We All Have to Live with the Choices We Make

Danny had been right about one thing, Flygande was packed from the time the doors opened. With snow in the forecast, everyone wanted one more outing of fun before either being trapped in their homes or leaving the island.

Emelie got wind of everything going on when the first person sat at Claire’s table, and she was told to leave them there. She’d refused to speak to Danny after that except to bark drink orders at him.

Long after dinnertime, Claire still hadn’t shown up. Ian chanced another look at the door leading to the stairs and caught Danny doing the same thing, his hand unconsciously going to his small ponytail with a frustrated tug.

Ian sighed. Regardless of what Danny was trying to do, the man couldn’t shut it off that fast.

Half-past eight, the door slowly opened. Ian and Danny froze. Apparently, Danny wasn’t the only one who’d reverted. The Claire they’d met the morning she arrived at Flygande stepped through, minus the sunglasses. From her cloche hat to her cape, down to her buckled, pointed shoes stood her exact replica.

Even though her red-painted lips said look at me, her eyes remained downcast as she walked on the other side of the bar in front of them. She was timid again. Reserved. No longer the confident, happy woman they’d come to know.

Danny swallowed hard and took a step back, looking her over. “Are you cold?”

Claire glanced up, putting on what Ian now understood was the fake smile Danny had referred to. “No. If it’s alright, Ian said I can sit over there.”

Danny swallowed again. “Of course.” He eyed the table that was absolutely hers and sighed when he saw a stranger sitting there.

Good.Let it sink in, Danny Boy.

“What are we having?” Ian said jovially, trying to ease the tension as she took her seat. “That fish was delicious, by the way. Wine?”

“I burned it.”

“Nonsense. I like a good char. Wine?” he asked again.

She forced a half-smile. “Yes, I think that would be best.” She opened her clutch and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill. “Keep the change. I owe a lot more.”

“Don’t be silly, Claire. You’re family.” He pointed to the carved words behind the bar and slid the money back, patting the top of her hand. He’d be buying all her wine and food if Danny suddenly decided she needed to start paying for everything too.

Ian uncorked the bottle, poured her glass, and set the bottle beside it. “What have you been up to?”

She brightened a bit. “I got a text from my son. He said he wants to visit me on his break in a few weeks.” Her real smile appeared.

“Excellent. We should have a nice dinner for him. Introduce him to the town.”

She side-glanced Danny, who attempted a stealth eavesdrop. “I would love that. Any suggestions where?”

“Here, of course.”

Again, she looked at Danny. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Screw this. If Danny wanted to ruin things with her, that was on him. There was no way Ian was going to let this woman think she wasn’t welcome anymore. “Of course it’s the best. Isn’t it, Danny?”

Danny spun around, and Ian gave him a stony glare.

“Yeah, of course.” Danny’s eyes never reached hers. He stalked back to his side of the bar, and Claire sank a little in her chair.

Ian’s teeth crushed together, making his jaw ache. Being caught up in sparing himself, Danny couldn’t see his “operation keep Claire out of his heart” wouldn’t have the effect he wanted. He seemed to forget that the only thing this would accomplish would be to make her think she did something wrong—again.

“Borolo is an excellent choice.” A handsome middle-aged man, clean-shaven and well-dressed, pointed at her bottle as he sat down. “My family used to travel there every year.”

This. This was what Ian needed. Another man to stir the Danny dumb-dumb pot.

“This particular winery or just the region?” Claire asked.

“The region.” The man smiled and casually scooted closer to her.

“Would you like a glass, sir?” Ian offered.

“Yes, please.”

Ian felt Danny’s hard stare on the side of his face, and it summoned a snide smirk. He would absolutely encourage this man talking to Claire. He wanted to cut her off? Then he could stand and watch how easily he’d lose her.

The man, Jeremy, seemed nice. Sophisticated. Educated. Gentlemanly—and she was a hundred percent uninterested. Pleasant? Yes. Polite? Absolutely. But she wasn’t being Claire, she was being Madelynn, and that’s what Madelynn did.

Keep glaring, Danny.

Jeremy settled in to talk to her. They had a lot in common. Both originally from the West Coast. Both from wealthy families with a love of Italian wine.

Danny continued to pretend not to watch them like a hawk. He did, however, come use Ian’s taps instead of his own to listen in a few times.

The place grew louder, and Jeremy leaned close to Claire’s ear to say something, slipping his hand over hers.

Danny went still, glass under the stout spout, but no stout poured into the glass. Ian looked from Jeremy to Danny and waited.

His eye twitched and his fingers turned white around the glass, but he didn’t move. He wasn’t glaring at the man or Claire. His gaze glued to their hands, waiting to see something—but what?

