Chapter Eight Adam #2
“Is there any way you could give us a discount? Or maybe you could copy down his address, so you know where to bill him?”
The bartender coughs a laugh. “Nice try.”
Eleanor straightens and her eyes go back to normal, if not a bit more narrowed than usual.
“You’re not getting your ID until you shore up. If you need cash, there’s a pawnshop down the block.” Mark gestures to where my wrist rests on the bar top. I cover my watch protectively with my opposite hand.
Over my dead body am I pawning this watch. It belonged to my dad. It’s pretty much the only thing I have of his. Mom got rid of most of his stuff after he split, and all of his guitars and other memorabilia got sold at auction after he died.
I drag a hand over my mouth. “Excuse us for a minute.”
Mark rolls his eyes and goes back to stacking glasses while I drag Eleanor across the bar.
“Is there someone you could ask to loan you the money? What about your sister?”
Eleanor crosses her arms. “Iris is getting married in a week. She will lose her mind if she finds out about this.”
“Okay… but couldn’t you just not tell her the reason?”
“Look. You don’t have any siblings, right?”
That I know of. And probably if there were any half-siblings out there to know about, they would’ve come out of the woodwork by now. I shake my head.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s a sister thing, or an Iris thing.
Maybe it’s because we shared a room for sixteen years.
Whatever the reason, I cannot keep a secret from her.
Like, I physically cannot. The only way to keep a secret from Iris is to avoid her altogether, but if I reach out to ask for a loan, she will ask questions, and she will keep asking until I crack. ”
I’m not sure if she intended to make her sister sound terrifying, but she has.
“Besides,” Eleanor goes on, “she doesn’t have this kind of money either. Things are tight with the wedding. How about you ask someone?”
The only people I can think of are Billy and my mom.
Billy is no stranger to a bender, so it’s not like he’d necessarily judge me for letting things get out of hand last night.
But this nonsense has nothing to do with the band, and therefore has nothing to do with Billy.
I’d like to keep it that way. As for my mother?
I’m twenty-eight; I’m supposed to be making her life easier at this point, not running to her with my problems like I did when I was a kid.
Aside from that, she’s nosy as fuck. If Eleanor thinks Iris would wheedle the story out of her, my mother would do it faster.
And then she’d either have a heart attack or insist I bring Eleanor with me when I go over to her house for dinner Sunday night.
“Unless you want to get roped into meeting your mother-in-law, I think it’s best not to involve my family.”
I glance down at my watch again, and then cut my gaze over to Eleanor’s hand.
“We need to get that fucking ring off.”
We wind up in one of the gender-neutral bathrooms together, in an attempt to have some semblance of privacy. When the door snicks shut behind us, Eleanor steps up to the mirror. I watch as she runs a finger under her lashes to wipe away smudged mascara.
I have the urge to tell her she looks good—that she always looks good—but Eleanor likely doesn’t need or want my approval, so I bite it back and wait for her to turn around again.
She runs her hand under the sink and tries to twist her ring off under the tap, her sharp elbow aimed at me as she lets out a frustrated huff.
“Let me try.” I step closer, and Eleanor turns and leans back against the porcelain edge of the sink. She holds her hand out between our bodies, slides it into my waiting palm.
A charge zings up my arm, and I realize this is the first time we’ve actually touched since this morning, when Eleanor kicked me out of bed.
Which brings to mind a fact that I’ve been steadfastly ignoring ever since: that we slept in the same bed.
Which means Eleanor invited me to sleep in her bed.
Sure, nothing more happened, but it makes me wonder, if we’d been more sober, whether something could have.
Whether that was or ever would be on the table.
I blink hard and adjust my glasses before touching the ring. I give it an experimental tug.
“Ow. Fucking ow.”
“Sorry!” I let go immediately, but apparently it still wasn’t fast enough, because Eleanor swats my arm with her opposite hand.
“That hurt.”
“Sorry,” I repeat again, a bit softer.
Eleanor deflates a bit, shoulders rounding in defeat. “Can’t we go to a fire station or something and have them cut it off?”
“We’re not going to cut a platinum band. We’ll get nothing for it if we do.”
She holds her hand up to inspect the ring. “How do you know what kind of metal it is?”
I give her a look like, please. “I wouldn’t buy anything but platinum.”
Her nose wrinkles, and she mumbles something under her breath that sounds a lot like pretentious. “Well, we might have to. It’s clearly not coming off.”
My hands rest on my hips. “How is it stuck? The ring obviously fit fine twelve hours ago.”
“Well, now I’m bloated. I ate god knows how many fried things last night and it’s hot outside. My fingers are swollen. I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”
“Do you have any lube?”
She blinks at me. “Why the fuck would I be carrying around lube?”
“… Preparedness?”
“Jesus.” She turns and shakes her head, almost like she’s looking into an invisible camera somewhere. “No, Adam, I do not have any lube.”
I gesture to her giant tote bag. “You’ve got to have something useful in there.”
She rifles around and comes up with a tube of sunscreen. “It’s not lube, but… this is the best I can do.”
Worth a try. I gesture with two fingers for her to hand me the bottle, which she does, before hopping up to perch on the edge of the porcelain sink.
She holds her left hand out for me to take and braces her right hand behind her.
I step closer, so I’m slotted between her knees.
I squeeze out a bit of the lotion onto her knuckle, careful not to let it drip onto her clothes.
I dab it around a bit with the pads of my fingers.
“Tell me if this hurts, okay?”
She nods, which is somewhat unnecessary, because she made it quite clear last time that she has no problem speaking up when it hurts.
I twist the ring around her finger a few times before I pull. I keep my gaze fixed on her face, searching for any sign of discomfort. Because regardless of what I said before, she’s right. We can always go get the damn thing cut off. It’s not worth hurting her over.
Eleanor lifts her head and we’re face-to-face.
It’s a ridiculous situation—locked in the bathroom of a bar together while an old Tom Petty song plays over the tinny speakers, trying to remove a wedding band she never should have been wearing in the first place.
But for a moment, the details go hazy, swept toward the back of my mind.
My focus has narrowed to the tiny freckle on Eleanor’s top lip, barely noticeable unless you’re standing close enough to kiss it.