“You think it’s going to bother the boys if their uncle has a relationship with a woman. Don’t you think it would be odder if you didn’t?”
“I don’t want any more upheaval. What if we date and it doesn’t work out?”
She sighed. “How long has it been since you’ve been on a date?”
Eight months, three weeks and a couple of days. He wasn’t much of a dater, but that was last time he’d had sex so that’s what he was going to count.
“You’re entitled to a life, you know,” Dr. Gilman said.
“Tell that to the boys.”
“You tell that to the boys.” She put down her notebook. “Get out of here.”
“What?” He glanced up at the clock. “We have twenty more minutes.”
“Right, but you know what you need more than me, right now? A beer. At a bar. With other adults. Perhaps you could call Lucy.”
“But the boys—”
“Are safe at home with their grandparents.”
“You trying to skip out on our appointment?”
“No. I’m trying to get you to see that your life isn’t over. It’s just different.”
She stood and reluctantly, slightly belligerently, he stood too. “I better not get charged for this,” he grumbled, grabbing his hat from the rack.
“I’ll see to it myself,” she said, and slowly walked him to the door. Crazily, he wanted to ask her how. How was he supposed to go to a bar? Alone? What was he supposed to say? The King of Small Talk had a case of nerves.
“It’ll come to you,” she said, as if she could read his mind. “It’s like riding a bike.” She patted his shoulder, all but pushing him out the door.
An hour later he stepped into the Sunset Bar, took one look at all the backs and hats and the people in conversation, and realized this was no longer his scene.
He used to pride himself on the fact that there wasn’t a bar in the world he couldn’t call home. And now the first bar he’d ever drunk in was totally foreign to him.
I should go, he thought. Head on home and maybe spend some time with Ben and Cynthia. See why no one ever picked flowers for him.
He had one foot back out the door when the bartender spotted him over some guy’s hat.
“Jeremiah!” Joey cried, lifting a hand. “We haven’t seen you around here in a long time.”
Two men turned toward him and with a huge sigh of relief he recognized both of them.
“Hey there, Joey,” he said, walking into the bar and picking a stool next to the men he knew.
“What can I get you?” Joey asked.
“A Bud.”
“How you been keeping?” Joey asked, popping the top off a bottle and sliding it across the wood toward him. Jeremiah caught it like the beer-catching pro he used to be.
“Busy,” Jeremiah answered. “You know.”
“Three kids will do that to you.” The quiet man next to him said.
“Phil, good to see you,” Jeremiah said. Phil ran the feed shop, and twice a week they talked about weather. It wasn’t much of a relationship, but right now Jeremiah clung to it like a lifeboat. Shaking hands like they were old friends.
“Our youngest just started sleeping through the night,” Phil said, “and Mary’s talking about having another one...”
Jeremiah shuddered but the man on the other side of Phil smiled, splitting his wild Grizzly Adams beard.
“Dr. Puese,” Jeremiah said, leaning forward to shake the big-animal vet’s hand. “What’s got you out at a bar on a Saturday night?”
“Susan’s got book club. I learned it’s best to skedaddle or I get an earful about things I got no business hearing about. Those girls don’t talk about books.” He arched a bushy eyebrow before taking a sip from his bottle. “Worse than a locker room, I swear.”
Jeremiah laughed and eased back on his stool. His shoulders adopted the international beer drinking posture. His elbows found that sweet spot at the edge of the bar, where the wood had been worn into divots by a hundred other elbows.
“Aren’t you going to say hello to me, Jeremiah Stone?” At the far end of the bar, the person reading the newspaper lowered it. And sitting there, like a teenage dream in a clingy black shirt with red lipstick and glittering eyes, was Lucy Alatore.
And suddenly this night was looking a whole lot better.
Jeremiah spun toward her, his back to the men he sat beside.
“Well, well, well,” he said.
She tried to breathe normally, but it was as if her skin got tighter just from his attention.
Everything seemed sharper with him around. As if there was an edge of excitement to the mundane. As if there was a chance that this could be the most thrilling night of her life.
She’d always sensed this about him, but tonight it was turned way up. No wonder Reese came up here to spend his money. Lucy would do the same thing if she had any money.