hall to the stockroom.
She gets through the first door and then the second and then she sets her hands on the stockroom table and holds on like it’s the only thing keeping her upright. The door closes behind the four of us. Fitz flips the dead bolt without asking and stands with his back to it so no one comes in by accident.
Meg keeps standing. She isn’t crying. Not yet. Her face is set in that way she does when she will not give an inch to anyone who hasn’t earned it. She breathes once. Twice. Her jaw moves. Her eyes shine, and then she loses the hold she was fighting to keep. She doesn’t sob. She drops her head, and the first tears hit her hands.
I move and put a hand on her back. Fitz moves and puts a hand on her shoulder. Hudson comes in quiet and stands on the other side. We don’t say anything for a minute. We let her cry. Not the kind that makes a show. The kind that drains you without permission. She presses the heel of her hand to her sternum and breathes like it hurts.
Hudson says, “We’ve got you.”
Fitz says, “We’ll fight it.”
I put my palm on her back and hum one note, not for the dog this time, for her. Low. A sound most people wouldn’t notice unless the room was silent. She hears it. Her shoulders drop a little. She takes another breath that doesn’t catch as hard.
She lifts her head and pushes her hair off her face. “I’m okay.” She isn’t. She tries again. “I will be okay.”
Hudson taps the papers. “Dana will eat this for breakfast.”
“She will,” Fitz says. “And if she can’t, we’ll buy you a room somewhere else and move this whole place in one night.”
“No,” Meg says, voice thin but firm. “We are not buying my problem away. We’ll fight. And if we can’t win, we’ll move onmyterms, not his.”
“Deal,” Hudson says. “But you don’t do it alone.”
She nods. She wipes her face with the back of her hand. “I have to finish the event. The shelter needs this night.”
Hudson squeezes her shoulder. “We’ll run interference. You hand me a task and I’ll do it before you finish asking.”
“Okay,” she says. She points to the stack of raffle tickets on the shelf. “Call winners at eight thirty. Keep the line moving. Check the back door latch. It sticks.”
