Unlikely You (Sapph in the City #5)

Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Bren

It was karaoke night at Sapph and I had picked the wrong night to come out, but I was here, so I’d have to suffer through it. While a beautiful butch murdered Melissa Etheridge, I tried to get one of the bartender’s attention.

Coming to Sapph was better than going to any other bar, plus, there were beautiful people to look at everywhere.

“What can I get you, hon?” the bartender with both arms covered in tattoos asked. She also had sparkling surface piercings on her clavicles that were revealed by the tank top she wore. This was why I came to Sapph.

“I’ll have a SoCo and Coke with lime,” I said. It was a boring drink, but I liked it and saw no reason to change.

The bartender grinned at the easy order and went to make it for me.

The Melissa Etheridge murderer finished her song with a flourish and a small group near the stage cheered as two new singers stepped up to the mic.

I was gonna hear so much Chappell Roan and Tegan and Sara and Hayley Kiyoko getting destroyed tonight. Could be worse.

It was hard to even take a deep breath with how many people were stuffed into the bar. Coming here in the summer on a weekend was always a gamble, yet here I was.

The bartender returned with my drink and I told her to open a tab for me. My apartment wasn’t that far, but I’d called a car to bring me to and from anyway.

Moving away from the mayhem at the bar with everyone trying to order drinks, I searched for anywhere to stand where I wouldn’t be smashed up against at least three other sweaty bodies.

Not much luck. It was hard enough moving forward and not spilling my drink all over the floor.

That was a challenge, but I finally found a corner where I could squish myself and have a little room. Close enough. I set my sights on that spot and stepped as quickly as I could toward it.

I’d had to scoot near the bathroom doors to reach my corner, and one of them flew open, nearly smacking me in the face.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

Honey. Honey Holloway. Honey Holloway was coming out of the bathroom at Sapph.

I dropped my drink, which was fortunately in a plastic cup so there wasn’t any glass on the floor, but it made a huge puddle and splashed all over my jeans and shoes.

“Fuck!” I yelled, and several people turned and booed at me for spilling my drink. Within moments, someone who worked at Sapph came forward to wipe up the mess. Honey seemed frozen in horror.

“I’m… I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! I’ll get you a new drink. Are you okay?” She reached out to me as if I’d been physically injured.

“I’m fine,” I said through gritted teeth. I’d worn sneakers tonight and the cold drink was already soaking through the canvas and into my socks. I didn’t want another drink. I wanted not to have wet fucking shoes or be the freak who dropped a drink at Sapph.

I put both hands up. “Leave me alone.”

Shoving past her, I squelched into the bathroom and went to the sink to see what I could do. Nothing. There was nothing to do. I needed a change of clothes and shoes that I didn’t have with me.

I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and pulled up the app to order a ride home.

This was what I got for leaving my apartment and trying to be around other people.

“Bren?” Her voice was soft, but somehow cut through everything else, including the group scream-singing “Good Luck Babe.”

I looked into the mirror to find Honey standing behind me, her face blooming with a blush that somehow made her even prettier. The blush went all the way down to her chest, drawing my attention to the cleavage revealed by her low-cut top.

Stop staring at her tits, Bren. This woman is the reason you have wet and sticky socks right now.

“Leave me alone,” I said, washing my hands in the sink so I had something to do instead of looking at her. A look of hurt crossed her face as if I was the one who had wronged her.

“I’m so sorry. Do you need anything?”

“Do you have a new pair of jeans, shoes, and socks in my size on you?” I snapped, rinsing my hands under the water. I reached for one of the scratchy brown paper towels to dry off.

“Well, no. But…I have to do something. I feel awful.”

“You’re not the one with wet feet.”

Normally I wouldn’t be so mean about this, but I’d come out tonight and had barely gotten here and the night had been ruined.

I wiggled my toes and winced.

“Maybe I can—” she started to say, and I finally turned around and looked at her.

“I’m going home,” I said and squelched toward the door. I didn’t care if she followed.

Once I got outside the bar, I felt like I could breathe more easily. A small group of smokers lingered on the sidewalk, puffing into the air. At least it wasn’t winter, so I wasn’t going to freeze my ass off. I went back to the app and ordered a car to come get me.

“Bren?”

Oh my god, couldn’t she leave me alone? I didn’t bother to turn around.

“At least let me get you a ride.”

“You drove here?” I asked as she stepped up to my side. I kept my head right ahead.

“Yeah, but I can call a car for you. On me. It’s the least I can do.”

“I already did,” I said.

That didn’t deter her. “Then tell me how much it is, and I’ll send it to you.”

I rolled my eyes. This was a bit much. It wasn’t going to cost very much to get me home.

“You don’t have to do that. It was an accident.” If we were being exact, I was the one who had dropped a drink at the shock of seeing her.

“I still feel bad.”

My car was still eight minutes away. Fuck.

“I can’t help you with that.” I shuffled from foot to foot. My feet were no longer cold, so at least there was that.

“I’ll wait with you,” she said, and that made me face her.

“What?”

She shrugged. “I’ll wait with you. It’s late and you’re here by yourself so I’ll wait for your ride with you.”

My eyebrows went up and I glanced around. “This isn’t exactly a high-crime area.”

“I know. But still. It’ll help you pass the time.”

What was with this woman?

“Plus, now you don’t have to hear ‘Pink Pony Club.’ Again.”

