Shoot Your Shot

Chapter Three

Three

Lucy

I couldn’t dip soon enough. I’m not trying to end up with another drink spilled all over my shirt, or worse, wait around and listen to that guy talk about his fantasy football team—he totally looks like the type of guy who can’t shut up about his fantasy football team.

As I make my way back to my friends, I find them both deep in conversation. Maya is chatting with that girl who illegally parks her home in national parks across the country, and Cooper is laughing at something his digital match said. They both look happy as they lean into their potential love interests like magnets drawn together by an invisible force—though the invisible force tonight is likely the tequila.

I set the drinks on the tabletop, but they hardly notice me. I down one of the shots before I can start feeling sorry for myself and when I slam the empty glass down, Maya finally looks my way.

“Thanks, Lucy,” she says, picking up a shot in each hand. She hands one to Arlo and they lock eyes and toss them back. Maya wipes a dribble of tequila off Van Girl’s chin, and I officially start sulking.

“Thank me by helping me pick out someone to dance with tonight,” I say, desperate for a distraction. Things with Kit went sour tonight when I forgot to bring her copy of Clairo’s Charm on vinyl and I said we could call it even because she forgot to tell me she had a boyfriend. Not to mention I’d like to forget how much I hate my job for the next ten hours.

“You hate dancing,” Maya says, with her perfect eyebrow raised.

“Yeah, and I think you’ve dated or hooked up with everyone in here already, which is impressive considering literally everyone is in your dating pool,” Cooper says.

“He’s cute.” I wave at a guy standing near the bathrooms. He reciprocates with a dirty look.

“That’s Joey the bouncer, and you’ve dated him,” Cooper reminds me, though I can’t remember.

“Looks like I might have ghosted him too. Well, things are over with Kit and much like the era from which that American Girl doll’s backstory originated, I too am in a great depression.” I slump into my hand. I hoped the shot would put me in a party mood, but instead it’s making me sleepy.

“Lucy Lee Ross,” Maya snaps. “Do you hear yourself? You’re constantly complaining to us about being stuck replying to emails and unclogging toilets at work. You say you want a tattoo apprenticeship, but instead of focusing on your drawings or creating a portfolio, you go from one relationship to the next.” Maya sets her glass down on the table.

Damn, my full government name. I was not anticipating a scolding tonight. If I was, I would have made that guy buy me more shots.

“Harsh much?” I cross my arms over my chest. She’s not wrong, but couldn’t this type of conversation wait until tomorrow morning? I look back at the bouncer but he’s still avoiding eye contact.

“We love you, Lucy, but Maya is right. A bit of a bitch with her delivery, but the bitch is right,” Cooper says.

Maya wraps her arm around my shoulder and pulls me in close. “I want you to succeed. You’re so talented,” she says.

I groan and wiggle out from underneath her embrace. “You guys are being dramatic. I haven’t dated everyone.”

“That girl over there.” Cooper points across the room. “She lasted three months. And that guy over there, two weeks. And them over there, one date.” Cooper is pointing in every direction so quickly that it’s making my head spin.

“Enough! I get it, you’re right. I need to swear off men.” I pinch the bridge of my nose; my headache is intensifying with every tempo switch the DJ is making.

“And women,” Cooper adds firmly.

My hand drops. “Well, let’s not be dramatic,” I say.

Dating in the digital age is complicated, but dating in your twenties is near futile. I am what you would call a serial dater. A relationship slut, if you will. I love the thrill of a budding connection but hate the seriousness that often follows after a few months. Most of my relationships tend to fizzle out before the goodbye becomes too painful.

My friends seem to believe that I use relationships to distract myself from feeling shitty about where I’m at in my life, or to procrastinate where I want to be in my career. Have they even considered that I would still feel shitty about my life regardless?

“Try to lay off the distractions for a bit and see what happens.” Maya softens her approach, but it’s too late—I’m mid-existential crisis and there’s no stopping the spiral.

Cooper leans across the table, pressing his fingers into the sticky wooden top. “Lucy, this is a textbook midtwenties crisis. You have two choices: get a cat or make a pledge to focus on yourself and get that promotion. The answer is obvious.”

