What I Should’ve Said
Chapter 12

Norah

I stare out the window, my elbow resting on the door, and watch the brick buildings and streetlamps pass by as Josie drives us home from CAFFEINE in her SUV. Thomas’s dried blood has been scrubbed from the floor, along with the spilled coffee, and the now-rotten jugs of milk we forgot to put away before going to the police station have found a home in the dumpster behind the building.

Everything is as it was first thing this morning again—all except for my sanity.

Downtown Red Bridge is quiet, only the glimmer of the streetlights providing any action as we make our way through town. At this time of night, all the businesses are closed but one—a bar called The Country Club.

A neon sign boasts the name above the door, and a soft vibration of music floats from inside the place. The lights are on, and business is altogether hopping for a Tuesday night.

When I spot a familiar truck parked out front, I sit up straight in my seat.

“Pull over,” I tell Josie. “I want to go inside.”

But Josie isn’t listening. Her hands stay firmly on the wheel, and her eyes are focused back on the road.

“Josie. Please pull over.” I turn in my seat to face her. “I need to talk to Bennett. Apologize. Thank him. Something.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

My head snaps toward her. “What? Why not?” She doesn’t pull over, and instead, her grip tightens on the steering wheel almost imperceptibly. Almost. “Josie, I got that man arrested today. I really need to go in there and talk to him. It’s the right thing to do.”

She sighs, but she also makes a U-turn in the middle of the empty road and heads back toward The Country Club.

She parks and cuts the engine, hopping out before I’ve even had a chance to undo my seat belt. “Come on,” she complains through the open window on her door. “Let’s make this quick.”

I don’t know why she’s being so weird about it, but I get out of the car and follow her lead into the bar as swiftly as I can. My legs and feet are tired, my arm is sore, and my torso feels like it weighs nearly a million pounds. I’m not convinced I wouldn’t be better off if I were buried alive in actual mud.

Live music bursts from the band playing bluegrass-style music on a small stage, and at least fifty people fill the space, drinking beer and chatting and dancing.

Overall, the place has a good vibe. Colonial brick walls, hardwood floors, and a massive mahogany bar that has a shining display of liquor bottles behind it. It’s eclectic yet rustic and somehow hovers on the line of feeling like the exact kind of charming bar that would be in a small town, but also has an edge of big-city sophistication.

Whoever designed this place knew what they were doing. And if I hadn’t let Thomas and my mother talk me into quitting school just a year short of my interior design degree, I could be doing it too.

Josie stands beside me, her arms firmly crossed over her chest, and I do my best to locate the man I came here for at a speed she’ll replace acceptable.

Luckily, he’s not hard to replace, thanks to a larger-than-life presence you can’t miss. Slouched slightly, he sits with his elbows resting on the bar, his forearms cradling a glass of half-empty amber liquid in front of him. I can see the bartender’s mouth moving, his conversation directed at his brother-in-protein, Bennett. Forget going to church, these two must worship at the altar of fifty-pound dumbbells.

If I wasn’t feeling the deadline that is my sister’s patience, I might take a moment to admire the view.

“I found him,” I tell Josie, grabbing at her elbow to pull her with me. “He’s at the bar.”

She resists. “I’ll wait here for you.”

“You don’t want to—”

“Just go, Norah. I’ll wait here.”

Too tired to fight her, I leave her be and head to the big wall of mahogany. I came here with the intention of speaking to Bennett Bishop, so speaking to Bennett Bishop is what I’m going to do.

As for what I’m going to say, I’ll have to figure that out when I get there.

After a short shove through an imbibing crowd, I make it to my destination. From this close, it’s apparent that while the bartender might have the same build as Bennett, he’s shorter. Even while seated, Ben’s head ends above his. The other man’s hair is also darker, and instead of blue, his eyes are this interesting shade of golden brown that reminds me of honeycombs. He’s handsome—devastatingly so.

When I come to a stop right beside where Bennett sits, the good-looking bartender is the first to notice me. His eyes look once, then twice, then search my face as if he recognizes me, even though I’ve never seen him in my life.

