But I was certain she was right about the rest.

I was in a good place, not back where I started but not living in an unsafe studio apartment and barely existing on close to minimum wage.

I had to stop obsessing about all that happened and rejoice in the fact that, with help from friends, I was making it through. I needed to have fun like I used to. I needed to begin to enjoy life again. I’d divorced Greg, hurting him, to be free to be me, to do all that, and I wasn’t doing it.

And maybe, if I did, if I got back to me a little bit, those stings I experienced being with Ham without getting to be with Ham wouldn’t bite so deep.

“You’re the shit, Neens,” I told her quietly.

She grinned.

“I say that to her all the time,” Mindy put in.

I grinned at Nina then I grinned at Mindy, lifting my latte and taking a drink.

Girl talk shifted but, fifteen minutes later, I caught Nina staring at the river, a small smile on her face. Becca and Mindy were in a deep discussion about when they were going to schedule their next facials, so I leaned toward Nina.

“Thinking about Max?” I asked on a smile.

She turned her eyes to me. “No. About you.”

My brows went up. “Me?”

She reached out a hand and squeezed my knee. “You.”

“Why?”

“Things are looking up for you, I feel it.”

“Uh… yeah, I know. And I know because I can afford a latte.”

She smiled but shook her head and sat back. “No, in ways you don’t know yet but I’m thinking I do.”

“And what are those?”

“Be more fun if you find out yourself.”

I was confused. “What?”

She leaned in again but, this time, took my hand.

“Life has certain things planned. I find, for some people, it takes you places you don’t want to go but the path leads to where you need to be. That happened to me. You just have to learn to trust it. And, for you, have fun while it’s happening. And last, honey, go with your gut. Take risks. Roll the dice. You’ve been beaten down but you kept getting right back up. Still, when that happens it can make you hesitant to roll the dice. Don’t be. You might find the payoff is beyond anything you could even dream.”

“Now I’m more confused and maybe a little freaked out,” I shared.

She squeezed my hand, smiled again, let me go, and sat back. “Like I said, it’s going to be fun as you find out for yourself.” Her eyes grew sharp on mine. “But only if you’re strong enough to roll the dice.”

“No less freaked out, Nina,” I informed her.

To that, she freaked me out more by smiling bigger and replying, “This is going to be fun.”

“I’m not sure I agree and I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” I returned.

She didn’t respond to my words.

She just said, “I can’t wait.”

Nina was really smart and not just the kind of smart having a law degree made you. She was just smart.

And knowing that, I had a feeling that I could. I definitely could wait. What might be fun for her might not be such great fun for me.

But even so, because she was smart, when my time came, I was going to take her advice, blow on those dice, and let them roll.

* * *

That night at work proved positive that the reprieve I’d had spending time with the girls, after such a shaky start to the day, would not hold because it wasn’t a shaky night.

It was a disastrous one.

I knew this right off when I walked into The Dog to start my shift and Ham was already there. My laidback Ham was history, and scary, pissed-off Ham was still in his place because he scowled at me, didn’t say hi, didn’t even give me a chin lift. In fact, he didn’t say anything to me. He just glowered, then moved down the bar to get a customer a drink.

I decided to give him a wide berth and, since it was Saturday and things were hopping, thought I could lose myself in work.

Things looked up when Nina and Max came in and sat at one of my tables.

Max, by the way, was nearly as hot as Ham but what made him hotter was how into his wife he was. They’d been through hell together, but his love and affection for her and their two babies had not dulled and he wasn’t afraid to let it show. I thought that was the hallmark of a true man, being in love and not giving a shit if people saw how deep he’d sunk into that emotion.

I’d always liked Max. He was a seriously good guy. But I liked Max with Nina even better.

Things took a turn for the worse when Arlene showed up with Cotton.

Jimmy Cotton was a world-famous photographer. Cotton also had some reclusive tendencies, in so far as he didn’t stray much from the environs of Gnaw Bone and when he did, it was to travel the width and breadth of the Rockies to take his photos. Other than that, Cotton stuck with what and who he knew. He was old, crotchety, and, contradictory to the latter, entirely lovable. He liked me, always had and always showed it in his crotchety Cotton way.