It’s funny how a simple thing can trigger a thought and that thought can bring a beacon of light into the darkness of a situation. Ian checked the date on his watch and cursed. Everything Danny said in the kitchen finally made sense, and he wanted to smack himself for not putting it together sooner.

Two months to the day, Danny made vows to give his heart to a woman who’d so casually, so carelessly, thrown it away.

Now he stared at Claire, with her hand under another man’s hand. She may not have been Danny’s—hell, he was trying to push her away—yet Ian knew he stared at their hands, silently asking her if she could easily be swayed by another man’s attention.

Danny had no right to ask her that. But it was in his utter stillness that Ian knew he waited to see what kind of woman she was, nonetheless.

Without knowing the test she was under, Claire removed her hand from Jeremy’s and tipped away from him, saying, “Thank you for your sentiments over my late husband, but I’m alright, truly.”

Confusion twisted Danny’s face as he switched back to his taps. She easily passed his test, and now he didn’t know what to do with that. Nor did he have time to think about it.

The bar filled with the loud sound of squealing, giggling female voices. Ian and Danny glanced at each other before turning to see the entire front of their bar filled with women in high-heels and short skirts, removing their coats to let their gaping chests out in the open.

“Like I’m not having a hard enough time at this bar,” Ian mumbled.

The woman in the center of the group had a giant pink boa around her neck, wearing a crown and a sash reading “Bride-To-Be.”

More than a year ago, this would have been a fun night—for Danny, at least, pure torture for Ian. More than a year ago, Danny would’ve flirted and played this group with a smooth hand. Giving out a few innocent cheek kisses and keeping their drinks filled. Getting them the tips of a lifetime.

But when Ian looked at him now, he only saw, not this—not again, written on his face. Memories still fresh from the time when a similar group showed up and one of the bridesmaids, after several hours of flirting with him, took him by the shirt and shoved her tongue down his throat.

Ian shuddered. He’d hated Jessica from that first moment.

Bachelorette parties happened. Flygande was known as a quirky place to have a good time. So, Ian generally let Emelie take over his side of the bar when the women got handsy or rowdy. But what could he do when neither he nor Danny wanted to serve these women? Emelie couldn’t run the bar alone.

With years of bartending under his belt, Danny rolled back his shoulders and put on a smooth, practiced smile. “Evening, ladies. Congratulations to the Mrs.”

“Not yet.” She winked. “Shots for me and the girls.”

“You got it. What’s your poison?”

“Tequila,” they shouted in unison and ended in a fit of laughs.

Ian had no doubt they were already a little toasted. Probably came from one of the mainland’s bars.

Ian helped Danny set up the shots. “Lemon or lime?” He got an answer for both and set them out, removing his hands from a couple of fingers that tried to thank him with a lingering touch.

Definitely tipsy already. The glassy glint in their eyes told Ian that he and Danny were to be their entertainment for the evening.

A woman on Danny’s side licked her wrist, holding heavy eyes on him, and stretched it out toward him. “Salt it for me?”

“Don’t do it,” Ian groaned.

But he did.

Ian cursed and glanced at Claire. She saw it too. Of course she did. Hard not to notice what was happening with all the noise and squeals.

The salted woman smiled, drank her shot, and licked again, slower this time. Her seductive eyes said more than Ian ever wanted to know as she held her wrist out to Danny once more.

Danny’s professional demeanor slipped a little. Why he thought it would only happen once, Ian didn’t know.

“Please let him get his brain back,” he spoke to the ceiling, hoping Danny’s falter meant the mental reasoning he’d always prided himself on having returned. Danny didn’t need another Jessica moment. Especially in front of Claire.

It’s not that Ian hated these women. He understood. Neither he nor Danny wore wedding bands, so this was all a bunch of harmless flirting for them. But he sure as hell could hate on Danny for not giving them any hint that they bothered him—and they did bother him. His entire body was tense.

Jeremy laid down a business card for Claire when the tequila drinking women became louder. “Call me sometime if you’re ever back west. Maybe we could have dinner.”

She picked up the card, and Ian watched her questioning if she should keep it. She blinked toward Danny, who held the woman’s hand again and salted her wrist. The woman licked and thanked him, this time with fingers sliding up his arm and over the head of his dragon.

“Pull away,” Ian whispered under his breath.

“This tattoo is beautiful.” She circled it several times, but he didn’t move.

“Will do.” Claire raised her voice, probably hoping to drown out Danny thanking the woman for the compliment, and dropped Jeremy’s business card into her bag.

“Lick it for me?” The voice of the bride-to-be sent a shockwave through Ian—and not because she was engaged to another man.

On paper, Danny was single. But they both knew he wasn’t where it really counted, and if he thought he could do this with Ian’s favorite female person watching? Well, then, Ian would be putting his fist through Danny’s ear.

