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stroked the stubble there, staring at
her.
    She
snorted. I'm a
teacher , she thought. Well, sort of . "I'm
really just here for the bartending job," she said, feeling heat
spread across her cheeks anyway.
    "Pretty girl like
you, you'll make a ton of money up on that stage. Five-hundred
dollars a night ," he said, his eyes burning
into her. "What do you say?"
    She shook her head.
    He folded his arms and cocked his head. "Do you
even know how to make drinks? What's in a Long Island iced
tea?"
    She bit down on her lip. Her shoulders
slumped.
    He touched her arm. "You're too pretty to be
behind a bar. What do you say?"

Chapter 10
    David smiled across the table at Wes. "Thank
you," he said, and squeezed his hand.
    Wes blinked at him, then laughed lightly. "For
what?"
    David sighed. "For making me feel so welcome at
the support group." He took a sip of his latte. They sat in a booth
in a quiet upstairs corner of the wine bar. Other conversations
floated around them, insulating them in their own little world,
walled off by oak paneling and the scent of apple cinnamon candles.
Their meetings at the wine bar were becoming a nightly habit and,
David hoped, maybe something more. Neither of them could afford
anything more than a watery latte; the bar's crowd ate prime rib
while drinking thirteen-dollar glasses of wine.
    Wes squeezed David's hand back and smiled
sadly. "Have you told anyone else yet?"
    David shook his
head. "I can't. I don't even know how to tell her. She used to be my
best friend." Tears dribbled over the stubble on his
cheeks.
    Wes tugged at the ponytail at the nape of his
neck, an eyebrow raised. "You mean your roommate?"
    Taking a deep breath, David leaned forward. His
ringtone for Josalee cut through the air like a knife. He wrestled
his phone out of his pocket and pressed it to his ear. "Hey JoJo,"
he said, his voice cracking.
    "Where are you?" she asked.
    He swallowed hard. "Out with Wes," he said. He
plucked at the corner of the bar's menu. "Everything
okay?"
    Wes raised an eyebrow at him, then took a sip
of his own latte. Grimacing, he added more sugar to it.
    "Yeah," Josalee said shakily. "I just...
haven't talked to you in a few days."
    He felt like he was being pulled into a
whirlpool. "I know," he said. He turned the mug of his latte around
and around. Its ceramic bottom grated against the wood of the table
like a dresser being pushed across a hardwood floor.
    He heard her take a deep breath. "So are you
guys having a good time?" she asked.
    David blushed and glanced away from Wes. "It's
not like that. Well, not yet." He peeked up at Wes from underneath
his lashes.
    "Sorry," she said. "I mean, you guys have been
spending a lot of time together."
    David shrugged. "We'll see," he said, and wiped
a streak of sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. "I'm
being rude, though, so let me go." He and Wes locked eyes across
the table.
    "Oh. All right," Josalee said. "Have fun." She
hung up.
    David put his phone down and took a deep
breath, then looked up at Wes. "So I guess there's something I need
to tell you."
    * * * * *
    Josalee stared at her phone in her hand. Her
eyes burned and she pressed the pads of her fingers to them,
holding in the tears. As she sucked in a deep breath, her phone
went off. She squinted down at it, wiping the tears from her eyes,
and snatched it up. "Kimie," she gasped.
    "Live and loaded," her younger sister
said.
    She inhaled slowly through her nose, blinking
back more tears. "What's up?"
    "We haven't talked in a while," Kimie said. "Is
everything okay?"
    She imagined her
sister sitting in her college dorm room, at a desk piled high with
textbooks and papers. If I
can't talk to my own sister, who can I talk to? she thought. "I'm in trouble, Kim," she said. "But you
can't tell Mom and Dad."
    She could almost hear Kimie straighten in her
seat. "Like what kind of trouble?"
    "Last time I told
you anything, when I told you about the musician I was dating, you
went straight to Mom and