Tonight was about them—­well, about her. She was leaving on Monday, heading back to Shepherd and Jax had closed the bar down tonight for a little going-­away party—­the private party that I’d told Charlie about.

Pouring a Jack and Coke for Melvin, who was older than Father Time and practically had his own stool at the bar, I grinned as he winked and grabbed the short glass. “That’s love right there.” He spoke over the old rock-­and-­roll song that was playing, nodding in the direction of Calla and Jax. “The kind that lasts.”

Actually, it was like love threw up in the bar. Even Dennis, who worked with Reece and his brother, was here with his wife. They were all cuddled up together. But Melvin was right, and it made me a little sad, because I’d be pouring myself into bed all by my lonesome tonight.

Oh well.

“Yeah, it is.” Sliding the bottle back on the shelf, I leaned against the bar top. “You want wings or anything?”

“Nah, sticking to the real deal tonight.” He lifted the glass as I raised a brow. “It’s good about those two,” he added after taking a drink. “That girl, you know, she ain’t had the easiest life. Jax will . . . yeah, he’ll take good care of her.”

I was of the mindset that Calla didn’t need Jax to take care of her, that she could do it all by herself, but I got what he was saying in that old-­fashioned way of his. One just had to look at her to know that some bad—­real bad—­things had happened. She had a scar on her left cheek, one she didn’t try to hide so much anymore, and she’d told me what the fire had done to the rest of her body. It had happened when she was a young girl, and she’d ended up losing her whole family. Her brothers had died, and her mom dived off the deep end, while her dad had bounced, unable to deal.

So like I said, it was amazing seeing someone who really deserved love find it.

Melvin tilted his grizzly cheek toward me as I straightened the glasses perched on my nose. “So what about you, Roxy-­girl?”

Looking around the half-­empty bar, I frowned. “What do you mean what about me?”

He gave me a toothy grin. “When you gonna be out there with your arms around some man?”

I snorted. Couldn’t help myself. “Not anytime soon.”

“Famous last words,” he replied, tipping his glass to his lips.

Shaking my head, I laughed. “Ah, no. Not famous. Just true.”

He frowned as he slid off the stool. “I saw you going into that Italian place with that one boy last week. What’s his name?”

“I like to think I don’t date boys,” I teased. “So I have no clue who you’re talking about.”

Melvin finished off his drink in a way that must’ve made his liver proud. “You date a lot, little lady.”