Against my will, I laughed, and that made Honey smile.

Fuck, she could do anything with that smile. Cheeks and dimples and beautiful eyes and the kind of warmth that made you feel like you were standing under a ray of sun, even though it was night.

“They should make a rule that you can only sing certain songs twice before you’re cut off,” I found myself saying.

“Agreed. And what about the classics? ‘Fast Car,’ anybody?”

I shook my head. “Very few people can do that song justice. Why risk it?”

Honey sighed. “Ah, I guess you’re right. What song would you do?”

I choked. “I would never get up and sing. Never ever.”

Honey rolled her eyes. “I know that. But if you did . In some alternative universe.”

There was absolutely no universe where I would do that, but she made me want to play along.

“I think I’d do ‘Boyfriend.’ What about you?”

“The standard. ‘Girls Like Girls.’” I bet she’d kill it.

Silence fell between us for a moment.

“Why did your parents name you Honey?” I blurted out. I hadn’t meant to ask her that. At least, not like this.

She beamed at me and I had to stop myself from leaning closer to her.

“Believe it or not, they named me honey before they owned the apiary. They didn’t buy the farm and do the bee thing until I was in high school. They named me Honey because they thought it was a sweet, unique name.” She shrugged. “And my middle name Beatrix is for Beatrix Potter. Of course.”

I gave her a blank look. The name sort of rung a bell, but I couldn’t come up with any specifics. Maybe something about books?

“You know, the children’s author? Who did the cute little watercolors of the animals? Peter Rabbit? Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle? Jemima Puddle-Duck?”

I couldn’t stop staring at her. Was she speaking English?

But Honey just giggled. “Hold on.”

She typed on her phone and then thrust it in front of my face.

“See?”

I scrolled through a few watercolor illustrations and they looked vaguely familiar.

“Didn’t your parents ever read the books to you?”

Clenching my teeth, I handed the phone back. “No.”

“Oh,” she said, and I didn’t like the scrutiny she was giving me.

“Anyway. I think it’s pretty cool to be named after her. You know she never married? In my own personal headcanon, she was a lesbian. No idea if it’s true or not, but it could be. I like to think about things like that.”

Was she serious?

I glanced down at my phone. The car was still five minutes away. An eternity. At this rate, I should just walk. Maybe then I’d get away from her.

“You should come back. Next week. I’ll buy you a drink and I’ll make sure it doesn’t spill. Please.” If she hadn’t added that last little word, I would have told her to fuck off. I absolutely would have told her to fuck off.

But that little word and the way she said it made me want to say yes.

Instead I said, “maybe.”

She smiled as if I’d said yes and then said something else, but I was doing my best to ignore her. To tune her out. I couldn’t do that, but I could make sure that I wasn’t listening to every single word she said.

Instead I focused on the tone of her voice, her eagerness, her earnestness. She really was sunshine in the dark.

At last, the car arrived and she waved at me as I got in and the driver confirmed I was the right passenger and they were taking me to the correct location.

Honey stood outside the car and gave me a little wave before the driver pulled away from the curb.

Against my will, I turned around and watched her through the window until the driver turned at the end of the street.

The first thing I did when I got home was to strip naked and get in the shower to scrub off the soda and alcohol residue from my skin. It was a relief to wash it away and get into some comfortable clothes. After, I fed a screaming Arson and told her all about what had happened.

I’d been on the fence about going to Sapph and I should have just stayed home with my book or some work.

It was rare that I took a night off, but eventually I got to the point where I had to. There was only so much work you could do before burning out and I couldn’t afford to be out of commission. Taking care of myself was just good business sense.

My night off had turned into something else and I was still grumpy about it. I wasn’t that upset about my shoes and jeans. That was partially my fault anyway. If anyone else had walked out of that bathroom, I would have been over it by now.

But no. The person who came out of the bathroom just had to be Honey Holloway. Honey Holloway, at the sapphic bar, wearing an outfit that showed her body and made her look like the kind of woman you’d dream about but never see in real life. And then she’d talked to me about her name and blathered on about nonsense while she waited with me.

For some reason she just always got under my skin. It wasn’t fair how often I had to see her every week and then on my night off, she’d infiltrated Sapph?

Some cosmic force was playing a joke on me.

“Why did it have to be her?” I asked Arson. She just slow-blinked at me and started licking one of her paws.

I hope you’re doing something better than what I’m doing tonight I sent to Melliferal.

She didn’t answer right away, which meant she probably was doing something better than staying at home and reading like I was. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but when I’d had my mind set on having a drink at Sapph and staring at the beautiful people, reading was a little bit of a letdown.

At least no one in my books would spill SoCo and Coke all over me. That was a plus.

Deciding to make the best of things, I put on my softest and most favorite socks, a sheet mask that I’d been saving that had gold or something in it, and made myself a little vodka cranberry with lime. At least I didn’t have to hear any karaoke singers.

I scrolled through my ereader and perused the paperbacks and hardcovers I had on my two shelves of books I still needed to read. Okay, so it was three shelves. Reading books and buying books were two different hobbies and I was better at one than the other, especially when I had to visit the bookshop regularly for work.

Nothing on my shelves was grabbing me, so I perused my ereader and selected a new release that was supposed to rip your heart out. That sounded like exactly what I needed. Someone else’s struggles to lose myself in for a while.