Reunion in Red

The front door of The Copper Kettle chimed, and I knew before I looked up.

It was the way the air shifted. The way the regulars at the bar paused mid-sentence, their heads turning like dogs catching a scent. I was already reaching for the clean glass under the counter, my fingers finding the familiar ridge of its rim.

Two years. Two years since she'd left for New York with a suitcase and a scholarship and that look in her eye that said she wasn't coming back. Two years since I'd watched her taxi pull away from the curb, my hands shoved deep in my pockets, my chest a hollow drum.

And now here she was, standing in my doorway like she'd never left.

"Jess."

Her name came out rough. I cleared my throat and tried again.

"Jess."

She stepped inside, and the light from the street caught her hair. That red hair. It used to fall past her shoulders, a wild tangle she'd twist into a knot when she was reading. Now it was pinned up in a messy bun, loose strands curling at her temples. Her green eyes found mine, and she smiled.

"Miss me?"

I set the glass down. "You look different."

She laughed, and it was the same laugh. That low, knowing thing that always made me feel like she was in on a joke I hadn't heard yet. She walked toward the bar, her boots clicking on the worn floorboards. The place was empty. It was a Tuesday, just past four, and the regulars wouldn't trickle in for another hour. I'd been polishing glasses and thinking about nothing in particular.

Now I couldn't think at all.

She hopped onto a stool, her skirt riding up just a little. She wore a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled to her elbows, suspenders cutting across her shoulders, and a worn leather apron that looked like it had stories to tell. Vintage. Always vintage. She said modern clothes had no soul.

"You look the same," she said. "Same apron. Same scowl. Same way of holding a glass like you're about to throw it at someone."

I poured her a whiskey. Neat. She didn't drink whiskey. But she took the glass, swirled it once, and took a sip without flinching.

"Two years," I said. "You couldn't pick up a phone?"

"I picked up a phone. You didn't answer."

I had. The first few times. Then I'd let it ring, watching the screen light up with her name, feeling something twist in my gut that I didn't have a name for. I told myself it was easier this way. Out of sight, out of mind. Except she'd never been out of my mind. Not once.

"You look different," I said again, because I couldn't stop saying it.

She raised an eyebrow. "You said that."

"I mean it."

She tilted her head, and something shifted in her expression. A flicker of something older, something that had been there before she left. She set the whiskey down and leaned forward, her elbows on the bar.

"I grew up, Leo."

I didn't know what to say to that. She had. She'd filled out in ways that made my throat tight. The white shirt strained just a little across her chest, the top two buttons undone, a hint of freckled skin showing. Her fingers wrapped around the glass, and I remembered those fingers. Remembered the night before she left, when she'd reached out and touched my hand across this very bar, her thumb tracing a slow circle on my knuckles.

I'd pulled away.

"You're staring," she said.

"I'm not."

"You are. It's okay. I'm used to it."

I grabbed a rag and wiped down the counter, even though it was already clean. Busy work. Something to do with my hands so they wouldn't reach for her.

"Why are you here, Jess?"

She took another sip of whiskey. Made a face. "I missed this place. Missed the smell of old wood and spilled gin. Missed the way the lights hum when it's quiet."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got."

I stopped wiping. Set the rag down. Looked at her, really looked, and saw the shadows under her eyes. The way her smile didn't quite reach them. Something had happened. Something she wasn't saying.

"Your hair's longer," I said.

She touched a loose strand, twisted it around her finger. "It grows."

"And you cut it all off after you left. I saw the picture."

"Memories are funny like that."

I wanted to ask her what she meant. Wanted to ask her a hundred things. But the words stuck in my throat, clumsy and useless. So I poured myself a whiskey instead, neat, and raised my glass.

"To two years."

She clinked her glass against mine. "To coming home."

We drank. The whiskey burned, and I welcomed it. Something real. Something I could feel.

She set her glass down and looked around the bar. Looked at the shelves of bottles, the old photographs on the wall, the dent in the floor where someone had dropped a keg three years ago. She knew this place. She'd grown up in it, same as me. Our parents had run it together, before the divorce, before everything got complicated. She was my step-sister. Legally. Technically. But she'd never felt like a sister.

Not to me.

"The place looks good," she said.

"It's the same."

"Some things don't change."

I wanted to tell her she was wrong. Wanted to tell her that everything had changed. That the night she left, I'd stood in the back alley and punched the brick wall until my knuckles bled. That I'd spent two years trying to forget the way she smelled, the way she laughed, the way she looked at me like I was the only person in the room.

I didn't tell her any of that.

"Where are you staying?" I asked.

"Here, if you'll have me."

The words hung in the air. I blinked.

"What?"

"I need a place. Just for a while. I was hoping... I don't know. I was hoping you'd let me crash in the back room."

The back room. The tiny apartment above the bar where I'd lived for the last five years. One bed. One bathroom. One of everything.

"Jess, that's not—"

"I know it's not ideal. But I don't have anywhere else to go."

She said it flat. Matter-of-fact. But I saw the way her jaw tightened, the way her fingers gripped the glass a little too hard. She was scared. She was hiding it well, but I knew her. I knew every tell she had.

"You can have the couch," I said.

She smiled. That real smile, the one that crinkled the corners of her eyes. "The couch. Perfect."

I poured her another whiskey. She didn't protest this time. She just took it, her fingers brushing mine, and the touch sent a current through my arm that I couldn't ignore.

We sat there in the quiet, the hum of the lights filling the space between us. And I knew, with a certainty that settled in my bones like lead, that this was a mistake. That letting her back in was going to break something I couldn't fix.

But I couldn't say no to her. I never could.

She finished her whiskey and set the glass down with a soft clink. Then she looked at me, and her green eyes held mine, and she said, "Thank you, Leo."

And I knew she meant more than the couch.