Bar Crawl Read online

  I held out my hand as I took a step back and, without a word, Frankie placed her hand in mine and followed me down the sandy hill. And there, on the beach I’d written into more paragraphs than I could count, I began my own story.

  Frankie

  The wedding was beautiful.

  Georgia embodied the style that was so clearly her, even though I’d only seen her twice before. She had a netted veil over her eyes, which was attached to a white flower and pinned in her hair at the side of her head. She was certainly the most fascinating woman I’d met in a long time, and I certainly hoped to get to know her more.

  He hadn’t told me this was the plan before the ceremony, but CJ walked her down the aisle. That got the tears going early for the modest crowd of fifty, or so, people that gathered on Martha’s Vineyard for the nuptials. After handing Georgia off to Regan, CJ took his spot next to Regan as his best man. A woman who I hadn’t seen before, but CJ later identified as Ember, stood up for Georgia, and dabbed at her eyes through the ceremony, smiling broadly at the bride and groom. The whole scene gave me chills. I didn’t know CJ well enough yet to know the details, but was startlingly clear that there were intricate—and likely complicated—webs of history between the five of them. Love ruled over it all, though.

  Regan and Georgia had vows that were equally light and heavy, evenly somber and sweet. They laughed through tears and kissed what was absolutely the most romantic wedding kiss I’d ever seen. Beautiful and not uncomfortably passionate, it sent sonic waves of love through the crowd and left all of us in tears.

  At the reception, CJ and I were seated with Ember and her husband, Bo. I’d had to suppress a squeal when I met him. Their names rang a bell, but CJ had only mentioned them a time or two. As soon as I saw him, I recognized him from various music blogs I follow. My recognition of Ember clicked in soon after, of course, but Bo was one hell of a dreamy package.

  Meeting them let me gain some more insight to CJ’s complicated brain. Between our dining partners at the reception and his cousin, all incredibly well-known and prosperous musicians, Georgia, whose bakery was readying itself for a one-hour special on the Food Network, and his own—oddly undiscussed—history with that “large social media site,” CJ was part of a truly hip crowd. These twenty and young thirtysomethings were part of a major entrepreneurial buzz that’d been circling their various industries for years. And he was totally at ease with it all, interacting with them and others as if they were normal people. Which they were, of course, but the CJ I’d judged early on in the bar struck me as someone who would name-drop more than he said actual words.

  Had he walked into the bookstore when I was working there, I’d have gotten his selections all wrong. While I typically made it a habit not to judge a book by its cover, CJ seemed to hand out the first pages of his personal story to every girl he flirted with at the bar. I was wrong. Gratefully so.

  “I don’t know why I got all choked up at that ceremony,” I said to Ember after the champagne toast. “I don’t know anybody here.”

  She shrugged. “Love is no respecter of persons, I guess. It’s real when you can feel it, not knowing any backstory of the couple.”

  “Like you and Bo.” I nodded to the man she gazed longingly at as he stood at the bar.

  She smiled wistfully. “Like me and Bo.”

  “How long have you two been married?”

  “Forever,” she said in complete seriousness, her cheeks still tight with a broad smile.

  I decided not to ask for specifics. Her answer was perfect. There was one question, though, that had nagged at me since the first mention of her name by CJ weeks ago.

  “Why do you hate CJ?” I asked bluntly.

  Mid-sip of champagne was, apparently, the wrong time to ask Ember that question. She sputtered some of the liquid back into her glass and laughed as she wiped under her eyes, tears inside the laugh. “Did he tell you that?”

  I nodded, grinning as I eyed Bo and CJ making their way back to the table.

  Ember sighed lightly, recovering from her fit of laughter. “I knew he was more than the shithead he pretended to be. I didn’t really have any proof of that, other than the genes I knew he shared with Regan, and his talent. I know people with talent can be assholes. Hello, I’m in the music industry. But…there was just something about the care he took with his craft that made me certain there was something…more. And, I don’t hate him. At least not anymore. Our relationship has never lost its zest for dysfunction, though.”

  “How’d I miss that? The something more.” I questioned, almost under my breath. I’d always prided myself on being a decent judge of character, but, again, I’d been so wrong about CJ.

  “He must have liked you immediately,” Ember replied. “You know, dialed up his perv self to half keep you looking and half push you away.”

  I stared at the auburn-haired beauty in awe. “Are you, like, an oracle or something? That’s exactly what his behavior did.”

  Ember grinned. “I like that you look at him like that.” She gestured to my face. “Like he’s a predator and you’re not sure where you sit on the food chain. But,” she sighed as the men sat down and handed us our non-champagne drinks.