“Another cat!” I shake my balled-up fists by my face and squeal with joy.

“No!” Maya gives me a shove.

“Fine. I need to focus on my portfolio and put together a book of work so good Sam has no choice but to offer me an apprenticeship.”

Years ago, I messed up my one opportunity to secure my dream career. I shudder at the memory; I can’t blow this opportunity too. I have to land an apprenticeship.

“That’s the spirit,” Maya says, patting my back.

“The only true spirit is the one we manifest by feeding our seven chakras through the holistic journey of life,” Arlo says in a singsong voice.

Cooper and I share an unspoken look of concern.

“Spirit the horse was my gay awakening,” Cooper’s friend says, pursing his lips.

The song changes to something that evokes a loud shriek from Cooper’s friend. The beat is good enough to get the half-birthday boy out of his seat, and they disappear onto the dance floor together. As the club ignites in cheers and fist pumps, I feel a twinge of guilt for being out when I haven’t sketched all week.

They’re right—not the out-of-pocket thing Arlo said, but the part about needing to be hyperfocused on my goal instead of constantly inviting new distractions to interfere with my career. While everyone dances and sings, I’m quiet, thinking about how much further ahead I should be, like my friends who both have successful careers.

“You okay?” Maya asks discreetly.

I shake the mopey look from my face and replace it with a less-concerning scowl. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s been a long day.” Fidgeting with the tab on the seltzer can in front of me is not the soothing stim I hoped it to be.

“Are you sure?” She gives me a soft nudge.

“I should be sketching right now,” I say. The tab pops off the can and I plop it inside the opening.

“If you feel inspired, you should follow the feeling. Text me when you get home safe,” Maya says. I give her a kiss on the cheek before slipping out of the booth and back through the dance floor.

* * *

The cold air smacks me awake as I step outside the club. I stand alone on the curb outside, underneath the streetlight, as I rummage through my purse for my phone. As I search, a guy looking too disheveled to be trying out pickup lines stumbles my way and shouts, “Nice tattoos. What’s that one mean?” He slurs his words as he tries to point at a tattoo on my arm. He wobbles around like a Mighty Bean waiting for my response.

“It’s a metaphor for daddy issues,” I snap back sarcastically. I don’t know which tattoo he is referring to; my arms, like the rest of my body, are covered in ink. I finally retrieve my phone from the bottom of my purse, and I open up the Uber app.

“Cool. I’ve been thinking of getting a big lion and like a clock or roses or some trees,” he drunkenly mumbles.

I ignore him and continue looking down at my phone, trying to request a ride home. “No cars.” I sigh under my breath.

“No, I don’t want a car tattoo. Are you even listening to me?” He takes a couple off-balance steps toward me.

“Back up, Ted Bundy.” I put my hand up, ready to catch him, because he looks like he could topple over on top of me at any moment. I brace myself for the impact.

“You’re a bitch!”

Ahh, there it is; my Myers-Briggs Type diagnosis: BITCH. The words wrap me up like a warm blanket. If I don’t hear it at some point during a night out drinking, I worry I’ve done something wrong.

“Hey, leave her alone!” someone says from behind him. It’s that familiar deep voice from inside, Tequila Guy.

Ted Bundy stumbles on his way, likely to puke down some alley or start a fight with someone else.

“You’re right on cue. Have you been watching me all night or something?” I ask without glancing up from my phone.

He fumbles over his words, with a disarming amount of awkward charm. “No. Yes. Sort of. I was watching you struggle to get a drink at the bar, but this is a coincidence.”

“Thanks, but I don’t need you to defend me from the local drunks or get me drinks. I’m fine.” I only peer up from my phone long enough to notice that he is relatively sober compared to the motley crew of drunken club-goers stumbling out of the exit behind him.

“I respect that, but if you don’t mind, I’m now the last person seen with you and want to make sure you get in an Uber safely.” He leans against the club’s brick exterior with a forced casualness.

What is this guy’s deal? He’s hovering closer to me than a Sephora employee making sure I don’t steal anything. He’s not my type at all: too polite, too pretty, too clean. He’s wearing an ironed T-shirt to a bar for fuck’s sake. I glance up quickly and remember that he’s also huge. If he wants to wait around and make sure no one pukes on my shoes, then he can be my guest.

