Page 67 of Second Chance Vacation

“Liam,” he responds, meeting Wes’s firm handshake.

“How’s Savannah?” I ask.

“Jet-lagged—she didn’t get out of bed until like two PM today,” Wes says, reaching up to rub his eyes before dragging his hand down his face.

“Didn’t she have to…I don’t know, work?”

He pins me with a look that reminds me just how Savannah is. She works when she wants to work. Nothing less, nothing more.

“Got it.” I chuckle as the bartender hands me a pilsner glass.

“Who’s Savannah?”

“Wes’s girlfr—fiancee. They just got engaged, actually, while we were in France.”

“Oh wow, man, congrats,” Liam says, tilting his head toward Wes as he raises his glass. Some of the head of his beer trickles down the side of the glass before hitting the wood. He doesn't notice.

“Thanks—”

Wes seems off. I can’t quite place it. He returned to work today, and from the look of it, he came straight from the hospital, as his backpack is sitting on the chair next to him.

“You okay, man?” I ask, but he doesn’t look up.

“Yeah—just…long day.”

I don’t pry. I've seen Wes like this a few times over the years, and I've learned the hard way that it's best to just let him handle it on his own. He's not the most forthcoming person when he gets like this.

We drink a few rounds, and eventually, Wes loosens up in the process. By the time Liam is ordering a round of shots, I know tomorrow is going to be brutal. Despite this, I take the tiny glass, guzzling down the clear liquor in one gulp. The astringent liquid burns as it rolls down my throat, causing me to cough.

“Tequila? Seriously?” My pained expression doesn’t go unnoticed. I hate tequila, and he knows it.

“Maybe you should have come to Florida this summer. We had loads of tequila—I figured you would want to be therein spirit.”

Touché, man, touché.

TWENTY-EIGHT

GEN

Do you remember that feeling as a kid, the feeling when summer was almost over, school was looming on the horizon, but it didn’t feel real yet? It didn’t feel like summer, and it didn’t feel like fall. It just felt like…limbo.

That’s what I feel like.

Yet, I’m not convinced it’s because school is about to start.

I press a tack into the card stock, adhering it to the corkboard. The paper is printed with my seventh graders’ yearly reading list.

The Outsiders

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Book Thief

Fahrenheit 451

Holes

Tuck Everlasting

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