Something catches in his face—like a jolt of understanding just flew in and landed there—and he flicks out the towel in his hand to smack Bennett on the arm. “I think someone’s here to see you.”

Bennett meets my eyes, and immediately, my heart starts to race and my palms turn clammy. You’d think I had to tell him his dog was dead or that I’d wrecked his truck or something, with how intense I feel—and all I’m trying to do is apologize.

“Uh…hi,” I greet, but he doesn’t do anything but reach out for the glass in front of him and take a long swallow.

“Clay, this is Josie’s sister, Norah Ellis,” Bennett acknowledges on a half mumble, almost like it’s too much effort for him to speak in discernible sentences. Like I’m some kind of pariah.

“Kinda figured that, Ben,” Clay—evidently—replies with a sly smile. He reaches a hand over the bar after wiping it on his towel, and I offer mine in response. “Nice to meet you, Norah. Heard you had a day. Glad to see you’re okay.”

I smile lightly, hoping it looks less stilted than it feels, when Clay pauses in his release of my hand, studying the bruise on my arm. His jaw hardens. “Shoulda made it three, Ben.”

My eyebrows pull together, losing track of the conversation. “Excuse me?”

“Nothin’, darlin’.” Clay’s smile is…soft. Tender, even. “Just glad you’re all right.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.” I glance between Bennett and Clay, and suddenly, having an audience for this conversation feels akin to skinning myself alive. “Would you…do you mind giving me a minute with Bennett? Just the two of us?”

He nods. “Of course.”

“Thanks. I’ll only be a minute, I swear. My sister is waiting for me anyway.”

Clay’s olive face fades to stone white in a flash. “Josie’s here?”

“Yeah. By the door. She—” I don’t even finish the sentence before he’s on the move, throwing down his towel on the bar top and heading in my sister’s direction, practically shoving patrons out of the way as he goes.

“That was weird,” I replace myself remarking aloud.

“History always repeats itself,” Ben replies, taking another swig of amber from his glass.

“What?” I ask, unsure if I heard him right. He turns to face me, and for the first time, I see how bloodied and cut up the knuckles of his right hand are. “Oh my God,” I gasp, grabbing for the offending limb without permission. “I’m so sorry.” Tears threaten as I inspect the wounds, and I have to fight for my life not to break down in front of him. Instead, I take my mouth on a marathon run as fast and far in the opposite direction of tears as I can. “This is why I came in here tonight! To apologize. For the trouble and the knuckles and for…Thomas. I’m so sorry you ended up getting involved and hurt in the process.”

“I don’t need an apology from you, Norah,” he says as he pulls his hand away from mine. “I don’t need anything other than to be left alone.”

Okay, ouch.

I know my face falls, I can feel it, and he shocks the hell out of me by…well, caring.

“Shit. Don’t take it personal, okay? I just need a breather. Punching assholes in the face is the absolute last thing I should be doing, and still, I did it anyway.”

I just need a breather. Oh hell. That certainly hits right in the chest.

I fidget on my feet, just standing here awkwardly, while I silently try to calm my pounding heart from hearing my dad’s words fall from his lips.

And he turns back to the bar and shakes his head at himself. “Fuck.”

Silence stretches between us for several painfully long moments, and when he doesn’t say anything or look back at me, I reach a point of climax. I have to do something, say something—anything, or I’ll expire right here on the spot.

“The Broken Circle Breakdown,” I blurt out, and his powerful blue gaze returns to me. He has no flipping clue what I’m talking about. “The song they’re playing.” I nod toward the bluegrass band onstage. “It’s from a movie called The Broken Circle Breakdown.”

“Never seen it.”

“You should,” I comment. “It’s the most beautifully heartbreaking thing you’ll ever watch. It will make you feel every possible emotion in the span of two hours.”

He looks at me closely—silently—and I start to feel like the biggest idiot on the planet. What am I even saying right now? He wants nothing to do with me, and I’m trying to give him movie recommendations?

I dig my teeth into my bottom lip and silently wish I could just have a normal conversation with this guy. It feels like I’m either apologizing, trying to navigate his gruff demeanor, snapping at him for something he said, or wading in our deep pool of uncomfortable silence.

