My stomach churns, slowly twisting into turmoil, and I have to take a few deep breaths to keep my hands steady and my feet moving until I come up to Latecomers Bar & Grill and let myself inside.

The smell of sautéed vegetables meets my nose and the churning in my stomach turns to a fierce growl.

I miss food too.

It’s still pretty early so most of the seats are empty. There’s a table of guys by the window, a couple in a corner booth, and a burly guy posted at the bar, but otherwise the place is dead. Which is how I prefer it.

“Hey,” Jake Sanders says from behind the bar, tossing his dark hair out of his eyes as he sets a tray of clean glasses down.

At forty years old, Jake is doing pretty well for himself. Not only is he the head chef of Latecomers but he’s also the owner. His uncle left him the flailing establishment after he passed away and Jake didn’t hesitate to hone his cooking skills and turn the place into a rather fine restaurant, bringing the family business back from the brink, while reviving the nightlife in Copper Springs at the same time.

Most people don’t expect a bar to have amazing food, but Jake is a culinary genius and every plate that comes out of Latecomers’ kitchen is mouthwatering. He also brews his own beer, which makes me hate the guy a little, just for being so damn talented. I don’t envy the hours he works, though. Jake practically lives here.

I tip my chin and half-smile back. “What’s happening?”

“Oh, you know.” He starts unloading the glasses. “Just beer and business and the business of beer.”

I grin. “So you still don’t have a life, huh?”

He barks out a sardonic laugh. “This place is my life.” He gestures to the end of the bar. “Your seat’s open.”

I nod my thanks to him and head that way. My “seat” is the barstool on the far right where it’s almost too dark to see anything. Jake deemed it “mine” last year after the back-to-back car accidents hit me like a ton of bricks and I fell into a serious bout of depression. At the time, I thought it was a little ridiculous to have a designated spot at the bar because, you know, I’m not a fifty-two-year-old alcoholic, but now… well, now I’m grateful.

I slide into my barstool, prop my elbows on the bar top, and drop my face into my hands. This day, this week—hell, this whole last year—has been shitty. And it doesn’t look like it’ll be getting easier anytime soon.

“Hey, good lookin’.”

I glance up to see a pair of dark blue eyes shining at me and I smile warmly. “Hey, Amber.”

Her wavy red hair is pulled back into a ponytail, showing off the many earrings she wears in both ears and the small tattoo just behind her jaw.

Amber Keeton is the closest thing I have to real family anymore. And for three months, back in middle school, when my mom left my dad to marry Amber’s dad—who happened to be the town’s beloved preacher—we actually were family. It was a broken, disgraceful family, but still. She was there and that made things bearable.

God, that whole mess was a nightmare. One day, I was just a rich kid from a decent home with two seemingly happily married parents, and the next day my mom was moving me into Brad Keeton’s house and introducing me to my new “sister.” Just like that, my world upended.

Anytime a preacher leaves his wife for another woman, it’s big news. But in a small town like this, it’s a downright scandal.

My dad lost his shit and started guzzling back Jack Daniel’s like it was water in the Sahara, drinking himself into raging blackouts at Latecomers every other night. While Amber’s mom, in the true fashion of a scorned preacher’s wife, wailed all over town about the devil in her husband. She then started a prayer chain for his wretched soul, in a desperate attempt to save him from his sins—and no doubt heal her wounded pride at the same time.

Prayer chains are gossip trains at their finest. Lord have mercy on the reverend and his harlot—or at least let their sins entertain us for a while.

And that they did.

Mom and Brad were quickly shunned from all the social circles for “living in sin” and Amber and I couldn’t go anywhere without people staring or whispering. We were the offspring of a cheating reverend, a rich home-wrecker, a God-fearing housewife, and a raging lush—and no one let us forget it.

My mom and Brad eloped shortly after, but being married didn’t make things better. It did the opposite, in fact. Amber was just as horrified and shell-shocked as I was by their union so we instantly teamed up to get our parents to split. Just like in the movie The Parent Trap, we schemed and plotted and tried our best to make their lives miserable. But it turned out my mom and Brad didn’t even need their fourteen-year-old children to break them up.

Two months into their marriage, Mom was sleeping with the pool guy and Reverend Keeton was canoodling with a horse veterinarian he met online. Shortly after that, they split. Mom moved to Boston to go “find herself”—without me, of course; I begged her to stay, or at least take me with her, but she said being a mother wasn’t her “destiny”—and Brad moved to Kansas to be with his horse doctor. But the whispers and the stares stayed behind, and linger still today.

But one good thing came out of it: Amber. Bonded by the town’s disapproval and our parents’ outlandish behavior, we became permanent allies. To this day, Amber is one of the only faces that I’m ever happy to see.

She nods at my outfit. “I see you haven’t had a chance to change clothes yet.”

I glance down at my wrinkled shirt.

Yesterday at the gas station, Wendy the Manager was more than willing to forgive my atrocious gas bill and give me a ride home. She was a little too willing, actually.

I know the difference between a kinky crazy look in a woman’s eyes and a nutzo crazy look. And Wendy was definitely leaning toward the serial killer end of the spectrum when we got in her car and she sank her fingernails into my bicep, licked the back of my neck, and aggressively invited me to come back to her place to meet her pet ferret.

I have nothing against ferrets. I do, however, have something against ferrets eating my flesh after I’ve been hacked to pieces by a neck-licking psycho. So I very politely declined and had her drop me off at Amber’s house so she and her pet ferret wouldn’t know where I slept.

Wendy the Manager retracted her shockingly sharp claws from my arm and begrudgingly dropped me off at Amber’s, where I crashed on the couch after explaining to Amber how Monique had been hauled off by a merciless tow truck. This morning, I didn’t have time to run home and change before heading to Eddie’s office.

“Not yet,” I say, looking at Amber. “Think you could give me a ride back to my place later?”

“Your place?” She lets out a frustrated sigh. “Daren, you can’t keep staying there.”

“I can and I will. It’s a very crucial part of the façade I need to continue pulling off in order to not be categorized as the town outcast.”

“You’re being ridiculous. No one would treat you differently if they knew.”

“Everyone would treat me differently,” I argue. Then consider. “Except you. Because you’re the best person in the world.” I smile, hoping my compliment will distract her from pursuing the topic.

She doesn’t fall for it.

“I don’t like it,” she says, her mouth in a tight line. “Why don’t you just move in with me and my roommates?”

I scoff. “And be the token male in a house filled with nonstop estrogen? I don’t think so. But thank you, anyway.”

Amber lives with three other girls in a two-room apartment across town. And while living with four women might sound ideal to some guys, I know the reality of the situation: shoes all over the place, makeup strewn about the bathroom counter, tampons everywhere… yeah. I don’t think I’m ready for any of that. But it’s nice that Amber keeps offering.