Chapter 9 #2
We shared a long look, and I knew she was giving me a chance, a moment to step up and say something—do something. Ask her out or whatever people did with women they couldn’t stop thinking about. Women they’d recently kissed.
But I allowed time to stretch, unfurl itself and pull taut.
I cleared my throat. “Thanks again for coming.”
The moment snapped like a rubber band.
Bonnie nodded to herself, giving a resigned little smile that said, Well, at least you tried.
And I almost reached out and grabbed her hand.
But instead, she tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear and walked away.
Gritting my teeth, I watched until the team bounded up, surrounding me in a halo of light blue and friendship bracelets, asking for high fives before they left. Several of the girls’ moms came up and introduced themselves.
I tried to casually peek around the women to see if I could find Bonnie. Maybe I could stop her, tell her I’d text her later. Or maybe—
Gia’s mom boldly reached out and squeezed my bicep, drawing my attention to whatever she was saying. When I looked over her shoulder again, I found Bonnie at the edge of the sidewalk watching. When our eyes caught, she quickly looked away and hurried to the parking lot.
I sighed, leaning away from the woman’s touch. I managed polite conversation with the rest of the parents, and I avoided flirty smiles and uninvited touches, hating that Bonnie had seen that.
And hating that I hadn’t been brave enough to ask for what I really wanted.
The bar was busy that night, and I was on the schedule to close. The kitchen had already run out of buffalo chicken flatbread, so I knew it was going to be a rough one.
Around ten thirty, I was changing the keg for the raspberry chamomile hard seltzer when Kayla came up and asked me if I’d take the customer at the end of the bar.
“Does he need to go?” I asked, washing my hands behind the counter.
It wasn’t unheard of for some of my female bartenders to ask for a hand. Sometimes men got too friendly or couldn’t take a hint. But Kayla usually wasn’t shy about telling someone to back off.
“No,” she replied, jaw set. “I just don’t want to serve him.”
I followed her glare to a man at the end of the bar who looked vaguely familiar, like he’d been in a time or two, but I couldn’t place him.
He looked like he was in his mid-thirties.
Thin mustache, receding hairline, bland expression.
The pale blue button-up was baggy on his slim frame, but the blond he was chatting up didn’t seem to mind.
“I got it,” I told Kayla and then made my way down the length of the bar.
I didn’t notice anything weird when I took their order. Then we got another rush of tourists, and I put the man and his date out of my mind, checking in occasionally to grab refills. At some point, the chair beside him emptied before the guy moved down to set his sights on a different blond.
After we announced last call, I started closing out tabs and running receipts for the stragglers to sign.
The name on the last card had me staring down at the blue plastic in my hand.
Daniel Jensen.
My gaze shot to the man. He had a different woman beside him now.
Maybe the third or fourth one he’d chatted up tonight.
His arm was on the back of her chair as he smiled and toyed with a strand of her honey-blond hair.
It looked like he might be about to close the deal and be rewarded for his efforts.
My hand tightened around the credit card reflexively, and I scanned my memory from the last few months, recognizing that he’d been in more than a few times.
Bartenders were good with recall. Repetition always helped, though.
And this guy—Daniel Jensen—had been regular enough that my eyes narrowed now.
I couldn’t remember much more than that.
Always coming in alone, but rarely leaving that way.
He was picking up women in my bar and had been for a while.
I thought about Bonnie, weeks ago, curled up on my bathroom floor, crying over this man. I racked my brain but couldn’t recall if he’d been here on the prowl before that night.
Kayla walked up and started organizing her own stack of receipts.
“Is that him?” I confirmed quietly before clearing the roughness from my throat. “Bonnie’s husband?”
Kayla didn’t even bother glancing up. “Yeah, that’s Danny, her ex.”
“And you didn’t want to serve him because . . . ?”
“Because he’s a dick,” she said without missing a beat.
Couldn’t argue with that. Everything I knew about him, I didn’t like either. And, honestly, I was fucking dumbfounded that he’d been married to her. Bonnie could do so much better.
It wasn’t just the looks thing, because I knew Bonnie well enough to know that shit wouldn’t matter to her.
But this guy, over there spouting cheesy lines, and trying—and failing—not to glance too often at some stranger’s chest, was the human equivalent of wilted lettuce.
He was as uninteresting and bland as a mayonnaise sandwich.
Seriously, what the hell?
“How long were they together?” I found myself asking.
“Since high school,” Kayla replied. “Freshman year.”
“Jesus,” I breathed.
This was the guy she was so broken up over. The one she didn’t want to give up on, who she’d devoted half her life to.
She’d been so young. Probably hadn’t known any better or to hold out for someone who would have earned her love instead of claiming it for himself. I bet he’d never put forth any real effort because he’d known all along he’d landed someone loyal and devoted.
I slapped the credit card on the bar top with a little more force than necessary.
Danny straightened abruptly, peeling his eyes off the woman’s rack.
I wasn’t sure what expression I wore, but it must have been hard enough to have Danny standing and scrambling for his card, urging the woman beside him to stand as well.
Then I turned and walked into the kitchen to keep from telling him to get out and never come back. Luckily, by the time I finished going over the side work and running the last of the glasses through the industrial washer, Danny and the blond were gone.
I shook my head, wondering if the douchebag even realized he was picking up women who looked like his wife.
No, not his wife. His ex-wife. Bonnie wasn’t his anymore.
It was after three in the morning when I got back to my apartment. I didn’t know if Bonnie was awake. In fact, I hoped she was resting well. I hated to think she was losing sleep over that asshole.
But I didn’t want her to lose sleep over me either.
So I pulled up our text thread and started to type, knowing it was a terrible idea.
But I couldn’t stand to think that she’d assumed I was flirting with those moms this morning. That I was someone who would kiss her one night and pretend it never happened the next. She was the only woman I was thinking about—couldn’t fucking stop thinking about. And I didn’t want her to wonder.
It wasn’t that I owed Bonnie anything. We were . . . I didn’t know what, beyond a starry night sky, a stolen ride, and a handful of possibility.
But I knew I didn’t want to be just some guy she’d kissed once.
So, yeah. Maybe I didn’t know exactly who I wanted to be to her, but I knew it was more than that.