The Lie(57)

At six, I get ready, throwing on jeans, a t-shirt and my jacket, checking myself out in the mirror before I head across the street to the pub.

It turns out I’m nervous as f*ck. It makes no bloody sense, all things considered, but it’s the truth. I nod to Max and take my usual seat at the bar.

“Alone tonight?” Max asks as he pours me a pint.

“For now,” I tell him.

“Same broad?” he asks, his eyes twinkling.

I take the beer from him and give him a wry look. “Broad? Are we in the 1950s? Same woman, yes.”

“Good,” he says. “I was starting to think you were going to be sitting alone here forever.”

I cock my brow. Max and I have a strictly bartender-patron relationship, but he does know about Miranda and Hamish. My second night in the bar we got to talking, and when people ask about my past, if I have a family, I’m not one to hold back. I don’t give them a lot, but I give them enough to know the truth.

“We’ll see,” I tell him, ever so cautious.

“Nah,” he says loudly, with a big smile that shows his canines. “You know I’m an expert in love.”

“Just because you’re a bartender…”

“Yeah, a bartender, of course,” he says, leaning across the bar. “But I was also a celebrant. A humanist. I still am.”

I look Max up and down, nearly spitting out my beer. Max has got to be in his late fifties, with a big beer belly, straggly grey hair and a mustache that looks like it’s been ripped off the face of Groucho Marx. He looks more like a grizzled old roadie than he does a celebrant.

“You mean you married people?”

“Yes. Those who weren’t religious or who wanted a wedding outside. People would do their paperwork with the register office, but then the ceremony was performed by me. It was my gig long before taking over this place. I brought people together back then, and, well, I hear their troubles now,” he adds with a laugh before his expression turns serious. “So believe me when I say I’ve seen a lot of couples.”

How pathetic is it that I want him to continue on about me and Natasha?

“You’ve known her from before,” he notes.

I nod. “Yes. A few years ago.”

“I can tell that, too.”

I fold my hands in front of me. “What else can you tell?”

He grins at me like he’s holding all the cards. “I can tell she’s in love with you.”

His words send my heart spinning. I shake my head, unwilling to believe it for a second. “I don’t think so.”

“She loved you once. That doesn’t go away.”

“And how do you know she loved me once?”

He shrugs with one shoulder, looking around the pub. “It’s a skill possessed by whoever isn’t the one in love. You can’t see it until you’re outside of it. And unfortunately, when you’re outside of it, you’re often too late.”

He was right. But the years held too much shame and bitterness for me to ever indulge whether Natasha had truly loved me or not. Here though—now—I know she did.

I know I did, too.

And I know those feelings are rising again, becoming a hard truth once more. There would be no gradual ascent for us. My feelings won’t slowly trickle into something. They’ll leap all at once, like lemmings over a cliff. With no regard for the future or pain or even if Natasha feels the same way. I’ll go over and hope the freefall lasts longer than my years.

I take a swig of my beer and sigh. “You say love doesn’t go away. What if it was burned to ashes?”

“Well. Love is fire,” he says simply, cocking his head. “And fire rises. It creates the ashes. And it rises above them. Just like any man can come out of something that should have buried him, love can too.”

I frown at him, utterly puzzled by this particular man. “Max, Max, Max, I hardly knew ye. A bartender and a celebrant and a poet all in one.”

“Yeah, well, don’t tell anyone,” he says. “And don’t write off my philosophy just because it’s coming from my mouth. You know it’s true. You want love again, well you’ve got it. She’s walking in the door, mate.”

His eyes dart to the doorway, and I whip around in my seat to see Natasha walking in.

I’m not sure the feeling of weightlessness in my chest is ever going to get old. The blood rushing to my dick certainly won’t.

Natasha sees me and smiles. Everything about her just lights up the room, and I’m surprised she’s not turning heads, people wondering where the glow is coming from. This rare and gorgeous creature is smiling at me, for me, walking toward me.

I’ll do anything to make her mine.

Keep her mine.

Anything.

Bloody hell, that’s such a terrifying thought when you realize the depth of it.

“Hi,” she says, stopping beside me.

I immediately get out of my seat and kiss her.

She gasps lightly in shock then giggles as I pull away, my hands in her golden hair and skirting down her soft cheeks, marveling at her.

“How are you real? How are you here?” I ask her softly.

She takes the seat beside me and briefly eyes Max, perhaps shy at the sudden and public display of affection. “Well, I just shared the train with a bunch of stinky people, so I definitely know this is all real. I couldn’t pinch my way out of that one.”