Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
HAPPILY EVER BEFORE
Arden
Social media keeps people familiar in a way you are never really sure if you remember them. It took me longer to place him than I would care to admit. Each scroll through old photos felt like flipping through a yearbook where faces blur together, was he just background in tagged photos, or did he have a presence in chapters I didn't often re-read?
When he brought down those books at the museum. That's when I finally began to put it together. Somewhere in my adult-prologue he was there, unexpected to ever be anything more than a passing character.
'I'm not available.'
The words had tumbled out before I could stop them, my standard defense against anything that might matter. What the actual fuck does that even mean. Besides the fact that it's not true. Unless of course we're talking about emotionally. I am very much available.
‘Then come back and fight with me some time.’
And as he said it, his eyes sparked with the same intensity they'd flared with during our disagreement that had me eager for more.
He handed me the heather grey t-shirt from the gift shop with only two large words on it, MUSEUM GEEK, and the only thing I could imagine, was him taking it off.
It was the beginning of the smile I saw forming on his lips as he turned away from me that had me crane my neck as if it would let me see the rest of it.
The thing about watching a stranger walk away is that they can be whoever you want them to be in that moment. They can be the perfect happily ever after, because watching a stranger walk away is a lot easier than someone you weren't prepared to love. It's when you see the back of someone you know that it all comes shattering to the ground.
And that's how I'm able to think about him the whole way home.
Will. The never-called-decent-docent.
Everything about my life should be pulling me down to the wood floor so I can watch the approximate three-hundred-rotations-per-minute of my ceiling fan. I did the math once during a particularly desperate bout of insomnia, armed with nothing but a stopwatch app and the usual am-I-doing-enough dread. And yet, rather than returning to the invisible starfish outline I often inhabit in the center of my living room, my signature contemplating-life-choices pose, it's not long before I'm standing at the bar, margarita in hand. I lick the salt from the rim, capturing it on my tongue and momentarily all feels right in the world.
The bartender knows me, which is what happens when it's your bar. Not in the 'I have equity' sense, but in the 'I've cried in that corner booth' sense. This is where my friends and I have celebrated new jobs, commiserated over failed relationships, and conducted what we used to call strategic romantic reconnaissance missions aka tipsy people-watching aka-aka looking for a hookup.
The group in the back corner have their blazers draped across their booth seats like shed snake skins, as they all clank glasses and drop shots of J?ger into their beers. Men and bombs, seriously, you'd think Oppenheimer did enough on the bomb front to satisfy the male population for eternity. But nothing is ever enough for them.
Tonight, I'm not sure what I'm doing here. I called Stella, but as usual, my voicemail landed in the same place all our secrets seem to now. I meant it when I told Ethan I think I'm better off on my own. I can be on my own, and I prefer that to the alternative of being lonely and with someone, which pretty much sums up the last few months.
But the most safe I am is either predictable or alone. I've done predictable for long enough, which means now it's time for alone .
"Barkeep! I'll take two of whatever she's having!"
The man's voice is loud enough to make me wonder what he thinks he's auditioning for. It's not even that loud in here yet, the rowdy college crowd won't roll in until eleven at the earliest, bringing their distinctive bouquet of body spray and poor judgment. I remember those days, most of them.
And seriously, who says 'barkeep?'
What. An. Asshole.
He's clearly with that group in back, probably the one who drew the short straw, intellectually and otherwise, and was tasked with the next round.
When did I get so cynical? Have I always been like this? Maybe it's not age that's made me more skeptical and less patient with men. I think it's happened around the same time I started fucking them. I mentally sigh, wait, maybe I audibly sigh, and try to soften my approach before turning to him with a smile. I do it softly, though there's nothing about me right now that feels soft.
"I'm alright, thank you though." My voice aims for polite but firm, landing somewhere between 'customer service representative' and 'kindergarten teacher explaining why we don't eat glue.'
"It would be my honor." Your honor? Really? Is this a bar or a medieval court? Should I be curtseying?
"I appreciate it, but?—"
"But if the price to pay for your company is a couple of margs, then I would say I am the luckiest S-O-B in this joint." Maybe just the most obnoxious.
"I'm sorry, but it looks like tonight won't be your lucky night after all."
"Why is that, gorgeous?" The bartender hands him two margaritas, and he slides one to me like dealing cards in a game I have not agreed to play.
"First of all, I cost far more than just a ‘couple of margs.’" I say that and immediately realize I've just made myself sound like a very specific type of female-sex-positive-entrepreneur.
"And second of all, I'm waiting for someone." Great, that doesn't help.
"Come on, that's as much a blow off as any I've ever received."
Now he's the skeptic, and rightfully so. Technically, it is bullshit. A margarita used to be more than enough for me to consider a conversation with someone, sometimes even more, and I am absolutely, unequivocally, without a doubt, here by myself, unless you count my never ending stream-of-consciousness commentary as company.
