3. June #2
Clearly, he’s still gorgeous. With that surfer boy long shaggy blonde hair and stupidly blue eyes.
His features are more defined, obviously, given all the time that’s passed.
Despite being in the sitting position, I can tell he’s taller, wider, with a healthy layer of muscle on his body making his plain navy tee hug him in the best of ways.
If we didn’t have a past, I’d definitely consider putting him in the queue of prospects for my bang therapy. But we do, so I need to keep my game face on, and not let him see how rattled I am by his existence.
His gaze flicks to his glass, then to me. “Have a drink with me.”
I swallow, a bit surprised by his invitation. By this whole fucking interaction. “I’m meeting someone.”
“Then just until they arrive.” He pauses then adds. “Please.”
I fall right into his trap, unable to resist that alluring appeal.
It’s not like I’ve heard back from my date yet, and I could really, really, really use a bit of booze running through my system.
Maybe he’ll have better luck flagging down the bartender than I will on my own.
It’s only a drink. I’m free to walk away whenever.
What’s the worst that could happen? Famous last words of many, and somehow, I let them float through my head and convince me this will be totally harmless.
“Fine, but good luck getting the?—”
The second his fingers raise in the air, the cheery red-faced woman glides over. “Ready for another?”
I tilt my head at him, sizing him up and wondering if he somehow developed magical powers during all these years apart.
“Not yet.” He grins and focuses on me. “Whatever she’s having.”
Oh, right. Duh. “Bourbon. Two fingers. Neat. Something cheap.”
Coen holds out his hand to stop the woman from reaching toward the bottle she’s already grabbing. “No. Give her what I’m having.”
The older lady raises a brow at him. “If you say so.” She pulls a bottle out from under the counter, a short but wide bottle with a golden fluid sloshing around inside.
I spot the black label, eyeing the name, my heart nearly stuttering at the recognition of the insignia.
Double Hawks Mark. Easily a thousand dollars for a bottle alone. Coming in around one hundred per shot.
We have the same kind at our shitty dive bar, just in a different shaped bottle, reserved for one very elusive and exclusive client.
“No, really, I’m good with the well stuff.” I point toward the shelf of liquor behind her.
Coen rests his hand on my forearm. “I insist. Really. It’s the least I could do.”
For leaving me and completely breaking my heart? Yeah. You’re right. A two-hundred-dollar drink is definitely the least you could do.
I stop resisting and pull the glass toward me after she sets it on the counter. “Thanks,” I tell her. I bring the thing to my nose to waft in the glorious aroma. Thick and strong and somehow a bit sweet.
A girl screams from behind me, almost like she’s being attacked.
Only when I turn, she’s yelling at her friend, “This is my jam.”
Coen picks his own glass up, pivoting in his chair to face me partially. “Cheers?”
I let out a chuckle. “Yeah? What are we cheersing?”
Coen sighs, a weird weight seeming to lift and lower on his shoulders all at once. “Is it too cliché to say ‘fate’?”
Fate—that sick bitch.
“Definitely,” I tell him. “But I have a feeling that won’t stop you.”
“You know me too well.” Coen extends his glass. “To fate.”
At one point, I thought I did know him, but when he left and never once reached out again, he proved that theory wrong, reinforcing the belief that the only person I could count on was myself.
"To fate," I say anyway, clinking my glass against his. "Did you know if you break eye contact during a cheers, you’ll be cursed to seven years of bad sex?”
Coen grins, his gaze locking onto mine. “Can’t have that now, can we?”
We both take a sip of our bourbon and I pause to let the flavor wash over me. A hint of vanilla with a pinch of something else.
“Nutmeg,” Coen tells me as though he can read my mind.
“It’s delicious.” And expensive.
He pats the empty seat next to him. “Sit.”
I pivot, glancing into the thick crowd of rowdy people. My phone still hasn’t buzzed, so there’s no real reason I can’t join him for a little while. I sigh and comply, climbing onto the stool and settling in.
