Chapter Eleven

Chessly

" I 'm so happy you decided to spend the holidays with me. Not to say working at Dad's store is boring"—I slid a glance in my dad's direction as he straightened some tools on a nearby shelf—"but it's much more interesting with you here." I grinned at Piper and touched a finger to the deep purple strands intermingling with her chestnut hair. "The locals apparently go for color."

"Nah. They like testing the new girl."

"Speaking of, did you read up on power tools or something before you arrived?" Crossing my arms over my apron, I leaned against the counter beside the cash register and regarded my friend.

With a shrug she said, "I'm earning credits for this internship with your dad, so I thought I'd better know something about hardware stores." Glancing over her shoulder at my dad and back to me, she added in a conspiratorial whisper, "Plus I wanted to impress him before I wreck his good opinion of me when I corrupt you tonight."

I laughed. "Good luck with that. The Elk Horn isn't exactly a hot spot for debauchery, even on the biggest party night of the year."

"How would you know?" she challenged.

"It's the only place in town that serves food after eight. The entire high school hung out there after ball games on the weekends. They're supposed to kick the kids out at ten, but no one ever checks." Pulling my phone from my pocket, I noted we only had to wait about fifteen minutes before we could flip the "open" sign on the front door to "closed."

Dad walked over to the cash register where Piper and I were talking. As though sensing my thoughts about closing, he said, "Why don't you two call it a night? I doubt we're going to have a rush between now and closing time, seeing as it's New Year's Eve." He gave a little chuckle. "Unless someone without a plunger overflows a toilet tonight."

I shot him a look from beneath my brows. "A visual we did not need, Dad."

His grin only grew.

Shaking my head with a tiny grin of my own, I untied the back of my shop apron and lifted it over my head to fold and stow it on the shelf beneath the register. Following my lead, Piper removed her apron, folded hers much more neatly, and laid it on top of mine.

Dad pulled a couple of twenties from his wallet and handed them to me. "Pick up some pizza on your way home—and save me a slice."

As I took the money, I stood on my toes and kissed his stubbly cheek. "Thanks, Dad. We'll save you two—maybe three." I winked, and he winked back. "The usual?"

"Sure, unless Piper isn't a fan."

My dad in a nutshell: considerate of everyone. No doubt that consideration was what had ensured a thriving business in our small town despite the lure of online retailers offering cheaper prices.

"What's the usual?" Piper asked as we headed back to the break room to retrieve our coats and purses.

"Pepperoni and jalape?o with extra cheese."

"Mmm, sounds delicious. Hope you're picking up two pies."

We walked out the back of the store into the frosty last-day-of-December air, both of us drawing our collars up to our chins. Piper wore a gorgeous gray cashmere scarf and a matching beret, while I snuggled my cheeks lower into my standard knit Wildcats muffler. Our breaths hung in the air as we hustled over to my dad's old pickup.

I fired up the engine, but we had to wait a few minutes for the ancient truck to warm up before I could put it in gear. Gauging my friend's reaction to our vehicle—after all, she drove a new Camaro to deliberately piss off her corporate-raider dad who'd offered her a BMW SUV—I blinked at the dreamy-eyed expression on her face. Huh . Who would have guessed she liked old pickups?

Dad liked to walk to work—said the exercise kept his head clear. By the time he'd closed up the shop and arrived home, we'd demolished one pizza and were one slice each into the second.

"Did you leave me any dinner?" he asked as he hung up his coat on a peg by the back door.

"Barely." I set what was left of my piece on my plate and licked my fingers. "Good thing you made it home when you did."

All through dinner Piper and I giggled over the way old Mr.Rehnquist had kept staring at her hair as she helped him find some calk for his leaky shower. "That color exists in nature?" he'd finally asked. "It does. See?" She'd tilted her head to show him her roots, which of course were purple since she'd seen her cosmetologist between final exams. "Be damned. Never seen anything like that." He'd grabbed his tube of calk, paid for it, and tottered out of the store, shaking his head and muttering to himself. I'd almost wrecked myself at the time trying not to laugh. Now my stomach hurt from laughing through the retelling.

Dad's eyes twinkled. "Talking about old Rehnquist, huh?" He settled himself in his chair and slid a slice onto the plate I'd set for him. "The old guy needs a plumber, not another tube of calk, but he says he can buy a lot of calk for what a plumber would cost him." With a shrug he smoothed his napkin over his lap and picked up his slice. "Far be it from me to tell him how to spend his money."

"Even though you've mentioned the names of a plumber or two to him, I bet." I sat back in my chair and eyed what was left of dinner on my plate.

