Lay It Down

  “I can make you happy,” he’d told her once, back when they’d been lovers. “Why won’t just you just let me?”

  She hadn’t answered him. Hadn’t been honest and simply said, “I don’t want a man who’ll make me happy. I want to feel relief when things end, not grief. Why would anyone choose grief?”

  Regrets were ugly, but they scattered like ashes soon enough.

  It was attachment you had to look out for. Affection. Love. There was a line drawn, where emotions were concerned, a boundary past which experiences ripened to memories, and it couldn’t be passed over lightly.

  Love had bones to it. Solid, rattling things bent on cluttering you up long after the soft parts melted into the ether. You had to carry those bones around with you. Make room for them, dust them, trip over them.

  She parked behind the bar and headed for the back door.

  Sex and moments of easy companionship were enough—just don’t let those bones grow in. Keep it soft and shapeless with no skeleton, with no means to follow you when the time came to walk away.

  Raina stepped bodily over the very threshold where she’d been left as a baby, and into a thousand dusty memories of her dad. She shut the door behind her, feeling interred.

  Good God, what was she doing here? She could have sold this place and moved on three years ago, after he’d died, quit surrounding herself with nostalgia for the only man she’d ever truly loved, and given those wounds a chance to finally heal.

  There was still time. A flashy new bar and grill was coming to town in the next year, ahead of the casino, and only a block west of Benji’s, on Station Street. The outsiders would be tearing down the derelict old tack shop and building from scratch. They had big money and big plans, and undoubtedly stood a better chance at attracting the future gaming tourists than Raina would. They’d serve food with a side of clean, friendly, faux-rustic charm. That basically left Raina cornering the Friday-night fistfight market, with not nearly enough profit coming in to fund the overhaul she’d need to put in a kitchen and hire more staff, and undertake the renovation necessary to stay competitive.

  And why bother? This place had been her dad’s project, not hers. He’d opened it just before she’d shown up, and with Raina’s mom MIA, he’d nurtured his child and his business in tandem. This bar had been her home her entire life . . . but now it was her burden, and a constant reminder of how badly she missed her father. A haunted place, its heartbeat silenced. She could sell it, and handily. Developers would be scrambling to buy up commercial real estate as the Eclipse’s grand opening drew closer.

  She could find a new place to call home. A new town. A new life. It wasn’t too late . . . was it?

  Maybe this is your home now, a voice in her head whispered. The boneyard itself.

  Can’t you hear the clattering, girl?