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unspoken between us, because we both knew that strolling into the school cafeteria holding hands one day would ruin everything. Small towns have a social construct that doesn’t yield easily, so if the prom queen hooks up with the school misfit, all the things that keep people in the right boxes would hail down until we both couldn’t take it.
    He left town the day after graduation, and even though we never talked about after —after school ends, after summer was over—I never thought he would just leave . If it hadn’t been for the twist of fate that Nic and his untimely arrival created, Jake wouldn’t be here.
    So, thank you, Nic? Darn you? I’m not sure yet.
    The front door to the shop tinkles and Sandi strides in, stomping snow off her faux-fur-lined Sorels and shoving the hood—also fur-lined—back on the pink-camo-patterned down coat she’s wearing.
    She shakes out her hair, the dark raven base color only serving to spotlight the cherry-red highlights that streak it. “Holy shit. Winter sucks ass.”
    Sandi just turned thirty-four, has two adolescent boys and a wonderful dimwitted redneck husband, but her perpetually crude language, fashion choices, and abiding love for boy bands mean I would swear she’s still holding court over the popular table in junior high. She works here one afternoon a week, just enough time for me to catch up on the busywork of paying vendors, taking inventory, and entering our sales into the obnoxious bookkeeping software the accountant insists we use.
    I grab her meager paycheck off the far side of the front counter and wave it in her direction. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”
    When she walks to the counter, she proceeds to swing up and sit on it, her boots thumping against the front. “Oh, I plan to blow all fifty dollars in one shot. At Lonigan’s. And you’re coming with me.”
    I look up suspiciously, and when her face slowly erupts into a stiff, wildly and awkwardly restrained grin, I answer emphatically. “ Yeah . No. All those teeth showing means you’re feeling twitchy, and you twitchy at the bar means drunken darts and me telling Garrett not to serve you again.”
    Sandi offers a sly grin at my reference to the local watering hole’s bartender-cum-owner, whom she enjoys harmlessly toying with. “Garrett does whatever I say, you know that.” Another thump of her boots against the counter face. “Come on. Mack and the boys are off elk hunting, I’m a free woman. Don’t make me spend it on the couch watching reruns of Gossip Girl . One drink, I’m buying, and if you say no, I’ll cut the battery cables on your car in retaliation.”
    Going home alone, into a frigid house, and trying to find something calorie-conscious to eat doesn’t exactly sound like a killer way to spend the evening. I look out the front window and debate my options for a moment. Sandi whines another plea.
    All righty, then. Lonigan’s it is.

    Lonigan’s is a typical small-town bar. Known to every local, yet so unassuming, anyone who didn’t live here would likely drive right past without taking a glance. Housed in a squat cinder-block building on the outskirts of town, it is currently painted bright magenta, and has no signage beyond the name stenciled in bold black letters on the side, with only one steel door to mark the entrance.
    When we walk in, the first person I see also happens to be the last person I want to see. Deputy Sheriff Dusty Frank—also known as my first boyfriend, my last boyfriend, and the most recent man I slept with—tips his chin in greeting to me; an I’ve seen you naked smirk on his face. I make a beeline for the only open spot and heave my purse down on the black Formica tabletop, slipping into the booth with a huff.
    Sandi peeks around the high back of the booth in Dusty’s direction. “I swear, if he weren’t like some