"You can't force someone to see sense." Shifting his attention to my friend, he added, "Made it easy for you to have some fun with the old fella."

"Couldn't help it, sir," Piper said, her eyes dancing. "With as hard as he was staring at my hair, I worried he might change the color with his eyes alone."

A snort escaped Dad's lips, and my friend and I grinned at each other across the table.

"It's been a pleasure working with you, Piper. I gotta admit, when Chessly first proposed the idea of you interning with me, I thought I was getting some free help over the last rush of the holidays." He bit into his slice, chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed. "But you have a great business mind. Starting the day after tomorrow, I plan to implement several of your ideas for streamlining my inventory. Thank you."

"Truthfully, Mr.Clarke, I've learned more from you in a week than I've learned in the past two semesters of business classes." Piper set her plate aside, the crust of her last slice going uneaten.

At her compliment, Dad beamed. "So what are you girls' plans for tearing it up tonight to ring in the New Year?"

I rolled my eyes. "Kinda hard to tear anything up at the Elk Horn, Dad."

"Oh, I don't know. I heard Buzzy asked Shane to bring in his karaoke machine tonight. 'Course, all the caterwauling that will encourage might scare the New Year away from arriving." He chuckled at his own joke.

Speculation gleamed in Piper's eyes. Didn't take a genius to know what my friend was thinking.

"Caterwauling will about cover it if we join the singing," I said.

Dad grinned.

"We'll duet." Piper winked. "And we'll probably be asked for an encore."

I snorted. "There's a reason why you've never heard me sing."

"It's not that bad, honey," Dad said, but he didn't make eye contact.

Glancing across the table at my friend, I said, "My singing is so bad my third grade teacher asked me to be the choir manager for our annual Christmas pageant. I handed all the singers their props and didn't sing a note, even in practice."

"Okay, I'll sing, and you can be my backup dancer."

Dad and I exchanged a smirk.

"That's going to be a whole lot better," I said. "Not."

"Depends on how much alcohol we enjoy before the big event."

Before I could ask, Dad jumped in. "Yes, I'll drive you and pick you up."

I stood to walk my plate over to the sink, stopping to drop a kiss on Dad's cheek on my way by. "Thanks, Dad. You're the best."

"You weren't kidding about how rustic this place is," Piper said as her eyes took a tour of Harlo's "hot spot." She stepped toward the bar to check out the liquor selection on display. "It's cute though. I like it. They even stock my favorite vodka."

Since it was only ten o'clock, the bar wasn't too crowded. Not that I thought a crowd would show up. In the corner of the room to the left of the bar, Shane had set up his karaoke equipment on the tiny triangular dais where bands were said to have played back in the day, like maybe when my parents first moved to Harlo. I couldn't remember a live band playing at the Elk Horn.

Several unoccupied barstools meant we could have our pick. Piper being Piper chose two in the center, directly in the line of sight of the front door.

"Is it necessary for us to be so conspicuous?" I asked as I took my time removing my jacket and draping it over the back of my stool.

"You don't want to sit here? Because these seats guarantee great service."

Her excuse didn't fool me for a second. "Trust me. No one worth impressing is going to walk through that door tonight."

She smiled indulgently at me and called the bartender over to order her usual lemon drop martini. I ordered a beer and settled into my seat.

"This week has been so much fun. Way better than spending it with my family in Aspen," she said as the bartender set our drinks in front of us. Color filled her cheeks. "That sounded bad. I truly enjoyed spending time with you and your great dad."

"Even more than skiing in Aspen?" I deadpanned.

"Don't worry, I'm not missing out. I signed up for a ski class for a PE credit. Between that and weekends, I'll manage lots of time on the slopes this winter." She winked. "I learned so much in the store, and I had a plausible excuse for avoiding my family during the holidays. Win-win." She clinked her glass to my bottle. "Thanks again for letting me crash your break."

I clinked my drink to hers again. "Thanks for making the break way more fun than usual."

Shane interrupted on his mic. "Happy New Year! Time to get this party started. First up is Max Robinson singing Jelly Roll's ‘Need a Favor.'"

"It's about to get even more fun," my friend said. The cryptic tone of her voice put my guard right up.

I narrowed my gaze at her. "I'm going to do everyone in this bar a huge favor and not sing tonight. Trust me."

With a coy smirk, she lifted her drink to her lips. "We'll see."

Piper opened a tab and refused to let me pay for a single drink. That open tab also meant I never went without a fresh beer in front of me. By 11:30 p.m. the bar was more crowded than I'd ever seen it. Guess word had spread about the purple-haired wild woman entertaining at the Elk Horn, and everyone in town had come to see.