Coen doesn’t take his eyes off me, almost like he’s afraid I’ll disappear into thin air.
“So.” I twirl my glass and wait for him to say something, anything. Maybe apologize for disappearing from my life. But even then, what good would it do? I don’t think I have it in me to forgive him anyway.
“Sorry, I’m just…” He brings his hand to his neck and rubs it. “I can’t believe it’s you.”
I shrug, taking another slow swig of the decadent liquid. “Surprise,” I mutter unenthusiastically.
“Tell me about you.” He snaps his fingers. “You’re an actress, right?”
I chuckle and turn to him. “I was twelve when I said that.”
“Yeah, but you were so passionate about it. I was certain you’d make it happen.”
And I was certain about things, too. But time proved us both wrong.
“Nope, business major.” I omit the drop-out part. He doesn’t need to know my struggles.
“Gross. That sounds horrible. Practical, but horrible.”
“And you? You don’t exactly strike me as living out of a van, traveling the country kind of guy.”
Coen exhales. “I guess we both missed the mark on what we wanted to be when we grew up.”
I reposition myself on my seat and prop my boots onto the metal wrung around the bottom. “What are you doing then?”
“Security.”
“What, for like the mall?” How can he afford this bourbon on that kind of salary?
Coen shakes his head. “No, private security.”
Sweet, innocent Coen is doing a potentially dangerous job? I find that hard to believe.
If my experience with the past Coen has taught me anything, it’s that he’s not telling me the whole truth. Luckily for him, I’m not in the mood to pry. If he wanted me to know, he’d say whatever he isn’t saying.
Coen slides his phone out of his pocket, pushes a sequence of buttons, then shoves it back inside. “Sorry about that, work thing.”
“Right.” This awkward small talk is getting more difficult by the moment. “How’s your dad?”
He doesn’t skip a beat. “Dead.”
“Wait, what?” Did I hear him wrong over the loud music?
“Yeah, not long after we moved.”
All those years ago?
“Christ, Co, I’m sorry.” If I knew I would have never brought him up.
Coen picks up his glass and brings it to his lips. “It’s fine, really.”
Another lie.
He cautiously sets the cup down, his voice barely audible. “I think I was so mad at him, for…” Coen flits his gaze over at me. “You know.” He sighs. “That it was difficult for me to be sad about it. To properly grieve him.”
Finally, a truth. One that eats away at my soul.
He shoves his wall back in place, his entire demeanor changing in an instant. “But, that’s a thing of the past. Where are you going to school?”
“Co…”
Suddenly, it’s not the now version of him sitting in front of me, it’s the ten-year-old boy that I met at the cemetery, picking dandelions to put on his mom’s grave.
“Don’t do that,” he tells me.
“Do what?”
“Pretend like I didn’t ruin everything.”
“Hey,” a new person calls out, their hand gripping my shoulder and nudging me away from Coen.
Before my mind can fully wrap around what has happened, Coen is on his feet. He grabs the guy by the arm, twisting it behind his back and slamming his face into the counter.
“Fuck man, what the hell,” the guy calls out. “Let me go.”
Coen, his eyes wild, like nothing I remember of him, turns to me. “You know this guy?”
I squint to get a better look at the dude with the smashed face. I nod slowly, baffled by his knee-jerk reaction. “Yeah. He’s my date.”
“Oh.” Coen releases the guy immediately. “My bad.” He smooths out the folds in his victim’s shirt. “Sorry. Honest mistake.”
The guy rubs his wrist and side-eyes Coen for good reason. “Psycho.” He focuses on me. “Is he your boyfriend or something? I’m not into being a third.”
“No,” I reassure him, despite the strange defensiveness rising. “He’s an old friend. We were just catching up.”
“Are you done, or should I give you a minute?”
Jason, I think his name is. I'll have to double-check my messages.