She was certain of it.
“I know you.” His finger was pointing at her. “Right? Don’t I know you?”
Fear snapped her jaw shut.
What was he doing here? Had he followed her?
“You were at the—” He stood up. He was taller than she remembered, leaner. “Are you following me?” He swiped his hat off the bar as he walked down to her end of the bar.
She looked at the door. He was in her way. He was getting closer. He was standing right in front of her.
“You’re the same gal, right?” He waited for an answer that Andy could not give. “From the hospital?”
Andy’s back was to the wall. She had nowhere else to go.
His expression changed from annoyed to concerned. “You okay?”
Andy could not answer.
“Hey, buddy,” Alabama called to the bartender. “What’d you give her?”
The bartender looked insulted. “What the hell are you—”
“Sorry.” Alabama held up his hand, but his eyes stayed on Andy. “What are you doing here?”
She couldn’t swallow, let alone speak.
“Seriously, lady. Did you follow me?”
The bartender was listening now. “She’s from Canada,” he said, like that might help clear things up.
“Canada?” Alabama had his arms crossed. He looked uneasy. “This is some kind of weird freaking coincidence.” He told the bartender, “I saw this same gal yesterday down in Savannah. I told you my granny was poorly. Had to drive down to see her. And now here’s this lady right in front of me that I saw outside of the hospital the day I left. Weird, right?”
The bartender nodded. “Weird.”
Alabama asked Andy, “Are you going to talk to me or what?”
“Yeah,” the bartender echoed. “What’s up, little bit? You stalking this guy?” He told Alabama, “You could be stalked by worse, bro.”
“Not funny, man.” Alabama told Andy, “Explain yourself, porcupine. Or should I call the cops?”
“I—” Andy couldn’t let him call the police. “I don’t know.” She realized that wasn’t enough. “I was visiting,” she said. “My mother. And—” Fuck, fuck, fuck. What could she say? How could she turn this around?
Her mental Gordon offered the solution: she could turn it around.
Andy tried to make her voice strong. “What are you doing here?”
“Me?”
She tried to sound indignant. “I was just passing through. Why are you following me?”
“What?” he seemed taken aback by the question.
“You,” she said, because his presence made about as much sense as hers did. “I’m on my way back from visiting my parents. That’s why I’m here.” She squared her shoulders. “What’s your reason? Why are you here?”
“Why am I here?” He reached behind his back.
Andy braced herself for a police badge or, worse, a gun.
But he took out his wallet. There was no badge, just his Alabama driver’s license. He held it up to her face. “I live here.”
Andy scanned the name.
Michael Benjamin Knepper.
He introduced himself. “Mike Knepper. The K is silent.”
“Mi’e?” The joke came out before she could stop it.
He gave a startled laugh. His face broke out into a grin. “Holy shit, I can’t believe I’ve gone thirty-eight years with nobody ever making that joke.”
The bartender was laughing, too. They clearly knew each other, which made sense because they were roughly the same age. In a town this small, they’d probably gone to school together.
Andy felt some of the tension leave her chest. So, this was a coincidence.
Was it?
She hadn’t looked closely at the photo on his license. She hadn’t looked to see what town he was from.
“You’re a funny lady.” Mike was already tucking his wallet back into his pocket. “What’re you drinking?”
The bartender said, “Vodka.”
Mike held out two fingers as he sat down on the stool beside her. “How’s your mom doing?”
“My—” Andy suddenly felt tipsy from the alcohol. This didn’t feel completely right. She probably shouldn’t drink anything else.
“Hello?” Mike said. “You still in there?”
Andy said, “My mother is fine. Just needs rest.”
“I bet.” He was scratching his jaw again. She tried not to look at his fingers. He looked like a man, was the thing that kept drawing her attention. Andy had only ever dated guys who looked like guys. Her last sort-of almost boyfriend had shaved once a week and needed a trigger warning anytime Andy talked about calls that came in through dispatch.
“Here ya go.” The bartender placed a Sam Adams in front of Mike and a new glass of vodka in front of Andy. This one had less ice and more alcohol. He gave Mike a salute before walking to the far end of the bar.
“To coincidences.” Mike raised his beer.
Andy tapped her glass against his bottle. She kept her gaze away from his hands. She took a drink before she remembered not to.
Mike said, “You cleaned up nice.”
Andy felt a blush work its way up her neck.
“Seriously,” Mike said. “What are you doing in Muscle Shoals?”
She sipped some vodka to give herself time to think. “I thought this was Florence?”
“Same difference.” His smile was crooked. There were flecks of umber in his brown eyes. Was he flirting with her? He couldn’t be flirting with her. He was too good-looking and Andy had always looked too much like somebody’s kid sister.
He said, “You gonna tell me why you’re here or do I have to guess?”
Andy could have cried with relief. “Guess.”
He squinted at her like she was a crystal ball. “People either come here for the book warehouse or the music, but you got a rock-n-roll thing going with your hair, so I’m gonna say music.”
She liked the hair compliment, though she was completely clueless about his guess. “Music is right.”
“You gotta book appointments to tour the studios.” He kept looking at her mouth in a very obvious way. Or maybe it wasn’t obvious. Maybe she was imagining the sparkle in his beautiful eyes, because in her long history of being Andy, no man had ever openly flirted with her like this.
Mike said, “Nobody really plays on weeknights, but there’s a bar over near the river—”
“Tuscumbia,” the bartender volunteered.
“Right, anyway, a lot of musicians, they’ll go out to the clubs and work on new material. You can check online to see who’s gonna be where.” He took his phone out of his back pocket. She watched him dial in the code, which was all 3s. He said, “My mom’s got this story. Back when she was a kid, she saw George Michael working a live set trying out that song, ‘Careless Whisper.’ You know it?”
Andy shook her head. He was just being nice. He wasn’t flirting. She was the only woman here, and he was the best-looking guy, so it followed that he’d be the one talking with her.
But should she be talking back? He had been at the hospital. Now he was here. That couldn’t be right. Andy should go. But she didn’t want to go.
Every time the pendulum of doubt swung her away, he managed to charm it back in his direction.
“Here we go.” Mike put his phone on the bar so she could see the screen. He’d pulled up a website that listed a bunch of names she had never heard of alongside clubs she would never go to.
To be polite, Andy pretended to read the list. Then she wondered if he was waiting for her to suggest they go to a club together, then she wondered how embarrassing it would be if she asked Mike to go and he said no, then she was finishing her drink in one gulp and motioning for another.
Mike asked, “So, where’re you heading to from here?”
Andy almost told him, but she still had a bit of sanity underneath the all-consuming flattery of his attention. “What happened to your head?” She hadn’t noticed before, but he had those weird clear strips holding together a not insignificant cut on his temple.
“Weedeater kicked a rock in my face. Does it look bad?”
Nothing could make him look bad. “How did you know he was my father?”
The crooked grin was back. “The weedeater?”