Page 58 of The 7 Rules of Moving On
Only mildly ruffled, Lane straightened his sweater. “I’m afraid I can’t do that,Trig. Seeing as it’s my bar now.”
This time when Trig made a fist, he let it fly. But Lane was too quick, ducking out of the way, making Trig’s fist slam straight into the wall.
“Motherfucker!” Trig cried, cradling his hand.
“That was not my fault,” Lane said, his almost bored smile making Trig want to try and punch him again, even if he thought his hand might be broken.
“Should I be stepping in here or something?” Ryan asked unhelpfully from his stool. “You both know I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
“Boys!” Grandma Betty cried, rising to her diminutive height that still seemed to dwarf everyone else in the bar. “Quit acting like children and come to the table.”
Trig’s head was spinning, his stomach clenching so tightly he thought he might be sick. And he refused to puke in front of Lane Fucking Montgomery.
Rounding the bar, Trig positioned himself across from Grandma Betty while Lane took the empty stool beside her.
Her thin, wrinkled hand slid over Trig’s. “Lane has something he wants to say to you,” she said, raising a brow in the pompous ass’s direction. “Don’t you, Lane?”
Studying the brochure, Lane said, “These are fantastic. She did a great job—”
“Lane!” Betty scolded, making him drop the brochure.
“Fine,” he said on an exhale. “Trig, I’m sorry about what happened with Tina. If I was a decent person at all, I would have come to you when we started getting closer. If I was a good man, I wouldn’t have let anything happen between us in the first place. If I was a better friend, I would have realized how badly I was hurting someone I cared about. But since I am none of those things, I lost my town, my friends, and, ultimately, I even lost the girl.”
“Good thing there was another girl—woman,” Trig corrected, “you could steal from me all over again.”
Lane sat back, his expression baffled. “Who? Kissie?”
“Yes, Kissie,” Trig spat. “I saw you with her, sitting on the same couch you’d been sitting on with Tina, at the same damn party where she left me for you.”
“So?” Lane shrugged. “It’s my favorite couch. It’s where I always sit when I’m at the house.”
“Betty, can I please punch this shithead?” Trig pleaded.
“Absolutely not,” Betty replied. “Make yourself useful instead and get the Maker’s.”
“Good idea,” Pudge and Ryan both agreed.
Not letting his eyes slip from Lane’s for a single second, Trig reached back, grabbing a bottle of Maker’s and setting it onto the bar.
Betty snatched it up, spun the top off so hard it skated down the bar, and took a deep draw. Wiping her mouth, she said, “You two are impossible.”
“Nothing happened with Kissie,” Lane stated. “I’d brought her to the party because she’d given me the idea to buy Mystic, and we both wanted to see the look on my father’s face when I told him. After that, she left. Said she was heading back here. I believe,” he said, pointing at the brochure, “to work on this. For you.”
“She told you to buy Mystic?” Trig asked, his voice barely working. This betrayal seemed even worse somehow.
“No, she did not tell me to buy Mystic. She only gave me the idea when she told me my father was interested in buying it himself. Look,” he sighed deeply, “I know I messed things up with you, with Ryan. Shit, with the entire town. You should see the way people look at me now. I’m only trying to make things right.”
Trig searched his heart, not finding an ounce of pity in the entire aching mess. “By stealing my bar?”
“Considering there was only one other person who had the ability to buy Mystic or the desire to do it, yes, I stole your bar. I know as well as you do what my father would do to this place. Believe it or not, Trig, I love Mystic too. So I called Pudge and Betty on the way to the party and made them an offer on the one condition that you would continue managing daily operations and would have the final say in any changes or renovations that might be made in the future. I don’t want this place to change. I want you to have it. I know you can’t afford it. So I bought it.” After taking his turn drinking from the Maker’s bottle, Lane stood. “And since I will be acting as a more or less silent owner in this endeavor, I’ll see myself out.”
Trig watched on in bewildered silence as Lane walked toward the door, shook his head at the hole Trig’s fist put in the wall, and grabbed his coat off the rack.
Turning back, Lane said, “It might be too late, and I’m sorry if it is. But Kissie was considering staying in Twin Hearts. She cared about you.” He nodded at the brochure. “And it shows.”
* * *
Trig must have listenedto Kissie’s jingle for Mystic over a hundred times after had Lane left, her sweet, husky voice burning through his mind, the lyrics, “Where magic’s in the water, and love is in the air,” wrapping around his chest and squeezing.
