Eight. Alone

EIGHT

Alone

Maren

When I started drinking after Shane left, Donna was the bartender. She hooked me up with a classic Wisconsin Bloody Mary that was half vodka, half charcuterie, and just a splash of spicy tomato juice. The bar was practically empty but for the occasional bait, fishing license, or gas fill-up request, so we spread out and Donna let me pick whatever songs I wanted for the jukebox.

"Oh, play something by the Chicks next, will you?" my best friend Lorelai requests. She and Shelby are joining me in my day-drinking via FaceTime. Thankfully, the lodge has decent Wi-Fi. My phone is tilted on its side and leaning up against an empty glass. Lorelai is drinking a glass of high-priced chardonnay that her fiancé Craig poured her before blowing me a scruffy long-distance kiss and going back to work at the record studio he owns.

Donna hops over from behind the bar and clicks a few buttons on the music. "You got it, Mizz Jones. What else?"

"Hm," Shelby says, sipping from her glass of orange juice, with a straw. She's six months pregnant with her and Cameron's first baby, so no alcohol. She was able to take the afternoon off from filming for the reality home-renovation show she and Cameron star on. Honestly, Cameron seemed relieved to have an excuse to ban her. While she was getting settled, he confided that she was on a mission to wallpaper everything. Considering Shelby's role was generally in the realm of carpentry and furniture making, this was alarming on many levels.

"Hm?" I prod, biting into a pickle with a loud crunch.

"I think I feel like some Heart. Do you have any Heart over there, Donna?"

Donna perks up and I can already tell Shelby has won her over. Being the mom of one uber-masculine son, it seems Donna has been missing out on the female bonding. We're giving her a fill of all she's missed this afternoon, between my breakup, Shelby's pregnancy, and Lorelai's wedding planning. The older woman picks a few more selections and then scoots back behind the bar, shimmying to "Alone" by Heart.

"Hey, Donna, you guys still do karaoke?" I ask her around my pickle.

"During summers, sure. It's not on the schedule, but we have some long-timers that spot Joe across the bar and immediately make a request. It's a good moneymaker, so we don't mind. We keep a couple of mics on hand in case."

"Joe is Donna's son," I explain to my best friends. "He was besties with Liam."

"Big brother Liam?" Shelby perks up. She might've had a tiny unrequited crush on my older brother. All of them, even, at one point or another.

"Yep. And back in the day, Joe used to always get requests to sing on karaoke night when he was bartending." I'm feeling oddly flushed, just thinking about it. Back then, teenaged and tanned Josiah Cole mixing drinks and singing to eighties classic rock was my early sexual awakening. "The man could belt like Bon Jovi. Even my thirteen-year-old emo-girl heart would skip when he sang ‘I'll Be There for You.'"

"Really, Jig. Bon Jovi, eh?"

I straighten on my stool, caught in Joe's teasing gaze. He smirks and passes me a dog leash, from which Rogers is tethered. "As long as he stays out from behind the bar," he warns, gesturing to my extremely happy dog who immediately plants his butt on the floor next to my stool.

"Rogers!" my best friends shout together. I pull the phone down and bring it close to my boy, whose tail wags hard, whacking against the floor with an echoing thud , thud , thud . The two of them cover him in baby talk while I hold the phone at my waist. I reach for my drink and pluck the beef stick from it, taking a bite. My stomach growls, reminding me I didn't have lunch today, since Shane showed up.

"Bloody Marys, Heart, and I'm assuming your best friends… Everything okay?" Joe asks in a low voice while Shelby and Lorelai continue to coo.

"My ex came for a visit."

"From Michigan?" His blond brows raise. "That's a long drive for a visit."

"Yeah," I say on a sigh. "He thought maybe if I saw him, I might change my mind about not marrying him."

Joe's lips twitch, amused, and I find it's not nearly as annoying as when Shane did it, probably because even though he's practically my big brother and has known me since I was in diapers, so far Joe hasn't been patronizing about this. Other things, sure—but not this. Believe me, I'd have noticed.

He crosses his arms over his broad chest. "Did you?"

"What do you think?"

He shakes his head, then pulls out the jar of pickles and refreshes my garnishes. "Heart isn't exactly wedding-planning music."

"Nope," I say, immediately going for the pickle.

I raise my phone and place it back on the bar.

"Sorry, ladies. It's been a real cute afternoon, but I need to get back to my hubby," Donna says, waving goodbye to my friends on the screen. She wraps me in a half hug and says, "You'll find someone better, hon."

"I'm not sure I could find anyone better than Rogers," I tease. Donna gives her tinkling laugh, and it warms me inside out. She's not my mom, but she's the next best thing. "Thank you for this afternoon, Donna. It meant a lot to have you here."

"Of course, honey. I'm happy I was able to be here." Donna leaves after another round of cuddles with a spoiled Rogers and I turn back to my friends and Joe.

"So, ladies." Joe presses his hands to the bar, spreading them wide and speaking into the phone as if Lorelai and Shelby were on stools next to me. "What'll it be?"

