Wildest Dreams: Chapter 13

I arrived at the Alchemist ten minutes later. It was a trendy bar two blocks down from my apartment. I felt bad for leaving Rhyland with Grav all day. At the same time, I knew they were okay, or he’d have called me.

The bar was full to the brim, crammed with sweaty bodies and grinding couples, most of them clearly out-of-towners. The tang of smoke, sweat, and expensive alcohol crawled into my nostrils. I snagged the only available stool at the bar and ordered Kieran’s fancy drink and carrot cake. He knew this place, which meant he frequented it with my brother, Rhyland, and maybe their friend Tate. I tried not to think about how everyone around me had this glamorous, debauched, in-the-know lifestyle while I’d been stuck in a tiny Maine town serving over-fried eggs and watching Peppa Pig.

The bartender, a woman with a shaved head, two sleeves of tattoos, and a black crop top, slid my cake and drink across a sticky bar. “Enjoy.”

“Is it always so crowded in here?” I looked around. I hadn’t contemplated bar work in New York, but the tips must be through the roof.

“Happy hour.” She grimaced, her jestrum piercing sparkling. “It can get pretty overwhelming at times.” The sheen of sweat making her face gleam confirmed her observation. Her eyes were dull and unfocused.

I instinctively shot out my hand to clasp hers. “Hey, are you okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine my perfect career. I remembered Kieran’s advice not to be practical, to be passionate. It came to me like a mirage, with vivid clarity.

Me. In a doctor’s uniform. Making a change.

Ushering an injured child on a gurney. Into a theater.

Performing surgery. Steel hands. Cool-headed.

I reached for my drink with my eyes still closed, taking a sip. The whiskey prickled my tongue deliciously. I smiled. Another vision sifted through my jumbled thoughts.

Me. Making the rounds to see my patients, with a clipboard pressed to my chest.

Reassuring worried parents.

Comforting distressed children.

I want to be a doctor.

I’d always wanted to be a doctor.

It was there in the back of my head, a pipe dream that could never materialize.

I opened my eyes, and the first thing in front of me was the bartender, now clutching the edge of the bar. Her pupils were the size of soup bowls.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked.

“I’m feeling a little dizzy…” She blinked slowly. “Like my heart is beating out of whack.” She reached for her head, and before I knew it, her eyes had rolled over in their sockets, and she was falling to the floor with a thud. The noise and the music drowned out her fall.

I immediately sprang into action. I jumped across the bar, knocking down my cocktail and my cake in the process, then I crouched down to check her pulse. There wasn’t one.

Crap.

The bartender next to her—a man in his fifties—stared at me helplessly, holding two beers in his hands.

“Call 911,” I ordered him.

He nodded, dropped everything, and took out his phone.

Luckily, I’d done a CPR course when Grav was born. I began alternating between chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth. The other bartender came to stand over me.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck. Faye is my best bartender. Is she going to be okay?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly, timing my chest compressions. “Did you call 911?”

“Yeah. They asked me a bunch of questions. I…I told them to just come. They should be here any minute.”

I checked her heartbeat against her neck again. This time, there was a faint pulse. My shoulders slumped with relief. The adrenaline coursing through my body made me feel almost drunk.

The doors to the bar flew open, and a member of the medical staff rushed in. The older bartender was too stunned to talk to him, so I had to explain what had happened. Faye was rushed out on a gurney, and I wondered if this was some kind of sign I needed to pursue my dream to become a doctor.

The bartender clasped a hand on my shoulder. “Thank you for doing that. Shit. I panicked. I can’t believe I blurted out about her job when her life was in danger.”

“No problem.” I turned to smile at him, standing up. “People say weird stuff when they’re stressed.”

“Are you a nurse or something?” He eyed me curiously.

“Nope. Worked in restaurants my whole life, actually.”

“So how did you know how to do…it?” He looked confused.

“What, CPR?” I chuckled. “I took a course before I had my daughter. You know, just in case.”

He nodded. “Well, suffice it to say, your drink and your cake are on the house.”

“Thanks.” I glanced around. “So…do you need any help here? It seems busy, and you are one bartender short.”

“Sure do,” he grunted. “There’s a recipe menu in the drawer right next to you. I’ll pay you double what I pay hourly if you save my ass today.”

I pushed up my sleeves and got to work after sending Rhyland a quick text message. The drinks were complicated and the recipes hard to follow—it was called the Alchemist for a reason—but most customers wanted the usual staples of beer or wine. The tip jar overflowed so many times we had to empty it into a bucket every hour. It was decent work that would help me finance a good, hands-on nanny for Grav while I worked.

Med school, though romantic, was no longer in the cards for me.

“Dylan,” the bartender—who turned out to be the owner, Max—hollered at me. “Your shift ends in ten minutes. I’ll Zelle you the money. You wanna take the rest of Faye’s shifts for the week?”

“Text me the schedule. I’ll see if I have childcare.”

And then I was off, a thousand dollars less poor after the tip split. The clock read 6:45 p.m., and I knew I owed Rhyland a lot of answers and an apology.

