Chapter 9 Reason Two #2
I was on a mission, and apparently, that mission was to look like a fool, as Shooters was little more than a dive bar.
Still, I had my plan, and it was a damn good one.
One might go as far as saying foolproof.
And, God, I needed it to work. I’d applied for over two hundred jobs over the last seven months.
I’d done nine interviews, each ending abruptly after we reached that question.
“What was your reason for leaving your last job?” Stupidly, I’d assumed the potential employers had seen the news article about my selfie scandal and decided my resume was proof enough of my abilities. I had been wrong.
I needed this job.
For introductions, I would shake his hand firmly, but not so firmly that he felt intimidated. I would butter him up, complimenting him on his attire and telling him he looked like he belonged on the cover of Forbes, not in some tiny little shithole like Shooters. He would be mesmerized.
For drinks, I would stick with a scotch, and I would sip it slowly, pacing myself. I’d rattle off a few of my many accomplishments in passing. He would be hooked.
After we ordered appetizers, I would casually mention that I was on the market again. I wouldn’t outright ask him for a job, though. As desperate as I might have been, I refused to come across as pathetic.
When the evening was done, we would revel in our newfound bromance. I’d tell him I hadn’t had this much fun in ages, and that I’d love to see this become a more common occurrence. Obviously, he would agree. Who wouldn’t?
Every single hope of a pleasant evening fell by the wayside when I stepped out of my mother’s car.
A man wearing jeans that clung far too tightly to his voluptuous ass was being led away from a super-sized pickup truck by a woman.
The woman had crimped red hair, an unnecessarily modest blouse, and a skirt with hideous ruffles at the hem.
She looked like something out of Nineteen Kids and Counting, and he looked far more attractive than he had any right to.
Gray Collins was on a date.
He was on a date at a dive bar, accompanied by a woman with tragic hair.
Whipping around on my heel, I rushed back to the safety and seclusion of my mother’s car, waiting five minutes before exiting, hoping they’d already found some darkened corner to canoodle in.
When I entered the saloon, I kept my head low.
Sitting on a barstool at the entrance, a woman with a cigarette hanging from her lips stared at me as if my very existence offended her.
Her dangling death stick was half ash. Somehow, those two inches of ashes remained solidified, unfaltering.
I offered her my ID, but she just stared at me, her eyes journeying up and down my body, and said, “Really?”
I scowled at her and searched her chest for a name tag. There wasn’t one.
“You can stop staring at my tits now,” she said.
I scoffed at her and lifted my arm, displaying a small rainbow flag tattoo on my wrist. “Bite your tongue.” Turning away from her, I searched the room for Kate, and then for Gray.
Kate and Jeff spotted me first, waving their hands in the air to flag me down like overzealous tourists trying to hail a taxi for the first time.
They were drawing far too much attention to themselves.
I rushed to their booth and hurled myself into the seat, sinking in so low I could barely see over the table.
“Oh my god, put your hands down!”
“Your face is the color of a tomato right now. What the hell?” Kate said.
“He’s here.” Sweat was already soaking through my shirt, and it took everything I had not to slide under the table and hide.
“Who’s here?” Kate craned her neck, peering around the room in search of the mystery man.
“Gray. Sorry, I just ...” I hunched as low as humanly possible, grabbing a menu from the table to shield my face. I lowered the menu and scanned the room. “Why is he in a bar? He’s an evangelical fanatic, for God’s sake.”
The layout of the bar did nothing to help me with my mission of remaining incognito.
It was a large, open room, removing the option of simply hiding from him.
Along the front wall were seven booths, back-to-back.
Directly in front of those booths was a dance floor.
Past the dance floor were six pool tables, one of which had been repurposed as a dining table.
There was a bar by the front entrance and bathrooms toward the back.
I should have been able to see him. There was nowhere for him to hide.
For a moment, I thought I’d gone crazy. That I must have simply conjured him up in an over-imaginative round of wishful thinking.
Not that I wished to see him.
It was around this time that I remembered my plan.
Still holding my menu against the side of my face to shield me from view, I reached across the table, extending my free hand to Jeff.
He laughed and reached across, taking my hand and giving it three firm pumps.
He clearly hadn’t taken the time to hone his handshaking skills because he practically shattered mine into shards of bone beneath my skin.
“Christ, that’s a hell of a grip you’ve got there. I think you may have dislodged a knuckle with that one,” I said.
“Can you dislodge a knuckle? Is that a thing?” Kate asked, glancing down at her hand.
