26. Aiden
26
AIDEN
I wanted to get mind-numbingly, can’t-remember-my-own-name, out-of-this-world drunk. That was about the only coherent thought I had upon walking away from Cora, leaving her standing there, her black masquerade-style mask slipping down her face, her mouth hanging open in shock. I felt absolutely wretched.
What did I just do?
A hollow, familiar ache ebbed in the middle of my chest. I knew this feeling. I’d lived through it before, after our first breakup. Back then, I was too young to drown my sorrows with booze, but I’d gone on a bender of fast food and video games with my football buddies until the worst of the ache had faded. Then in college, when Steph had broken things off with me, I’d parked myself at a bar and didn’t come up for air until I’d spontaneously arrived at the idea of starting Elixir.
Breakups seemed to go better when I had somewhere else to direct my energy. When I had a distraction to mask the weight of my own feelings. But with the launch for Elixir Free winding down, and no immediate plans to start another multi-million-dollar company, I had no idea how I was supposed to process this.
“Thanks for the invite,” someone said, thrusting their arm in my direction. I shook a man’s hand—no idea who he was—thanking him for coming. Was I even smiling? Or did I look as miserable as I felt on the inside?
Someone else clapped me on the shoulder as I made my way through the lingering crowd. We had the space until midnight, but right now I just wanted to disappear. It felt like I was floating. Not in a good way, though—in a horrible way that left me untethered. The few thoughts I did have outside of securing a drink spun between Cora and Levi and Elio.
That look of surprise as Dominic had grabbed Elio’s phone right out of his hand was frozen in my mind. Dominic had really saved my ass tonight. Had saved Elixir. I owed him a huge thank you. In fact, I owed Paul and Trent one too. I glanced around the space as I continued through the crowd, hoping to spot one of the guys. But everywhere I turned, the room seemed to be filled with strangers I had no interest in talking to.
That hollow ache in the middle of my chest started to burn.
I needed that drink.
And I needed it now.
I beelined for the closest bar, half expecting to find Dominic standing there, working his way through another whiskey and Coke now that he’d done his job and averted a certain PR nightmare for Elixir. But instead of Dom, I spotted my dad.
I walked up beside him, signaling to the bartender. I nudged Dad’s shoulder when he didn’t immediately respond. As he looked over, I took in his glum expression and the still-full shot glass he nursed between his hands. Last I’d seen him, he’d been enjoying himself with Maggie. “What’s up with you?”
He shrugged.
“Just glowering down at my drinks for no reason?”
“The drinks are fine,” he grunted. “Had a fight with Maggie.”
Huh? That was his problem? “Aren’t you two always in the middle of some spat?”
Dad threw the shot back without answering.
“I mean, you guys bicker like no one else I know,” I said. “If she’s not getting after you about the light fixtures, then it’s about the fact you refuse to put a TV behind the bar.”
“This wasn’t a spat,” Dad said. “This wasn’t just her teasing me about the Red Lion or about the light fixtures or whatever the hell else. This was an honest-to-god real fight.”
“What do you two have to actually fight about?”
Dad signaled for another drink. He stared down at the glass when the bartender put it in front of him. “I found out she loaned a bunch of money to her brother.”
I racked my brain. For some reason, that was flagging up as a bad thing. “Wait. You mean the brother with the gambling addiction?” Dad had mentioned him before, concerned about Maggie and the obviously toxic relationship she had with her brother. “The one who calls her every time he gets in a bad spot?”
“That’s the one,” Dad said. He sighed. “I’ve bitten my tongue before. But this time, I couldn’t help lecturing her about it a little.”
“A little ?” I couldn’t imagine Maggie putting up with any kind of lecture. “What did you say to her?”
Dad rubbed at the condensation on his glass. “What anyone would have said. That if she keeps bailing him out, her brother will never take any responsibility for his actions or seek help for his addiction. That he has a problem, and he needs to be forced into making the hard choice, but Maggie keeps making things easy for him. That there’s a difference between supporting him and enabling him.”
“What’d she say?” I asked, wondering if I even wanted to know.
“She obviously didn’t like that. Any of that. Told me to keep my goddamn two cents to myself.” Dad’s hand tightened around his glass. “Then she yelled something at me about how sleeping with her didn’t give me the right to tell her what to do or how to spend her money or treat her family. Then she stormed out. About the only thing she didn’t do was throw a drink in my face. Though I wouldn’t have put it past her with how mad she was.”
My eyes widened. Wait, what? When had they started sleeping together? I had no idea things had progressed that far between them. Part of me immediately thought to congratulate him. I liked Maggie a lot. She was good for my dad. Kept him on his toes. Right now, though, congratulations would be like pouring salt into the wound.
But wasn’t this just more proof that all love did was mess things up? My dad clearly cared about Maggie, which left him worrying over her in a way that made her angry. Meanwhile, Maggie loved her brother in a way that only enabled his self-destruction. This was like a double-dose of what I’d said to Cora. Love made people behave irrationally, made them make poor decisions, made them the worst versions of themselves.
“But that’s my problem to deal with,” Dad said after a moment. “Why the hell do you look so upset?”
“I just had a run-in with Cora’s ex.”
Dad wrinkled his nose. “Didn’t think you’d invite her ex to the launch.”
“I didn’t.”
“Oh.” Dad took a swig of his drink.
“Yeah. Things got a little heated.”
“Is everything okay now, though?”
“Depends on what you mean by okay. She got the ex to leave. And then I ended things with Cora.”
Dad almost choked on his next sip. “Are you serious?”
“It just…” I lifted my shoulder. I didn’t want to get into everything right now. “It needed to be done.”
“ Jesus! ” Dad said, taking another long gulp of his drink. “What’s in the liquor tonight?”
Knowing how fond he was of Cora, I expected him to say more, to try to encourage me to apologize and patch things up, but he only shook his head in commiseration. Maybe his fight with Maggie had him seeing things my way, or maybe it was the alcohol, but either way, that was fine with me. I didn’t want to be told I’d made a bad decision. I just wanted to have my goddamn drink and get on with my goddamn life.
It was clear that serious relationships and I didn’t mix. If I was only ever going to become this horrible, angry, uncontrollable person, then why drag things out with Cora? It would only hurt more the longer I let it go on.
“Paul and Chloe had to head off,” Dominic said, appearing suddenly. He squeezed between Dad and me at the bar. “Chloe works in the morning. Meanwhile, Trent’s chatting up a woman from Golden Oak Distillers. If he dates the competition, I’m never gonna let him hear the end of it.”
“We wish him well,” Dad said moodily, raising his glass and slurring his words.
“What’s going on here?” Dominic asked.
“Fought with Maggie,” Dad said, pointing at himself. He turned his finger on me. “Broke up with Cora.”
Dominic’s eyes widened. “Well shit, man,” he said. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Nothing to say. What’s done is done.” I lifted my glass. Dominic lifted his. We clinked our drinks together. If anyone could understand what it was to watch a relationship crash and burn, it was Dominic. Here we were, the three of us some kind of fucked-up broken hearts club, while the party carried on around us.
In the end, love was nothing more than a game in futility. A game that had bested me.
And it was time to take my licks and retire from the game for good.