Page 2 of Between the Stars

She laughs. “I needs yous hair.”

Setting my glass down, I hold her up, her arms pinned to the side. She smells like cookies and trouble. “Why do you need my hair?” I shouldn’t be surprised why she wants my hair. Sevyn Rae Grady, we call her the devil with blonde curls.

Her blue eyes brighten, and she reminds me of Barron when he was younger. Wild, untamable yet he’d comfort you after he knocked you on your ass. “To puts a spell on ya.”

“How about we share some nachos instead,” I suggest.

Sev eyes me, scowling and then lifts her stare to the bar. “Fine. But no soars cleam.”

I smile. “Sour cream?”

“Yeah.” I set her down on the ground in front of me. She tugs on her pants, staring up at me and reaches for my hand. “I means dat.”

You’re probably wondering a few things by now. One might be why there’s a child in a bar. Well, to be completely honest, there are two. And full discloser, their dad’s aunt owns the bar so rules don’t apply unless the Liquor Control Board steps in and we ain’t about to see them in this weather. We also live in the middle of nowhere, Amarillo, and nobody comes here unless they’re forced too and like to be sandblasted by wind that smells like cow shit.

“Who’s that with Barron?” someone asks from beside me as I set Sev on the stool next to me. “Is that the chick who hit the shop with her car?”

I ignore him for the time being. I’ll get back to the one next to me, because believe it or not, the second I go to tell them, Sev is screaming in my ear. “Not-cho-ho,” Sev tells Tilly when she rounds the corner. “No white stuff!”

I smile, a proud I’m-that-influence-on-the-kid’s-attitude grin. Granger, the one who asked about the girl, he laughs. “I don’t like white stuff with my hoes either.”

We chuckle, and thankfully Sev has no clue what we’re talking about. Tilly does though and she glares at me as she twists the cap back on a bottle. “Jace, one day you’re gonna have kids and this will no longer be funny to you.”

I lean over the bar, grab the whiskey, and refill my glass at the same time. “I’m going to disagree with you. Not-cho-ho in the place of nachos will always be funny to me.”

“Uh-huh.” She yanks the Midleton out of my reach.

“So this chick,” Granger continues, his eyes drifting to the girl, then back again, “when’d she get here?”

“Last night. Where were you today?” I ask. We literally had this conversation at work today, but I guess he was shoveling snow all day. Probably missed most of the talk around this chick. We had a huge snowstorm come through town last night that blanketed Amarillo in something like three feet of snow. Yet somehow, this chick with Barron managed to drive her Mercedes through it. I guess driving through it is a term we should use loosely here. She did crash into the side of a building and mangled a buck in the process.

I glance over my shoulder at Barron and the mystery girl, who’s matching him shot for shot. I’ve known Barron Grady my entire life and work for him now at Bishop’s Repair. And that girl next to him—the one who remodeled Bishop Repair last night—we don’t know anything about her other than her driving skills in the snow could use some work. From what I’ve learned, Kacy Conner is from California, and probably crazy. Actually, she is. I had a conversation with her. Aren’t all women though? In my experience they are. Okay. Maybe I am. Because that’s where my problems stem from, right? If you ask everyone but me, they’d say yes.

“You headin’ to Tennessee for Abbi’s wedding?” Granger asks Rhett as he takes a seat next to me and Sev.

I stare at Granger’s hair curling out from under his backward hat before his words register. Granger is growing a mullet, and every day I’m tempted to take scissors to it and shave his mustache off.

But then the words sink in. Wedding. Goddamn, those words sting deeper than I want them to. My throat tightens and I draw in a quick breath. Every single time it’s mentioned my heart literally feels like it’s trying to claw its way out of my chest. I can’t say I blame it. I hate me too for letting the girl go.

“Oh, I suppose,” Rhett says, removing his beanie cap, flakes of snow falling from it and onto the lip of the bar. “It’s not until February.”

Not if I have anything to say about it.

“Where’d you go?” I ask him, trying desperately to change the conversation from the wedding. He’d been playing darts with Sev and me before she started stabbing everyone with them.

“Left my damn lights on,” he tells me as Sev leans forward and licks the lip of the bar where the snow left water. “Battery’s dead now.”

Sev slides from her stool to Rhett’s. “Ready for some Not-cho-ho’s?”

Rhett chuckles, his hair falling into his eyes. “Sure, girly.” Rhett Lockett, he’s more than Abbi’s brother. He’s one of my best friends, and even though I don’t agree with him most days, he has my back. As long as it’s not turned toward his little sister.

“She’s too good for you” are the words I heard often.

In every sense of the word, she was. Still is.

I think about the conversation I had with her dad, two days before she told me she was leaving.

“I knowthere’s something going on between you and my daughter.”

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