Chapter Eleven
B oth Lyft and Via are charging premium Saturday-night rates that I can’t justify when public transportation is right outside my door.
After standing in the cold for ten minutes, the crosstown bus finally shows up and crawls its way down Fourteenth Street until I get off on First Avenue.
On my walk to Keybar, I text Gabe to see if he wants to join us. He says he’ll meet us there.
The place is packed. For every drink you buy at Keybar, you get a ticket for a free one of similar value that never expires.
Naturally, it’s popular with the young and broke.
I tuck my coat under my arm and weave my way through the crowd until I spot Carley at the bar at the far end.
She’s facing the other way, but I know it’s her thanks to the tiny rabbit-shaped birthmark on her upper back, right above the line of her black satin slip dress.
The first time I saw her birthmark when we met at summer camp, I dragged her into our bunk’s damp and mildewy bathroom and privately revealed the nearly identical birthmark on my left butt cheek.
Convinced we were related in another life, we became instant best friends for eight weeks until camp was over.
I switched to the more affordable day camp the following summer, and although we followed each other on social media, real life took over and we lost touch until we bumped into each other at Trader Joe’s ten years later and continued from where we left off.
Tonight, when I tap her shoulder, she turns around and beams. “Sabrina’s here.
Rolo shots!” Next to her at the bar are Peter and Amy, two of the costume attendants for the show she’s currently working on.
They have their heads bent toward each other in what looks like an intense conversation, but briefly greet me with smiles and waves before turning back to each other.
Carley looks me over and nods approvingly. “That look is fire.”
Glad I put more than minimal effort into my outfit—a low-cut black bodysuit top, high-waisted straight-leg jeans, and silver ankle boots—I do a small twirl.
Amy and Peter finish their private chat just as Gabe arrives.
After brief introductions, the five of us do a round of the bar’s trademark Rolo shots and order five drinks, all free, three of them from the trio’s earlier round and the other two left over from the last time I was here.
Not long after, thanks to loud deep house music and bordering-on-preposterous conversation with friends, I’m positive my night is even better than the one the suitemates were having on The Sex Lives of College Girls .
“Mia screamed like her hair was on fire,” Peter says, referring to an actress who went ballistic after tripping over a shoe in the middle of tonight’s performance because someone left it onstage during a scene transition.
I find their backstage stories fascinating and lean in to ask a follow-up question, but I completely forget what I’m going to say when he walks through the door.
My heart throbs. I forcibly grip my Keybar’s Lemonade like it’s a pole on a fast-moving subway.
It’s probably not him. There must be thousands of cute guys with multishades-of-brown hair.
And lots of them own black windbreakers.
He turns his head slightly toward me, and I gasp.
It’s 100 percent Adam Haber. Adam is here …
at the same bar as me. I take a huge swig of my cocktail.
Carley hands me her drink and says something about going to the bathroom. I don’t respond.
Adam blessedly hasn’t seen me yet. Is he alone?
There’s a girl practically up his ass, but they could be strangers since we’re packed in this bar tighter than pickles in a jar.
He glances over his shoulder and his lips move.
I can’t hear what he’s saying given the DJ has the music turned up high enough to entertain bars all the way down in Brooklyn.
The girl’s eyes light up at Adam’s attention. They’re definitely here together.
Adam reaches the bar a second before she does and gets the attention of the female bartender immediately. His date… friend…
whatever , also blonde, slips into the small space to his right. Adam orders something and looks behind him. This time his eyes meet mine and stay there. It’s almost like he’s not sure who I am… like I look familiar and he’s trying to place me. But then his mouth slowly curves into a crooked grin.
My cheeks burn, and if I weren’t holding a glass in both hands, I’d wipe the sweat from the back of my neck. Why is he so damn smiley, and why am I so freaked out that he’s here?
“Are you eye fucking someone?”
I whip my head to face Gabe. “What? No! It’s…” I whisper—not that Adam could hear me from this far away and over the music—and duck my head because he might be able to read lips. “Adam’s here.” When I glance back at the bar, he’s no longer there. “Well, he was right there.”
“Adam? As in your roommate?”
“ Marcia’s my roommate. He’s just the grandson.”
