ONCE FRIENDS
I met Nick at a bar in town called the Silver-Tongued Devil. I’m not much of a drinker, and the bars in my hometown scare me, but I was feeling adventurous. They had Mardi Gras streamers everywhere, I guess cause they liked the colors (it was June). Three girls were kicking up their heels on a dance floor about the square footage of a refrigerator box, and five guys sat along the bar and turned back occasionally to look at them. I sidled up to the bar and ordered a beer. Nick came in a few minutes later. He was still a sexy guy—tall, dark, and handsome, a bit thicker around the middle than he’d been in high school. His tan looked good on him. We slapped palms and he sat down. “Just got back from the beach, yeah?” I said. “Yeah,” he said. Ordered a shot and a beer. I watched him down the shot. It made me feel lonely, like I should be doing one, too. But things were different between us. They’d never really been the same after he dated Trish. “Who’d you go with?” “Amy’s family...