I pushed the door open, about to pour myself out onto the street, when a hard body slammed into mine. My hands shot out to his chest. Muscular pecs that felt familiar beneath my fingertips bumped into me. My stare volleyed up like a bullet to his face. Patrician nose. Dark blue eyes I knew well, because once upon a time, they’d stared back at me every day.

“Dylan,” he gasped.

“Tucker?”

Just when I thought the day couldn’t possibly get worse.

“Wait.” Tucker steadied me, clutching my arms and anchoring me in place. “D-don’t go.”

“What are you doing here?” I jolted away from his touch as though it were made of liquid fire. The father of my child—who wasn’t really a father and acted like a child, hadn’t seen her once since she was born, and had screwed off to God knows where—was here in New York.

Here in the bar I was visiting for the first time in my life.

Had he been here this whole time, right across the street? What were the odds?

Good, if Kieran knew he’d be here and orchestrated the entire thing.

“Babe, shit, you look so good.” He stuck a hand in his hair, which was still lush brown, thick, and unfairly glossy. “I work here as a bartender.” Tucker’s eyes roved over me like restless hands. “Kieran told you to seek me out, huh?” He smirked smugly, and I wanted to kill him and Kieran and every man I knew. “I wanted to reach out—”

“But you didn’t.” I tried to stay calm, but it was hard to do when all I wanted was to claw his eyes out. “You ran away, and now you don’t even know what your daughter looks like. What her hobbies are. Her dreams. Her allergies.” I wanted to shoulder past him, to leave him here, stewing in this realization. If he even cared at all. Instead, a vicious thrill crawled through me, settling like a hand on my throat and squeezing venomous words out of it. “She has your eyes, you know,” I sneered. “Big and blue and curtained with thick lashes.”

His nostrils flared, mouth pressing into a thin line. Was he angry? Upset? Annoyed? Emotional? I couldn’t tell.

I continued. “She’s allergic to kiwi, just like you. She’s athletic. Got it from both of us. Superfast and tumbles the best in her age group in gymnastics. She knows how to count to one hundred, how to read, how to draw a three-dimensional box. She’ll be four in December and is already as advanced as a seven-year-old. She is smart. And cunning. I got a message from her sitter today that she extorted him twice.” I didn’t take a breath, didn’t stop the rush of words from streaming out of my mouth like a troubled river. “She’s so eloquent, so bright. She’s beautiful and loving and warm—”

“I want to meet her.” He reached out to touch me again. I zapped his hand away. A few people squeezed past us on their way out of the bar. “Dyl, fuck, you look so good. I missed you so—”

“Her name is Gravity.” I ignored his words.

“I know,” he said dispassionately, still eye-fucking me. “My parents told me.”

His parents didn’t stay in town after he ran away. They moved to Montana. They’d only seen Grav once.

Tucker’s gaze broke away from mine, landing on my hand and the diamond that sparkled on my finger. Smothering darkness fell over his face. I knew this look. He was furious.

“Are you…” He didn’t finish the question.

“Oh yes,” I confirmed, waiting to feel triumphant, redeemed, or just a little less humiliated, but that victorious feeling never came. “I’m engaged to Rhyland Coltridge. Remember him?”

A muscle jumped in Tucker’s jaw. I tried not to flinch. His anger always upset me. It was like a dark cloud following every decent moment in our relationship. And still, my big, feisty mouth couldn’t help itself. I wanted to rile him up.

“I always thought he was hot. Had a thing for him growing up.” A croupy laugh bubbled out of me. “Actually, remember that night we first hooked up? That was because he rejected me. It was always him. Everything worked out fine in the end.”

It was the same night I went ballistic over Cal and Row having sex behind my back. Definitely something I wanted to forget.

“No, it didn’t,” he said tightly, his monotonous, clipped voice sounding extra harsh in my ears. “You belong with me. You and my kid.”

Gravity, you asshole. That’s her name.

“You’re high if you believe your own words,” I informed him.

He ignored me, shaking his head. “I deserve a second chance. I freaked out. I wasn’t ready…”

Holding back tears, I jerked my trembling chin up. “Well, you can’t meet her. You don’t deserve her. Never have.”

“Don’t be a bitch. I’m trying to do the right thing here.”

“Are you kidding me? A second ago, you were fine not knowing whether she was alive or not.” I tried to sidestep him again.

“But now you’re here, and—”

“And it doesn’t change anything,” I bit out. “You’re still a stranger, and I still don’t want you anywhere near my daughter.” I squeezed past him.

“God dammit, Dylan, why do you always have to be so difficult?” He snatched my wrist as I fled, digging his fingers into my delicate skin and yanking me back.

My back crashed against the wall, the little stones in it digging into my spine. The pain knocked my breath away. I tried to jerk away, but it was too late. A ring of white-hot ache formed over the fragile bones in my hand. I looked up at him, shocked.

“I didn’t mean to.” He dumped my hand suddenly, and it crashed against the wall, which hurt even more. “Hey, don’t look at me like I attacked you or whatever. You can’t just up and fucking leave in the middle of a grown-up conversation, Dylan.”

The pain still reverberated all over my wrist.

“You’ve always been so flighty.” He chuckled to himself. “Anyway, so—”

I stormed off into the night.

Whatever calm I’d tried to maintain today evaporated like mist.

My dreamless life had just turned into a nightmare.