Page 93 of Here & There

“Oh my God,” I say, slumping onto the bench seat as Richard storms away.

Mac follows at an easy pace, both of them now out of my line of sight.

Lana taps the doorstop out with her toe, letting the door close. Then she comes right over to me.

Seeing my expression, she quickly sobers. “Oh, Shelby. I’m sorry.”

I shake my head. When I look at her again, I smile. It turns into a laugh a moment later. I flatten my hands against my face. “Ugh, I’m so embarrassed.”

“Why? That was incredible. Kissing Mac was a stroke of genius, though Chip did look fairly heartbroken.”

My cheeks heat. I hadn’t even registered that there’d be witnesses to that. I drop my hands onto the table, feeling the grooved woodgrain against my fingertips.

“Mac’s out there to make sure your guy doesn’t drive,” she says kindly.

“He never leaves a job undone, does he?”

“Nope.”

But when she sees I’m still shaken, she squeezes my hand. “Listen, people are very good at hiding. But something I’ve noticed working in a bar this past year is that sometimes people really show their true colors when they’re drunk. Chris calls it ‘wearing their insides on the outside.’ Have you seen him drunk before?”

I nod.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

I sigh, thinking of the incident with the bridesmaid. “You know, I think he thought I was head over heels for him, and yet he was always trying for someone better than me.”

A beat passes. Then Lana says, “Speaking for myself, I think there are some people who look at us and only see the things we’re insecure about. They use those things as…footholds to walk all over us to make themselves feel better. To exert power over us. Those people are generally miserable and make us feel like we need them, when really, they need us.” She laughs drily. “That was my ex-husband, to a tee.”

It’s almost eerie how on the nose that is. Richard knew every one of my weaknesses. I made myself vulnerable to him and he used those things to keep me down.

“Now the best people,” she says, “they see through those things we worry about. Or they don’t see them at all. They help us see that we’re so much more than what we see as our failings. That’s what my kids do for me.”

“I think I want to spend more time with your kids,” I joke.

“You’re absolutely welcome to. They’d love you. But honestly? There are good people right under your nose.”

Heat runs through me. She looks me in the eye in a way that makes me know she’s not talking hypothetically.

Suddenly all I can think about is Mac.

A question tugs at me, the same way the heat from that barely-brush of a kiss still tugs at my lips.

“Lana?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s Mac like when he’s drunk?”

Lana looks at me and smirks, like she knows exactly why I want to know.

She leans back in the booth next to me. “He gets soft, Shelby. That’s how Mac gets when he’s drunk. I only ever saw it once, after he found out he was a father; after he got over the shock of it. He still didn’t say much, but he teared up. Told us his heart was…what was it? Broken and grown all at once.”

My chest hurts, and I realize I know precisely how that feels.

The door swings open then, and we both look over.

I hold my breath.

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