The Girl from Widow Hills - Megan Miranda Page 0,17

I would pray to God I found her before nightfall.

CHAPTER 6

Friday, 7:30 p.m.

ELYSE AND BENNETT WERE already at the bar, though at first I could only see Elyse.

She was leaning half across the bar top, in a green shirt that somehow caught the dim light, gesturing to the bartender, who was already smiling and walking toward her.

She had that effect on people. Even Bennett. Even though he found her too happy, or too loud, too herself. Impossible to embarrass, or entirely unself-aware. I knew he enjoyed her company, despite himself. She had dark hair that was halfway between wavy and curly, and the only time she wasn’t waging battle with it, pushing it out of her face or tucking it behind her ears, was when it was tied up in a messy ponytail on top of her head. She never seemed quite put together, and there was a certain charm in that.

“See?” Elyse said, turning to Bennett. “I told you. She always comes.”

Bennett pressed his lips together and looked away, as if embarrassed to be caught talking about me. Elyse technically reported to him, since he scheduled the nurses’ shifts, and he seemed to always be trying to maintain some semblance of a professional distance with her.

“I was just saying,” he said, picking up his half-empty beer. “What? You were late.”

Elyse stood, fast hug, air kiss on my cheek, which was how she always greeted us when we met up outside of work, like we hadn’t seen each other hours earlier. Hands on my arms, a whiff of her coconut hair product. I caught Bennett smirking. The first time he’d swung by for a quick drink, we’d been standing at the bar, and this was how she’d greeted him. After, he’d given me that same look, the same half-smile, as he leaned in, repeating the gesture on me—his laughter in my ear: Is this what we do now? A joke we were both in on.

But sometimes, when I looked at Elyse, I saw another version of me: of what might’ve been possible, the person I might’ve grown into. Maybe it was just the hair—I imagined that would be what mine would look like now if I left it natural, grew it out. Or maybe it was just how she moved through her world—like everyone was an ally, a friend—how casually and easily she could make a connection. Sometimes, watching her, I got a flash of nostalgia for something that didn’t even exist.

“I had an appointment,” I said to Bennett as Elyse slid back onto her seat. “There was direct eye contact. I forgot myself.”

He laughed over a sip of his drink, then coughed, smiling. “I did warn you.” Then, turning serious: “How’d it go?”

I sat down on the empty stool beside him. It was more crowded than I was used to, probably because of the band setting up in the corner. “Underwhelming,” I said. But I knew I’d earned his forgiveness. Going through the proper channels.

Elyse looked between the two of us, as if trying to keep up. I hated that feeling myself, of knowing you were on the outside of a joke, peering in.

I waved my hand dismissively. “Had to see a doctor to get a new prescription,” I said.

“Ah,” she said, still not getting it but losing interest.

“Thank you,” I said, picking up the third beer on the bar top, practically brimming over. Friendship was having someone who ordered your drink the second they saw you walk in.

“Oh, someone was looking for you earlier,” Elyse said. Bennett gave her a quizzical look, but she shook her head. “Before you got here. Hey, Trevor,” she called, gesturing the bartender closer once more. “Who was looking for Liv?”

Trevor held up one finger to the customer he was currently serving, backing toward us. He had hooded eyes, olive skin, dark hair, a falcon tattooed on his forearm—the cultivated look of bartenders everywhere. But he was smitten with Elyse. And he didn’t do brooding very well, under her attention. He came whenever she beckoned, smiled easily, laughed easily. “Older guy. Salt-andpepper hair,” he said.

“Cute?” she asked, gently teasing.

He smirked. “I guess, if that’s your thing.”

“Oh, it sure is Olivia’s thing,” Bennett mumbled.

Elyse widened her eyes, and even Trevor looked down, busying himself with a water ring on the counter.

“Sorry but,” Bennett said, hands out, not sorry at all. My relationship with Jonah had been a terribly kept secret when we’d started at the hospital together, but it was still supposed to be