My eyes dart around the bar, mentally seeking something to say that would actually encourage normality. But all I come up with are liquor bottles and beer and drunk townspeople. Not exactly great conversation starters. Eventually, my gaze makes its way back over to him where he sits at the bar, eyes forward and mouth set in a firm line.

When he lifts his glass of amber-colored liquor to his lips for a drink, I catch sight of the Sum tattoo on his left hand. But this time, I spot an additional three letters that wrap around his finger.

S-u-m-m-e-r.

Summer.

Summer?

Surely this is a woman’s name. I mean, a man like Bennett—grumpy, broody, ill-tempered—is most certainly a winter. Not to mention, his tattoo isn’t on just any finger. It’s on his wedding ring finger.

Right then, it hits me. His sullen mood. His “I need a breather.”

I’m such a fool.

“Is your…uh…” I pause and shift a little on my feet. “Is your wife mad about today?”

“My wife?” He jerks his head back as his eyes meet mine again. “I don’t have a wife.”

“Oh. Then your fiancée?” I say, but it’s more of a question, and when he furrows his brow, I add, “Or…your…uh…girlfriend?”

He shakes his head, and his brow line only creases more with confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“I…” My gaze makes its way to my shoes. If he doesn’t have a wife or a fiancée or a girlfriend, then what in the hell is that tattoo for? I have a hard time believing it’s because he has an obsession with flip-flops and beach vacations.

“Is this your way of trying to see if I’m single?” he asks, and I swear one corner of his mouth twitches into a smirk, but it can’t last more than a split second. “Because I’m not interested, sweetheart.”

“What?” My jaw gapes open like a fish that just got yanked from the water.

“I don’t date. Ever.”

“Wait. You think I’m interested in you?” A shocked laugh jolts from my lungs. “Um, no. No thank you. I noticed the tattoo on your finger and figured Summer was—”

“My tattoo is none of your business,” he cuts me off with a gruff snap and pointedly covers that very tattoo with his other hand.

Talk about cryptic.

Like you should talk, Ms. I Came to Red Bridge to Escape My Own Secrets.

Bennett proceeds to avert his attention from me entirely, and I’m left standing there wondering how every interaction I have with this guy ends up here. If we were in his truck right now, this would be the point in the night when he’d hit the brakes and kick me out.

Something inside me wants to replace a way to take a detour. To end up at a destination that doesn’t end in a crash on Bad Temper Road.

Maybe you should try not to be so damn nosy? Especially on the same day he ended up in handcuffs because of you…

“Look, I…I really wasn’t trying to pry. I’m sorry. Sometimes curiosity just gets the best of me.”

His eyes peer into mine, searching for what, I’m not sure, until he lifts his glass and says, “Water under the bridge” before finishing off the rest of his drink.

His response is probably the best-case scenario for a man like him. Honestly, I figured I had a less than one percent chance of him answering me with actual words.

“Bennett, I—”

“Norah, we need to go.” Josie startles me with a persistent hand gripping my shoulder, her voice a mix of impatience and annoyance. “Now.”

I glance behind her to see Clay heading straight in our direction—or, should I say, Josie’s direction—fire, once again, licking at his heels.

“By the way, Bennett, I really appreciate what you did for my sister today. Thank you,” Josie interjects on a rush, not even giving Bennett time to respond before quickly turning back to me. “Let’s get out of here.”

“C’mon, Josie,” Clay states as soon as he arrives, his golden-brown eyes locked on my sister. “Just talk to me for a minute.”

“No.” That’s all she says.

“You’re in my bar, babe,” he comments with a little smile. “And you never come into my bar.”

“I’m only here because of my sister. Not you.”

“Are you sure about that?” Clay questions and places two hands to his hips. “If I recall, you said you’d never step foot in this bar again. Not for any fucking reason.”

“Sometimes we have to make exceptions and do things we absolutely don’t want to do because it’s for the people we love,” Josie retorts and grabs my hand. “Let’s go, Norah.” Between one second and the next, we’re on our way out the door, Bennett Bishop and Bartender Clay nothing more than a memory.

Well, well. Seems to me I might not be the only one keeping secrets in this family. Or in Red Bridge, for that matter.