  I blinked rapidly, wondering how it was that this stunning, enigmatic woman could have possibly read my thoughts on CJ from two weeks ago.

  Predator.

  As if she continued to read my thoughts, she spoke again with a wistful smile. “I think you’ll both be fine. He’s not so scary.”

  “Who’s not so scary?” CJ asked, looking comically panicked.

  “You.” I laughed. “What was it Georgia said last night? You’re a kitten?”

  “You heard that? How long were you standing there?

  “Standing where?” Bo chimed in, completely lost.

  I grinned. “Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.”

  ***

  And that is the story of my bar crawl. One that spanned several months and landed me as the author of the Foreword to this book. Thank you, CJ, for allowing me to share my story. Your story. Our story. Yes, it may just be the beginning, but, beginnings are stories, too.

  “Done,” I whispered as CJ looked over my shoulder.

  It took a few months of artfully crafted hints, suggestions, and demanding, but I finally got CJ to agree to self-publish Bar Crawl. He said he would, on one condition: that I write the Foreword. I had warned him that my story was kind of the story of us, and that it wasn’t completed. He said he didn’t care. He needed my support, he’d said, in print and forever if he was going to come out of his well-hidden author closet.

  CJ tilted his chin downward and kissed my temple. “It’s awesome. Thank you, again. I’m still scared shitless, you know.”

  I turned in the desk chair of my small home office. My library, I called it. CJ stepped back and ran a hand over his face. It had been three months since we’d identified ourselves as officially in a relationship, but still, the nerves were there. There wasn’t any jealousy or distrust, but we still tread carefully, more protective over our own motives than those of the other person.

  “I know,” I answered. “I’m scared, too.” Standing, I put my arms around his neck and kissed his warm skin.

  “I meant about the book,” he half-moaned as my lips worked to what I knew to be the most sensitive spot on his neck.

  I chuckled. “I know.”

  I knew he was full of it, and he knew that I knew, but we didn’t need to talk about it. We had no use for belaboring all of the fears we each harbored. We just wanted to take care of each other and grow the best way we knew how.

  “Oh!” I stepped back and put a hand on his chest. “Georgia’s Food Network special is going to be on in, like, ten minutes.”

  I raced to the kitchen and quickly popped a pot of popcorn while CJ pulled two beers out of the fridge.

  CJ radiated excitement as we moved to my couch and flipped on the TV. “She’s got to be shitting her pants right now.
I’m so bummed we couldn’t watch this with her.”

  “She’s lucky to have a friend like you, CJ.”

  He shrugged, perpetually passive about his own virtues. “I’m lucky to have her.”

  As he put his arm around my shoulder, I snuggled into the warm nook of his body. “Will she be in the area when you have your first book signing?” I’d arranged for my library to host a signing for CJ on the book’s release day. That also took loads of prodding to get him to agree to.

  “I still can’t believe we’re talking about me here.” His eyes looked wide and nervous. A look they were unused to, since he always carried himself with such pride.

  “Believe it, baby,” I teased. “From the buzz you’ve generated on social media already, I think this book is gonna be huge. I bet you never thought your big break would come from your writing.”

  “Not in a million,” he admitted, squeezing me close and kissing me on the top of the head.

  I’d lived inside books my entire life, making games out of guessing plots and dissecting motives and symbolism. Still, as I sat in my living room next to the biggest plot twist my life had ever written, for the first time I was okay with not knowing what the next page held.

  In The Stillness

  Nocturne (with Charles Sheehan-Miles)

  Something's Come Up (with Michelle Pace)

  Bar Crawl

  Upcoming: Jesus Freaks Series

  November Blue Series

  Ten Days of Perfect

  Reckless Abandon

  Sweet Forty-Two

  Marrying Ember

  Bo & Ember

  Charles, without your constant support, some of these days would be really hard. I love you.

  My fabulous beta readers: Laura, Pamela, Sally, Krystle, Stacey, Megan, Charles, and Jaimie. Thank you for taking this fun ride with me!

  Erin Roth from Wise Owl Editing. It's a pleasure to work with you and to get to know each others' styles. I look forward to our future projects together.

  All of my loyal readers who have stood by me. Whether you started reading me when I first published, or came in later, your support and enthusiasm keeps me going on my broody days.

  www.andrearandall.com

  Copyright © 2014 Andrea Randall.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  ISBN 978-1-63202-082-6

  Edited by Erin Roth

  Cover and interior design by Charles Sheehan-Miles

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Books by Andrea Randall

  Acknowledgements