“The hot grandson. You said it yourself. And don’t deny it. Your face is doing that thing it did when Channing Tatum did a reading of his picture book at the library.”
“My face is doing nothing. And if it is, it’s because it’s hot as balls in here.”
Carley rejoins us. “I think I just saw Hot Grandson. Either that, or his doppelganger is here.”
“Sabrina likes him,” Gabe teases.
I give Carley back her drink and lightly punch Gabe, second-guessing my decision to invite him out tonight.
“Hey!” He grimaces even though he’s still wearing his jacket and probably felt nothing.
“Have you talked to him yet?” Carley asks.
“No. I was planning to after work today but Marcia hurt her back, and I—”
“Chickened out,” Gabe answers for me.
I glare at him. “I didn’t chicken out. It just seemed unimportant compared to Marcia’s pain.”
“You need liquid courage. Rolo shots!” Carley says, dragging me to the bar.
Over the next half hour, my friends manage to distract me enough that I barely think about Adam being in the bar somewhere. I don’t see him and wonder if he left after the one drink. And then I have to pee so bad, Adam could be right in front of me and I wouldn’t care.
“Oh my God. What are you doing in there?” The girl in front of me yells at the bathroom door, echoing my thoughts.
I shift my feet. “I know, right? She better not be touching up her makeup while I’m out here dying.” I repeat. “ Dying .” We chuckle. Despite my bladder pain, I love bonding with strangers in bar bathroom lines.
“I’m afraid they’re puking or—”
“Taking a dump!”
We bend over in laughter.
Adam materializes at my side like a hologram and smiles like he’s thrilled to see me. “Someone gets foul when she’s drunk.”
“I can’t be held accountable for what I say when my bladder is about to explode.
” I work to keep the tone of my voice from being overly friendly, since I can’t unhear his warning to Marcia that I might rob her blind.
But I don’t want to cross into hostile without getting his side.
Now that I finally have a chance to confront him, it’s literally the last thing I want to do. The first is relieve my bladder.
“I read that there are over ten thousand bars in Manhattan. Kind of wild that we both came to the same one tonight.”
“I guess.” I look pleadingly at the closed bathroom door.
“What is up with you lately, Sabrina?”
I turn to face him and bat my eyelashes innocently. “Whatever do you mean?”
He grunts. “You’ve barely spoken to me in days. I’d understand if you were upset about what happened to my grandma… entirely my fault… but you were cold to me way before today. What did I do?”
When he follows the question with serious puppy-dog… correction… Siberian husky eyes, it takes all the restraint I can muster to keep calm.
The bathroom door opens and the girl who was in front of me gives me a toothy smile. “All yours!”
I return a grateful grin before turning back to Adam with the door open.
“I can’t have this conversation with you right now because I really have to pee.
” I enter the bathroom and close the door behind me with force.
The latch doesn’t engage. I grunt, “Motherfucking close !” and try again. This time it works.
Peeing is sweet relief, but it’s short-lived. When I open the door after washing my hands, Adam is still there, waiting for me.
He taps his foot. “You’ve peed. Now can we talk?”
“For the love of…” It must be liquid courage because suddenly I can’t hold back another second.
I grab his hand, pull him inside the bathroom with me, and slam the door shut again.
“I overheard you tell Marcia that she shouldn’t trust me with her passwords because I might…
and I quote… rob her blind.” I raise my chin.
His face drains of color.
I smile smugly. “So excuse me if I don’t want to watch trashy television or start a book club with someone who thinks so little of me.” The alcohol in my system does nothing to slow my heart.
Adam scrubs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry you heard that.”
“But not sorry you said it. Gee, thanks.”
“I just don’t think my grandma should share her passwords with a stranger.”
I get up in his face, which is obscenely close to my face.
How did I not notice how small this bathroom was sooner?
A bead of sweat drips between my boobs at the realization.
The one we share at home is a mansion in comparison, but that’s beside the point.
“I’m not a stranger! In fact, you’re more of a stranger to her than me.
Some grandson you’ve been for the past ten years.
And now you think you can swoop in and try to play hero against an imaginary villain?
” I feel immediate guilt when Adam’s eyes go heavy and the corners of his lips pull down. Who am I to talk?