The woman with the boa leaned over the bar, holding out her wrist, and Ian went deaf. The old familiar sound of blood pounding inside his ears whenever he was about to get in a fight. Danny stared down at her wrist, and Ian lost feeling in his tightly squeezed fingers. “Dear God, bràthair.Don’t do it.”

Danny side-glanced Claire.

His glance caught the engaged woman’s attention. Clearly not used to being ignored, she gasped loudly when she saw Claire. “Oh my God. Look at her. Is she real?”

All the other women turned and stared. “No, she’s a mannequin, I think.” The closest one poked her and squealed when she moved. “She’s real.”

Claire fake smiled. “Can I help you?”

They broke into a fit of giggles and the bride-to-be said, “I haven’t seen that shade of lipstick in years. And where did you find that hat? I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s simply ado-orable.”

Claire dropped her eyes over her clothes, touched her cloak, her bottom lip, her hat—all with a shaking hand. “It’s custom made, so I imagine you wouldn’t have seen it before.” She tried to steady herself again and sipped her wine.

Ian remained frozen, hoping his best friend would step in and say something. Danny always said something if there was even a hint of someone picking on someone he cared about. But instead, he remained wordless, eyes straight ahead, jaw pulsing.

“Wine?” The bride-to-be was clearly put off by Claire’s factual statement. “I guess you’re too stuck-up to drink a real woman’s drink.”

“On the contrary. I have nothing against the Mexican spirit.” Claire lifted the hundred from her purse again. “As a matter of fact, next round is on me. But only if that man licks all your wrists.” She slapped the money on the bar and set a hard stare on Danny.

Oh. Was she challenging him like he deserved? Ian got excited.

When Danny refused to look her way, she waved the hundred in his direction, batting her eyes.

A different thought hit Ian. Maybe flirting was what she thought would get his attention, thinking he liked that in a woman.

Dammit, Danny.

“You want my money or not?” Claire called.

Danny took in a breath and slowly turned his head, looking her in the eye for the first time. Walking toward her, he placed his palms flat on the bar and spoke low. “What are you doing?”

Lifting her nose in the air, she said, “I’m buying drinks for my new friends.” She reached out and touched his arm.

He brushed off her hand. “Put your money away.”

The other women snickered and Claire’s face twisted. She slapped another bill down and raised her voice. “Two hundred if he takes off his shirt.”

“Claire.”

“What?” She cocked her head to the side. “Isn’t that what’s going on here, Daniel?”

The women cheered and shrieked, chanting, “Take it off. Take it off.”

Their voices brought Emelie and Fin rushing over. Ian was frantic, scrambling to find a way to stop this spiraling insanity.

Danny shoved the money back into Claire’s purse. “Shirt stays on, ladies.” He turned away from her to smile at them and poured another round.

Claire deflated. Watching the women who had all his attention, she looked back at herself with a self-conscious touch to her hair.

“Oh, bachelorette party?” Emelie caught Ian’s panicked look and ducked under the bar. Fin took the squealing women’s sudden interest in him as his cue to leave as fast as possible.

“What are we having, girls? Tequila? Ni-ice.” Emelie set the citrus wedges next to the glasses. “What the hell is going on?” she whispered to Ian out of the side of her mouth.

“He’s lost his mind. Claire just called him out on flirting.”

“He’s flirting in front of her?”

“Well, more like he’s not stopping them from flirting with him.”

“Bastard. What’s wrong with him?”

“My guess is he thinks this is how to keep himself from getting hurt again.” He held out his watch and showed her the date.

It took her a few blinks to understand. “Maybe he should have thought of that before living with her for two weeks. He can’t railroad her now because of Jessica being a bitch a month ago.”

“Actually, I think it’s because of these past two weeks that he’s doing this. She got through.” He tapped over his heart. “But he’s trying to push her out again.”

“That’s not how she’s going to take any of this, Ian.”

“That’s not how she is taking any it. Rejection is all over her face.”

Emelie churned the bitter taste in her mouth and walked over, plastering a smile, and refilled Claire’s wine. “Hey, you. Are you hungry?”

“No, thank you, I—”

Emelie followed her gaping expression as another woman touched Danny, running her fingers up and down his arm. His hands balled into fists, but he didn’t pull back.

That same woman tugged on his black t-shirt and beckoned him closer. “I want to tell you something.” He stupidly leaned in.

Ian, Emelie, and Claire froze as she went straight for his mouth.

Ten, thirteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty-one, and twenty-five. These were the ages Ian clearly remembered Danny stepping in between him and a terrible mistake. Sometimes physically holding him back. There were more incidents, but these stood out the most because these mistakes would’ve ruined his life, permanently.

That’s what crossed Ian’s mind when full lips collided with Danny’s. “Hey.” He dive-bombed them, shoving his hands in between, parting their faces like the Red Sea.