“Whatever, but you’ll be waiting awhile. There are hardly any cars and the ones available are surcharged more than the drinks they’re selling inside.” As I’m scrolling the app looking for rides, my phone dies. I pound the power button a few times hoping for a miracle, but there’s no pulse. “Great,” I say, dropping my arm.

“I can order you one.”

“Don’t worry about it. You already got me and my friends all those shots, so we’re even.” I stash my phone in my purse and start walking away.

Slight change of plans. I head up the street to a local dive bar where the owner sometimes lets me request a song or two. The bartender can call me a taxicab—those still exist, don’t they? Hopefully, because I’m not trying to get on a city scooter after tequila.

The air is crisp but mild for early October. Just as I begin to enjoy the solitude that comes with a late-night walk, footsteps thump along behind me. Suddenly, he’s by my side. I continue on, without making eye contact. Men are like bears: if you hold eye contact with them for too long, they think it’s a challenge they can’t back away from.

“I’m not heading home, so if you plan on following me and figuring out where I live, you should give up now.”

Most guys would have called me a bitch or given up their pursuit, but he stays buzzing by my side no matter how hard I swat. This guy wouldn’t know a hint if it ditched him at the bar with the tab for six shots.

“That place back there sucked, didn’t it? Can you believe the name? Purple Haze. More like Purple Lame. Are you going somewhere better?” he asks with entirely too much confidence for someone who has been shot down at least three times in the last five minutes.

I stop walking. I’m not sure if I’m annoyed or bewildered. He continues on for a couple of paces before noticing, at which point he turns to face me. He stands there staring at me like a dog waiting for a ball to be thrown. We’ve stopped underneath a streetlight and for the first time, I have enough patience to get a good look at him.

He’s tall, but I know better than to ask him his height and give him the satisfaction of telling me it’s over six feet. His exterior is hard and bulky, his face is sharp and angular, but his dark brown eyes are soft and kind. His skin is a creamy warm amber, and his black hair is just long enough that it’s starting to curl into tight ringlets on the top of his head.

His clothes are nice but simple and yet he still looks incredibly stylish. Like an off-duty model. I’m not entirely sure what to make of this guy, and that feels like reason enough to keep looking at him.

“You’re really persistent, aren’t you,” I say, having made the decision to engage.

“Some would say relentless.” He beams like someone placed a medal around his neck.

“I doubt they mean it as a compliment.”

“Lots of people mean it as a compliment.”

“Lots of people?” I raise an eyebrow.

“I guess none you know.” He shrugs and sticks his hands in his pockets.

I start walking again. He follows. I’m only a block away from the bar and I have to decide if I want to keep him around longer. He smiles down at me with the most perfect and disarming grin—contagious, like a yawn—and despite myself, I smile back at him.

The excitement of a new connection warms my cheeks, and my face contorts in agony as I feel myself considering the possibility of engaging with this man flirtatiously. Still, I am determined to stick to my new resolution; my sketchbook is calling my name. As I draw a deep breath and open my mouth to start screaming and scare him away, he speaks up.

“Your phone is dead, isn’t it? I have a charger pack. You can use it if you want.” He pulls a compact square charger out of his back pocket and tugs a tab, revealing an attached charging cord. He offers it to me, and I contemplate it like a chess move until finally, I abandon my old strategy and snatch it out of his hand. New plan: I’ll charge my phone so I can get an Uber, then I can get home and start sketching.

“I’m going to Trolls Bridge. You’re welcome to come as long as you promise not to ask me about my tattoos.” I pick up my pace, continuing to trek down the street.

“Not even the tiny wishbone on your shoulder?” He is quickly by my side, poking at my flesh.

“Especially that one,” I say without expression, increasing the distance between us.

“I never understood the luck behind breaking a bone,” he says, not discouraged in the slightest by my increasing shortness with him.

“No one’s ever told you to break a leg?” I point to the bar, so he doesn’t walk right by it.

“More like threatened to break my leg.” He holds the large wooden door open for me, and I walk inside with every intention of leaving as soon as my phone’s charged enough to get me home.

He might be cute and persistent, but he’s no tattoo apprenticeship.