I watch as my best friends take in the vision of Joe in totality, and I try to imagine him from their perspective. He's not a bearded giant like Cameron Riggs, but he's not a lanky-artist type like Craig, either. Josiah Cole is a man all his own. With thick, wavy blond hair and smooth-shaven cheeks that reveal two dimples. He's wearing a navy Henley that brings out the crystal blue of his eyes, with the sleeves pushed up past his forearms, and a pair of well-fitting jeans. Simple. Masculine. No-nonsense. Handsome in his own understated way.

"Um." Shelby blinks. Lorelai has a calculating look about her as she leans closer to the screen.

Maybe not so understated.

"Joe, tell us what Mare was like as a kid. Shelby knew her from beauty pageants, but I only know her as park ranger material."

If Joe is flummoxed by my famous besties, he doesn't show it. Instead, he pours himself a beer from the tap and shifts, one hip pressed to the bar between us. "Hm. What can I tell you about Jig?"

"First of all, what are you calling her?" Shelby asks, leaning even closer around her belly and glass of OJ.

I speak up, rolling my eyes to my friends. "Jig. As in the fishing lures… jigs."

" That's what Maren was like as a kid," Joe tells them. "She was the most fishing-obsessed person, male or female, old or young, any of us knew. Aside from maybe Old Man Fost, who took her out on his boat all the time."

"So she was outdoorsy? That's not a stretch."

"Always outside, always chasing after her older brothers, and always covered in dirt because if she wasn't fishing, she was digging for worms."

I shrug. "Nothing walleye love more than a fat and juicy nightcrawler. I stand by that."

"And this is the girl who kicked my ass in pageant after pageant," Shelby mutters into her screen.

"That was all my mom's doing," I tell her. "She was determined to have her girly-girl after three rambunctious asshole boys. And there was nothing more girly-girl than being crowned Little Miss Michigan. It's probably why I went so hard every summer with the fishing. I finally broke free of the endless cycle of pretty dresses, sunless tanning, and hair teased out to here," I say, holding my hand well above my head.

"What about when she got older?" Lorelai asks. "Teen Maren?"

Joe screws up his face, thinking. "That's harder to say. I'm five years older, so by the time she was a teen, I'd graduated and was in the Marines, getting married. Everything I know I got from Liam, and it was mostly grousing about his friends perving on her YouTube channel and stuff."

"That's not true!" I say, cutting him off.

His eyes glitter, challenging me. "How do you know? I'll call him right now and confirm it."

"Oh, please. His friends did not watch my channel."

"We all watched your channel, Jig."

"What?!" I screech, hopping to my feet.

The change is instantaneous, and Joe goes from calm and collected to a bright cherry red. "Well, everyone but me, I mean."

"You said ‘we'!"

"You absolutely said ‘we,'" Lorelai confirms with a giant cat-that-ate-the-canary grin that practically splits her stunning face.

"I meant they ," Joe tries.

I move around the bar and step up into his space, looking him in the eye and jabbing my finger in his hard chest. "Tell me you didn't watch my channel."

"I maybe saw it once or twice," he hedges, his face growing redder by the moment.

"Josiah Cole, you big fat liar. You watched my channel?"

"Relax, kid," he eventually scoffs. "It's not like it was a sex tape. I watched a few episodes, okay? It was nice. I missed home. I could watch a girl I knew, safe at home, fishing on my lake, and it felt like there was a good reason to be missing home."

"Oh," I say, feeling my stomach squirm and flip at his explanation. "That's a good reason."

"Yeah, I know," he says, defensively.

"Thank you for telling me. That's really nice, actually."

We're close again. Too close. This time, I know it's my doing. I'm the one who rounded the bar and got in his space and jabbed my fingers at his (very) solid chest.

He's looking at my mouth. Which makes me want to look at his. So I do. And I watch his nice lips wrap around the words, "That's good."

"Good?"

"Really good," says Shelby from the phone.

"Super-duper good," Lorelai says with a smirk.

I clear my throat, feeling unsteady, and travel back around to the other side of the bar just as a couple of guys walk up to order a drink from Joe. That's my cue. I reach for my dog. "I should probably get home. I missed lunch."

I pick up my phone in one hand and Rogers's leash in the other, before waving over my shoulder at Joe.

"Aw, I wasn't done talking to Joe the singing bartender," Lorelai pouts once I've reentered the sunshiny outdoors.

"Joe the exceedingly attractive bartender, you mean," Shelby says. "How come you've never mentioned Joe? No wonder you decided to stay up there and ditch Michigan."

"Oh, hush," I say into my phone, checking my peripheries that I'm alone out here. "You know why I decided to stay and it has nothing to do with Joe. Though, off the record, I agree, he's extremely attractive."

"I said exceedingly," Shelby reminds me. "But I'll allow extremely as long as the record shows you're the one who said it."

"He's hot," I admit with a huff. "Obviously. And he's also a single dad with two kids and a resort to run. And also Liam warned me off him already. Like on the first day, within the first five minutes, so that's that."

"Boo, Liam!" Lorelai and Shelby shout in unison and I work to turn down the volume while laughing at the sour expression on my best friends' faces.

"I know. Total buzzkill. But it's okay. I have a lot on my plate right now and besides, I think we could both use a friend."

Lorelai taps her chin with her pointer finger while tilting her head to the side. "Hm. I wonder if your version of just friends will work better than mine and Craig's."

Secretly, way, way down deep inside tucked somewhere between my heart and my vagina, I wonder if it will, too.