Kihyun's Vow - Liam Kingsley

1

Hogan

The Cove Brewery was the shabbiest joint in the small Washington town of Timberwood Cove, but it was the one closest to my hotel, and that was good enough for me. I took a seat at the bar and looked past the sticky carpet, the timber cladding, the half-busted flashing beer signs, and the worn-out leather on the stools. If I peered at it just right, the outdated decor was almost romantic, and it was just another charming part of the quaint town my best friend, Shayne, had recently moved to.

Squinting at the menu above the bar, I tried to make out the half-smudged cursive while the bartender poured a tray of shots for a group of loud revelers. The moment he’d finished, he leaned close to take my order.

“What’s popular here?” I almost had to shout over the noise.

“They’re on the farmhouse ale.” He nodded toward a group of husky men who were half-aggressively and half-playfully shoving each other into a corner near a dartboard. And then he indicated the small dance floor by the front door. It was packed with four couples barely holding each other up and swaying out of time to the nineties rock pumping through the stereo speakers. “And they’re on the in-house.”

I scratched my chin. “Uh, you have any local light brews? I’m driving…”

“The in-house is the lightest we brew.”

“Yikes.” I wasn’t in the mood to join the sloppy party on the dance floor.

The bartender grinned and slung his dishcloth over his shoulder. “I’ll get you a commercial brand. One second.”

He disappeared beneath the bar, and I glanced around to scout the room. Military training and ten years on the field had left me with plenty of strange habits, some of which would surely keep me out of trouble, and others that felt more like a nervous tic. I figured that looking for all the available exits was somewhere in between. I wasn’t likely to get accosted in a small-town bar, but you never knew…

“Here ya go.”

A bottle of light beer slid my way. I caught it and sent a grateful nod back to the barman, and then had all of one sip before my phone buzzed. I yanked it out of my tight jeans. Vince.

Now? The call was important, and I’d been waiting for it all day, and of course I got it when I was in the middle of a loud bar.

I scooted off the stool and made my way toward the back door in an attempt to get out of the noise, but the door was stuck, and the bartender wasn’t looking my way long enough for me to get his attention about it.

Worried my phone was about to ring out, I swiped the screen and answered the call while I glanced around for another option. “Vince, hey!” I tried to close my other ear with a finger while I kept hold of my beer, but it did nothing to drown out the heavy rock and crazy shouting of the crowd.

I heard a faint murmur, but nothing I could make out clearly on the other end of the line, and the door still wasn’t budging no matter how hard I shouldered it.

“Hang on, Vince.” I hurried into the men’s bathroom but quickly spun out of there again when I caught the stretch of the urinals. My only other option was the comparably clean and completely empty women’s restroom that looked like it hadn’t been used in a decade or more. I guessed women weren’t the target demographic of the Brewery.

“Vince. Hi. Sorry.”

He was laughing, and I could hear Shayne in the background, asking where I was.

“Tell him I’m at the Cove Brewery.” I smiled when I thought about my best friend reacting to that idea. “Thought I’d take a nightcap before heading back to the hotel.”

Vince laughed. “On a full moon? You’re mad. The usual crowd clears out, and the locals go wild.”

“Really? These folks seem mighty comfortable here. Who’s the usual crowd?” I checked out my reflection in the dusty mirror.

“You’ll meet them if you’re planning on hanging around Timberwood Cove for a while. Speaking of which… I heard you might be interested in a job?”

Now we were getting to the point of the call. Shayne had verbally admitted that getting me some work would keep me in town so I could see him and his family more often. That was why he’d put in a word to his mate who owned the auto body shop next door to the bar.