Truth be told, my friend couldn't sing much better than me, but what she lacked in talent she more than made up for in enthusiasm, taking the entire bar along with her for the ride. The night felt like all the nights we'd spent with Jamaica and Saylor when we were freshmen goofing off in the dorms, and before I knew it, I'd agreed to sing with her. Good thing everyone knew the words to "Don't Stop Believin'" so we didn't end up singing it alone.

By midnight she'd talked me into dancing on the tabletops. Why Buzzy put up with that nonsense, I have no idea, but boy howdy, was it fun. Max was back singing again, I swear he sang for half the night, but at least he had a decent voice. I think I remembered him singing in the high-school choir. Anyway, he was belting Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton drinking songs, which made it easy to take the party up a level.

Piper and I cracked up at my bad joke, and that was when I caught Stan Wellington trying to sneak a peek up my skirt. I don't know what he thought he going to see with me wearing leggings, but that move reminded me why turning him down for every date he'd asked for in high school proved I had a strong sense of self preservation.

"Don't you know it's never a good idea to drink and text?" I asked Piper when I hopped off the table and caught her in the act. "What did Saylor and Jamaica think of my mad dance moves?"

"I wasn't texting them." A pretty shade of rose rode her high cheekbones.

With narrowed eyes I asked, "Who were you texting?"

"Um, Wyatt."

"Wyatt? As in, Wyatt Baxter? Wait, when did that happen? Never mind." I snorted. "Did you share our incredible singing with him?"

She laughed. "No—our stellar dance moves."

Grinning, I linked arms with her. "Bet he's glad you finally gave him your number so he could enjoy that."

About then, Stan made his move. Dropping his arms over both of our shoulders, he said, "The countdown to midnight starts in a minute. Which of you lucky ladies is getting the first kiss?"

"Do you play football for the MSC Wildcats?" Piper's words dripped saccharine—something a smart man would have picked up on and backed away from. Slowly.

Stan had never been known for catching on to subtlety.

"I'm a machinist. I work for a living."

Piper stepped out from beneath his arm, turned, and patted him on the chest. "Good for you, sugar. But we only kiss Wildcats." Giving him a little push, she added, "You'd better hurry if you're going to find a soulmate before the clock strikes midnight."

"You always were a stuck-up little bitch, Chessly. Makes sense your friends are just like you," my old classmate snarled.

"I'm not stuck up at all, Stan, but I draw a line at kissing guys who try to look up my skirt without my permission." I might have had a good buzz on, but I wasn't drunk enough for his ridiculousness.

Right then the bar erupted in the countdown to midnight. "TEN! NINE! EIGHT! SEVEN! SIX! FIVE! FOUR! THREE! TWO! ONE! HAPPY NEW YEAR!" As if by magic, confetti dropped from the ceiling. People laughed, toasted, kissed, played with the confetti, or did some combination of all four. For a few minutes, pandemonium overtook the Elk Horn.

Piper and I toasted, threw back what was left of our drinks, and danced in the confetti. By the time the bar closed down a little before two in the morning, we were hoarse from singing at the tops of our lungs even without the mic, and thoroughly wiped out from dancing all night.

While Piper closed out her tab, I called Dad for a ride home. He sounded pretty chipper on the phone, so I guess he didn't really mind about staying up so we wouldn't have to stumble home on foot in a snow storm in the middle of the night.

"I apologize for corrupting your daughter tonight, Mr.Clarke," Piper said as she fell into the cab of truck.

I grinned at my friend, then at my dad.

He returned my grin. "You girls had a good time, I take it."

"You'll probably hear all about it in the store." I giggled.

"You sang, didn't you?" His tone was indulgent as he took his time on the snowy streets.

"And maybe danced on a tabletop," Piper added, like Dad needed that information.

Chuckling, he said, "Yep. Bet I'm going to hear about it for a while."

We tumbled into the house and up the stairs to my bedroom. Piper grinned at her phone, and I snatched it from her hand.

"Ooh, someone has a boyfriend." I sang as I tried to focus on the text on the phone screen.

Bax: Happy New Year, Piper. Hope you were good. Tell Chessly Finn wants to watch her dance on a tabletop in person.

What?

I narrowed my eyes at my friend. "You sent a video?"

Snagging her phone back, she said, "He asked if we were having a good time. So I showed him." A grin split her face.

Tilting my head, I shot her a glare from beneath my eyebrows. But long after we fell into bed, I was still wondering how Finn had spent his New Year's Eve and what it would be like to dance on a tabletop for him.

What was wrong with me for even entertaining such a ridiculous idea?