Speakeasy (True North #5)(20)

When the speech is done, Dean Harper begins calling the names of recent graduates. Since not every graduate lives nearby, there are two dozen of us, and we’re each handed three or four roses to present.

Thanks to the alphabet, Daniela’s name comes up first. I make my face blank as she sashays across the stage, a grand smile on her face.

I wonder if she feels self-conscious tonight, like I do. The last time we were in a room full of these familiar faces, she and I were a couple. Do people wonder why we’ve turned up separately?

Maybe nobody cares or even notices. But I feel like a seventh-grader again, wondering if everybody’s looking at me.

And man, would I ever like a drink. Not that I’ll have one. I’ve been to AA meetings nearly every day since moving home again. It’s partly to appease my family’s worried glances, and partly because I recognize that upheavals—like breaking up with a no-good cheater—are a common cause of relapse in alcoholics.

But that won’t happen to me. Daniela can take away her love. She can take away our home and our future together. But I won’t let her take away my sobriety.

When Alec releases my hand, I realize my name has been called. I stand up and smile as the dean tells the audience that I’ve opened my own law practice in Montpelier.

People clap as I climb the steps onto the small stage, because they don’t know that my law practice is a desk in a tiny office that I share with my friend, Rita. And that I have very few clients yet.

The only drama at work happens when the printer gets jammed.

But my plastic smile is fixed in place as I take four roses from the dean and present them to four shiny new first-year law students.

I was like them once—ready to shape the world. When I accepted a rose on this stage four years ago, things were looking up. My father’s death wasn’t so recent or so raw. I was starting a new career, and I felt optimistic.

It had been before I’d figured out that alcohol was my Achilles’ heel. Before Lark’s trauma, and before the mortifying moment when my best friend learned the truth—that I’d been a little bit in love with her for years. And it was before the difficult autumn when Lark finally fell in love with a man, as I always knew she would.

This adulting thing has been much harder than I thought it would be.

I can feel Daniela’s gaze on my back, and I wonder if she even misses me.





After the ceremony, we file out into the lobby for the cocktail hour. Alec’s hand rests at the small of my back as we follow the crowd toward the makeshift bar area.

It suddenly occurs to me that we could just skip this part. We could sneak right out those double doors, and I could treat Alec to a burger somewhere to thank him for his service. I could spare myself any further discomfort.

“Oh, no way!” he says as I’m about to make this suggestion. “That bartender—Connor—is my Sunday and Tuesday guy! Mind if I say hello?”

“Not at all.”

We maneuver between the bodies toward the bar, where Alec slaps a redhead on the back. “Look who’s moonlighting!”

“It cannae be moonlighting if you give me the wee hours of Sunday and Tuesday!” the kid complains in accented English. Irish? No—Scottish.

“Just fuckin’ with you,” Alec insists.

“’Ave an ale and shut yer trap, then?” Connor passes Alec a beer, which he takes.

“What do you have that’s nonalcoholic?” Alec asks.

“Whit’s the use a’ that?”

Alec punches his arm. “Be nice. The lady doesn’t drink.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” he says, offering a hand. “I’m Connor.”

“May.”

“There’s a pretty name!”

“I hate it,” I say truthfully.

“Why?” Alec asks.

“It’s so bland. And unimaginative.”

“Let me guess—your birthday is in May?” Connor asks.

“You got it. My older brother is August, but he goes by his middle name—Griffin. And then after me there were a set of twins. And they couldn’t name them both ‘July’ so they got nice normal names instead.”

Both Alec and Connor laugh, and I use the distraction to stare at Alec’s handsome face. When he laughs or speaks, his shoulders move, as if life is just too entertaining to stay still. And those brown eyes dance whenever he’s in conversation.

The bartender pours two glasses of wine for another couple before turning back to us again. “Ah, Alec. May cannae be your date tonight. She is far too pretty fer you!”

Alec grumbles about maybe reducing his pay.

But we all know Alec could have any woman in town if he wanted a girlfriend. He’s as charming as he is hot. Women and men alike seem to flock to him.

And at six-two or three, he’s a tall man. That goes a long way with me because I’m five-eleven. And change. But even in the low heels I’m wearing, Alec is taller. I have to look up to see his handsome face and dancing brown eyes. And those lashes—so thick they look suspiciously dark, as though he’d lined them.

And now I’m staring, damn it.

“We have the sodas and the water,” the bartender is saying.

“Come on,” Alec insists. “You can do better than that. Let’s make the lady a mocktail. Got any ginger beer?”