“Maybe it’s time for some darts,” Ian said, hand still covering Danny’s face.

Danny’s panting breath heated Ian’s palm, and he hoped to God he understood the weight of what had just happened.

Emelie took over, saying magic words that convinced the women that darts was the funnest game ever and led them there. Probably needed space from Danny so she didn’t kill him.

Danny’s breath stilled in Ian’s hand before he suddenly jerked his head toward Claire. She sat rigid, saucer-eyed, bottom lip vibrating out of control as a giant tear spilled over the brim.

Danny had tested her for no reason and failed the test himself.

“Claire,” he croaked and rushed toward her.

She recoiled from his outstretched hand and unloaded every hundred-dollar bill from her bag at a frantic pace. “This isn’t nearly enough. I-I’ll send more when—” Her voice broke and she jumped off the stool without finishing, walk-running to the stairs.

“Wait.” Danny tried to get past Ian, but Ian snatched his shirt collar, calling to Fin to take over the bar. He shoved Danny into his office and slammed the door.

“No,” he shouted in his face. “You do not get to say anything to her. You don’t get to chase after her and beg her to stay. Not until you admit what an ass you are.”

“I didn’t know ... I mean, I didn’t think that would happen.”

“You knew they were itching for it. They were tipsy and using you like some damn male stripper for hire, and you did nothing to stop it. You let another woman touch you in front of Claire because you’re too scared to man up and admit you have feelings for her. Listen to how stupid that sounds. I’ve never been more ashamed of you in my life.”

“I didn’t want her to.” Danny jammed shaking fingers into his hair and tore out the band. “I didn’t want any of them to touch me.”

“Why did you let them then? It’s not that difficult. You do what I do—you move away.”

“It was the only way to keep her out.”

“You thought that display out there was the best way to keep Claire out of here?” Ian backhanded his chest. “That’s not how the heart works, Danny. You’ll keep her out alright, but only out of Solsken. And when she leaves, that place you were trying to protect? Regret will root so deep you’ll never crawl your ass out of it because it’s your fault she left in the first place.”

Danny held back his hair, cursing. “She was going to leave anyway.” The torment on his face didn’t match his nonchalant statement.

“For shit’s sake.” Ian poked him, hard. “Not once did she ever hint that she wanted to leave. But I’m sure she will now. Hell, she should leave because of you. And why? Because you’re letting what happened to you over a month ago poison your view of her now.”

“So, you know what day it is?” Danny ripped out his phone and shoved it in his face.

Ian read, 2nd month anniversary dinner reservation. 7 p.m.

“This was my reminder that I can’t give her that inch.”

Ian towered over him. “That’s no excuse for what you just did.” He stepped even closer and shoved him. “I said it before and I’m going to say it again, loudly, until it gets through your thick, damn skull. Claire is not Jessica.”

Danny slammed Ian back into the wall, arm jammed over his chest. “I had to stop it. Don’t you understand? I had to stop what was happening to me before it’s too late.”

“No, you didn’t. This was all your choice, Danny. And I hope you’re happy with it.”

Danny slammed him again and drew back a fist.

“You wanna hit me for that? Do it.” His voice lowered. “You wouldn’t be the first man to take his shit out on me.”

A spark of recognition lit Danny’s eye when Ian referenced his father, and regret flooded his face. “I-I’m sorry, Ian.” He immediately released him and covered his face with his hands. “Oh God. What have I done?”

“You hurt her, Danny. Those women mocked and made fun of her clothes, and you said nothing. Did you see the way she looked at herself afterward? She was ashamed.”

“Ashamed?” He dropped his hands. “How could she be ashamed? They’re not even in the same league as her. None of them—not to me.”

“So that’s why you only looked at them and let them touch you? Meanwhile, you swipe off her hand. See this from her point of view, Danny.”

“I stopped her because I didn’t want her acting like them. She didn’t need to. I didn’t think ... shit.”

“You know the worst of it? I can’t even say that you would’ve stopped that kiss had I not stepped in.”

“I would have.” He looked directly into his eyes. “I wouldn’t have let her keep kissing me.” He gripped his hair again. “Oh God, the look on Claire’s face. What’s happened to me? I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I can’t fix this.”

“Danny,” Ian said quieter. “Look who you’re talking to. If a screw-up like me can make something out of his shitty life, you can absolutely fix this.”

“But she’s going to leave now because I’m an asshole.”

“Glad we agree on the asshole bit, but listen to me. The only thing you have to resolve in order to begin to fix this, is are you willing to let her leave in order to save yourself from the possibility of getting hurt again? Or will you give her that inch?”

Danny’s eyes snapped up as the weight of the situation fully sank in. His voice cracked. “If she leaves, she won’t come back.”

“You haven’t given her a reason to want to.”

Danny tore out of the office.