“Thanks,” I said, watching the red flush work its way up his neck, visible even in the semidark.

“What can I get you?” the bartender asked. He stared at me without smiling.

“I’m good,” I told him.

He shook his head. “Don’t take up a seat at my bar unless you’re gonna order something.” I vaguely recognized him from my time with Jimmy Ray. Mark, Mike, some M name. Back then, he’d worn his brown hair in a buzz cut but it was longer now, gathered in a stubby ponytail at the nape of his neck. A single gold hoop glinted in his ear. I imagined a certain type of woman would find him attractive, one who took a quick look instead of paying attention to the details. Because he was the kind of good-looking that didn’t hold up to close inspection—dark stubble failing to disguise a weak chin, small eyes set too close together, and a thin-lipped leer masquerading as a smile. He’d always been an asshole and apparently hadn’t changed with the passing years. The kind of guy who took a tiny bit of power and inflated it into something he used to hammer everyone around him.

I peered at him. “Are you for real? Is there a line outside I missed somehow?”

Sam put his hand on my knee, squeezed gently. “She’ll have a beer,” he said. When the bartender turned his back on us, Sam rolled his eyes. “Matt takes his job serious.”

“Does he own this place now?”

Sam shook his head. “No, Jimmy Ray’s got this place.”

My heart thumped hard in my chest, and I took a sip of the beer Matt had placed in front of me. The foam tickled my lip, and I almost coughed at the bitter sting of it. I hadn’t had a drink since Junie was born, not a single sip. It was on my unwritten list of rules. Turned out I’d lost the taste for it over the years and I pushed the bottle away.

“What are you doing here?” Sam asked. “Seems like an odd choice. You know . . . with everything.”

I shrugged. “I needed to talk to Jimmy Ray about something. Heard this might be a good place to catch him.”

Sam gave me a sideways glance. “You may not be his favorite person right now.”

“What?” I said, startled. “Why?” I couldn’t imagine why I was even on Jimmy Ray’s radar anymore. We’d given each other a wide berth in the years since we’d split, the occasional mocking wink from across the grocery store parking lot as close as he’d come to acknowledging my existence.

Sam opened his mouth to answer, but one of the strippers sidled up behind him, slung a skinny arm around his neck. “Hey, baby,” she said. “Buy me a drink?” She pressed her body into Sam’s back, and his face heated red again. Maybe that was why he had a beard, an attempt to hide his tendency to blush, a reaction that probably earned him plenty of shit from Jimmy Ray’s crowd.