It's not easy to extract yourself from situations like this. It should be. It shouldn't require a song and dance. But the lie isn't for his ego as much as it is my own safety. Because regardless of the year, and what other pseudo-feminist talking points he might have memorized for his dating profile, men in bars respect an unseen man a lot more than the woman in front of them saying no.
He takes a step closer as he leans against the bar. My hand on the wood of the bar top as my fingernails scrape against the grain with a pit suddenly in my stomach as I back into the stool behind me.
And then, as if the goddess of serendipity herself decided to throw me a bone, or maybe she just got tired of watching this tragic scene unfold, she cast a spotlight over the swinging door.
I see him.
And for lack of all sense that I've held, I doubled down on possibly the most dangerous idea I've had to date.
"There he is…"
Our eyes meet when he is about ten paces from me, and this time there's no mistaking the spark of recognition, the same intensity from our earlier art debate now mixed with something darker, more possessive. His stride doesn't break as he approaches, like he's been waiting for this moment since I walked away at the museum.
"Sweetheart," I stress the endearment as my hand reaches around his bicep. "I was just telling my new... friend? No, friend feels like the wrong word, like calling a paper cut a flesh wound, but I was just telling," I motion my hand waiting for him to supply his own name.
"Gerry," he says with a sense of confusion beyond his own existence.
"I was just telling Gerry that I was waiting for you after he was nice enough to buy me a drink.... Gerry, this is my boyfriend."
The lie rolls off my tongue easier than it should, probably because it feels like the kind of romantic comedy moment I've been training for at 3 a.m. book in hand.
His stare crawls up and down my face as I speak, from my eyes to my lips and back, a mirror of how he'd studied me earlier when I'd challenged his point . Before landing firmly on my gaze, offering me a smile that acknowledges the ruse he's willing to play along with, and possibly suggesting he's better at improv than I gave him credit for.
"Oh Arden, darling." His voice croons in a way that wraps around me like a cardigan, as he leans down and places a kiss on my cheek. The gesture is deliberate, lingering just long enough to make it clear this isn't just about saving me from an unwanted advance.
There's a fullness to his lips that leaves an imprint on my skin and feels like it might be permanent while the words sink into the depth of my stomach like a stone in a wishing well.
Gerry glances back across the bar to his group of actual friends, indicating less subtly than he intended, motioning to the bartender who is lining up another twelve shot glasses like they're attempting to recreate the Last Supper but with J?germeister.
His eyes narrow on Will, as if that will help his ability to see through the drunken haze. But Will's arm reaches across me to grab the fresh drink on the bar, the margarita just delivered to me at Gerry's request, and tips it to his lips. He drinks it down completely before returning the empty glass back to its cocktail napkin and pushing it back towards him.
"Thanks for the drink." He runs a knuckle over my cheek as if he's checking for the remnants of the kiss, the gesture carrying the same confident authority. "I think it's time you head back to your friends."
"You're her boyfriend?" Gerry asks with a sense of skepticism.
"More than you'll ever be." Will's voice is sharp enough to cut glass. His response is to Gerry, but his eyes are on me, dark and intense with something that looks like possession mixed with pride.
"Maybe next time, Gerry." I offer in consolation, immediately feeling Will's glare like a physical touch, hot against my skin.
"Oh no, darling," his voice dropping to a register that ripples across my skin, "...there won't be a next time." His jaw ticks ever so slightly as he takes my purse from where it lay on the bar counter, and shifts his body around mine. Putting himself between me and Gerry and gently guiding me away from the bar towards the booths against the opposite wall to the commotion.
We fall into an easy step, like that of two people who have walked through life together before. His hand snakes across my lower back to rest on my hip. I slide into the booth, and he takes the seat next to me without hesitation, turning his back to the noise of the bar, facing me dead on like I'm the most interesting thing in a room full of distractions.
"That was a nice show, darling . I didn't know you were an actress." His voice carries an amused lilt that makes me wonder if he's enjoying this as much as I am.
"I'm not, sweetheart , but I do believe in self-preservation. And you seemed like my best bet." I'm aiming for casual, but my voice betrays more truth than I intended. As it has seemed to more than once since meeting him.
"You want to bet on me?" There's something in his tone that makes it sound less like a question and more like a dare.
"Is that a problem?" I counter, wondering in what split second this stopped feeling like an act and took the shape of something more sincere.
"Depends who you ask." His hand comes down over mine on the table, and his thumb strokes the skin, gently turning it over in a way that his fingertips follow my life lines searching for spoilers to our story.
"Will!" There is a voice that laughs around the word, and his head snaps around toward the suited-heat-seeking-missile of a man b-lining it right for us.
"I'd preemptively apologize... but remember, you were the one that started this."
"What do you mean? Who is that?" Though based on the matching jawlines, I already know the answer.
"Exactly who you wouldn't ask... my brother."