“And by the way, that’s some outfit you have on. You look like you just stepped off the cover of Forbes.”
Jeff glanced down at his Old Navy t-shirt and then up at me without saying a word.
“Are you hitting on my husband?” Kate asked, arching an eyebrow at me. "Can't say I blame you. I did good, right?"
In any other instance, I would have agreed with her. Any other time, Jeff’s short blonde hair and tight, compact body might have even made my pants dance, but I was in far too much of a frenzied state to bask in his beauty.
“What?” My heart was thumping inside of my chest as I searched the room. Gray wasn’t by the pool tables. Wasn’t on the dance floor. Wasn’t at the bar. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been zoned out before a woman’s voice snapped me from my stupor.
“Can I get you folks anything?” The nameless waitress asked, another half-smoked cigarette dangling from her lips.
I was tempted to ask her what the laws were regarding smoking in public establishments, but I let the question die on my tongue.
The woman looked like she could crush me with the might of her glare alone.
“Just a scotch and some pretzels,” I said, without looking at her. I lifted my hand, shooing her away with a dismissive flick of the wrist. I hadn’t meant to be rude, but I was on a mission, and the room was smelling too much like gasoline and matchsticks for my liking.
“We don’t have pretzels,” the waitress said, throwing the heaviest of wrenches in my plans.
“What the hell kind of bar is this?” I hissed. Then, realizing I’d just unloaded on a poor waitress who essentially worked for peanuts, I said, “Sorry. I’m really sorry. Just some sort of appetizer. Something—"
“Jesus.” Kate’s eyes widened. Through clenched teeth and a fake smile, she assumed the role of ventriloquist and slurred her words at me. “Act natural. Don’t say a word.”
Panic. That’s what I felt. Pure, unfiltered panic. “Please, Kate. I can’t.”
She nodded, darting her eyes up as footsteps approached. I lifted the menu to cover my face completely, tilting it forward until it touched my forehead.
“Kate!” a woman’s voice called out from behind me. “Oh my gosh, girl, how are you? Look, Bun-bun, it’s Kate and Jeff.”
Then, for the first time in twenty years, I heard him.
“Hey guys, fancy seeing you two here.”
God. That voice.
He sounded exactly the same.
“Fancy seeing you here. I didn’t realize the church was okay with your kind mingling with us deviants,” Kate said, nudging my foot under the table.
“Our little secret, yeah?” Gray said, and I just knew the cocky bastard had winked at her.
As I held the menu inches from my face, my hands shook, causing it to rattle in my grip.
“Is your friend alright? I think he’s having a seizure,” Gray said.
With the menu raised like a shield, I mumbled wishes of death at him under my breath.
“Sorry,” Gray said, sounding like he was choking. “Gray Collins.” The shadow of an outstretched hand appeared beneath my menu and I groaned, ignoring him. “Wow. Okay. Well, that’s a reaction.”
"Don't take it personally,” Kate said. “His ex-girlfriend is here. They had a pretty bad breakup, so he's been hiding behind that thing all night."
I was going to kill her. That's what was going to happen.
"Oh," Gray said with a chuckle. He reached down and squeezed my shoulder. I wasn't sure what caused the chill to run down my spine, but I wasn't amused. "Well, it's nice to meet you either way. How do you know Kate and Jeff?"
“Sorry, he’s … What was his name again, Jeff?” Kate interjected.
“Roger. He’s Roger.” His voice trailed off as if he was lost in thought. “Barstool! Roger Barstool. He’s ... Kate?”
“A guy we picked up on a hookup app. We’re trying to liven up the old love life. You know, expanding our horizons. You two ever think of trying that?”
Gray coughed. “No, I can’t say that we have. Bunny is all the woman that I need.”
Bunny? Bun-bun and Bunny? Dear God. The tragedy of it all.
I grumbled under my breath, trying my best to resist the urge to stab him in the hand with my fork.
“What’s that, big guy?” Kate asked. “Nothing? Good. How about you keep that filthy little mouth shut, then?” I assumed she turned to look at Gray.
“Oh, don’t worry. It’s one of his kinks.
He likes to be ordered around. I think they call them submissives.
I told him I wasn’t sure if I was open to the idea, but he talked me into it. Didn’t you, bitch?”
“Die in fire,” I said in a ridiculously high-pitched voice. I wasn’t sure if it did much to mask my identity, but Jeff snorted, so I figured that was a good sign.