Page 3 of The 7 Rules of Moving On
“Awww,” Dawn crooned. “There’s two of them. They’re sweet.” She pulled a face, like she was swallowing something vile. “Ugh, I don’t feel good.”
“That’s my cue,” Kissie said, giving Dawn’s head a kiss. “Pray for us.”
Steepling his fingers under his chin, Hot Bartender nodded. “Be well, my children.”
When he turned around to pour someone a shot of tequila, Kissie convinced herself he’d done it a little reluctantly.
“I will miss you,” she whispered to his back, “forever.” And then she ushered Dawn from the bar.
* * *
“Here we go,”Kissie grunted, reaching around Dawn to open their door, then barreling through.
“Bed. I need bed.” Dawn hiccuped.
Frog marching her into the bathroom, Kissie said, “Nope. Pee, water, ibuprofen. Then bed.”
“But I don’t have to pee. Only have to bed,” Dawn whined while Kissie flipped the toilet lid up and pointed.
“Rule number seven, Dawn. Pee.”
Even though she grumbled, “I hate rule number seven,” Dawn peed for, like, ten minutes.
“Drink.”
She recoiled from the glass of water Kissie handed her like it was full of poison. “No. It’ll make me puke.”
“At least take this.” Kissie opened the ibuprofen bottle and dropped two pills into Dawn’s palm. When she frowned at those too, Kissie repeated, “Rule number sev—”
“Fine.” Dawn popped the pills into her mouth and swallowed. “But rule number seven is bullshit. The wingwomanisn’talways right.” Her finger whipped out at Kissie. “Because youtotallyshould have banged that bartender this weekend.”
“You know the rules, Dawn. The wingwoman doesn’t hook up.”
“That’s not an actual rule.”
“It is too. I just forgot to put it on the card.”
“God, you’re such a stickel…a strickeler…a stickl—”
“I’m the stickler—”
“That’sthe word I was trying to say.”
“—who kept you from boning that ass-dancing cowboy. And believe me, you would have regretted that one. The rules matter.”
“The rules matter,” Dawn mimed in a nasally voice before mumbling, “Strickeler.”
“Go home Dawn’s mouth,” Kissie said, leading her to the bed, “you’re drunk.”
* * *
Sleep was impossible,not with Dawn snoring next to her like a grandpa with apnea, not with her curly hair somehow always winding up in Kissie’s face, not with the image of Hot Bartender’s saucy little smirk under that thick, lumberjack beard lighting up her brain space like a neon sign. The walls were closing in. Their room was too hot, too small.
Sliding out of bed, Kissie zipped up her hoodie as quietly as she could and tiptoed out the door like a cat burglar.
The lodge at Mystic was small, two stories of roughhewn wood, antique carpets and wall sconces, and huge picture windows facing the pool and the mountains beyond. But the halls were long enough to get a decent leg stretch. While there were, thankfully, no taxidermied animal heads adorning the walls in the lodge or the bar, there were several paintings of wildlife and scenery lining the hallway. One of them, an oil painting of an enormous grizzly bear with a blissfully satisfied expression on its face while it scratched its back on a tree, made Kissie smile every time she walked past it. There was something about the bear, like joy incarnate.
There was also a snack machine down at the end of their floor with Kissie’s name on it, but when she reached the glowing glass dispenser of goodies, music rising from the main floor snagged her focus. She checked her watch. It was barely past midnight. The bar was probably still open. She could get a snack there. At the bar.