So I gave that back but without the crotchety part. The jury was out on if I gave it back without a healthy dose of sass.

Now, he’d walked into The Dog, a place he’d come to but not often, and headed straight to the bar with Arlene. Not a table where a waitress could serve him. No, to the bar, where Ham would.

Once settled in, they made it very clear they were checking out the lay of the land with Ham and me. They did this by openly watching us nearly constantly, only taking breaks to huddle and confer, more than likely about Ham and me.

Things nosedived when Maybelline and Wanda wandered in and they took places at the bar, opposite Cotton and Arlene, but for exactly the same purpose, a purpose they didn’t try to hide either. I had hoped, since time had slid by after Maybelle threatened to wade in, that she’d forgotten she intended to get up in my business.

Alas, this hope that night was dashed.

Making matters worse, I saw them talking to Ham for not a short period of time during which his unhappy eyes cut to me twice and Maybelline’s hands gestured, a lot.

I continued with my strategy of giving Ham and the bar a wide berth, taking my drink orders exclusively to Jake and getting the hell away from the bar as quick as I could once they were filled. I added ignoring all that was happening because it was all scary and I was pretending it was occurring in an alternate universe. I decided to live in my own universe.

In other words, I found a guy who I didn’t know but who had been in a couple of times since I started there and I tested out the flirting business.

Matters degenerated significantly when, after a few jokes, smiles, and a bit of tension building of the good kind, I turned away from the guy to take his drink order to the bar and saw Ham leaned into his forearms in front of a very pretty blonde woman who was baring not a small amount of cleavage. He was grinning his flirtatious grin, one I knew was just that because it had been aimed at me enough times that I had it memorized.

That stung, the bite deep, the pain radiating, but I ignored it and went straight to Jake.

My friends saw what Ham was up to, and they didn’t like it any more than I did. Arlene was crinkling her nose Ham’s way. Cotton was scowling at him. Wanda and Maybelle were glaring. Max was studying him, looking weirdly displeased.

But Nina…

Nina was smiling at the table.

And it was her reaction that freaked me out the most.

I ignored all that, too. I flirted with my guy. I even gave him my number.

We had a packed house but Ham, like me, found his times to drift back to the blonde, lean into his forearms, and give her some attention.

This carried on for ages, nearly to closing. And even though Cotton and Arlene took off and Wanda and Maybelline had a brief visit with me before they took off and Nina and Max went back to relieve their babysitter, Ham kept flirting and so did I. This carried on to the point where I was finding it difficult to keep hold on my alternate world and not let the pain of what Ham was doing overwhelm me.

Finally, the situation ended but the ending wasn’t a relief.

The ending was me nearly bumping into Ham on my way to the bar. I had my head bent to my tray, my mind filled with cashing out tabs, so I didn’t see him until the last second.

I rocked to a halt, tipped my head back, and stared into his unhappy face.

“Call off your dogs,” he ordered, his voice not unhappy but downright pissed. “I don’t need you dealin’ with your shit walkin’ in this bar and I really don’t need me havin’ to deal with your shit walkin’ in this fuckin’ bar.”

Maybelline and Wanda had not gone cautious and Arlene and Cotton had showed zero finesse so I knew what he was talking about to the point that I couldn’t even lie to deny it.

He didn’t give me a chance to lie.

He walked away.

It was nearly closing, last call come and gone, and it was unusual, as in unheard of since I’d been back at The Dog and even before when we’d worked there together, but when Ham walked away, he walked to his blonde. Once there, he put his hand on her elbow and she slid off her stool, head tipped back to him. She smiled a sultry smile and Ham guided her to the back.

He didn’t come back out to help or even supervise clean up.

He wasn’t in the back when I went to get my purse.

And, when I checked, his truck wasn’t parked behind the bar where he always parked it.

And last, he didn’t come home that night.

* * *

The next morning, or more accurately, half past noon, I was sitting on my balcony in track pants, a hoodie, and thick wool socks, feet to the middle rung of the railing, holding aloft a steaming mug of coffee, when my door slid open.