Chapter 2 #2
Even scowling eyeliner woman next to me is enjoying herself. At one point, she leans in and drunkenly slurs, “I thought you were full of shit, but he really can’t take his eyes off you.”
I’d love nothing more than to believe her, but since she’s swaying on her feet, I chalk it up to the power of suggestion. Regardless, I can’t take my eyes off him.
Before we know it, Thicker Than Water has exited the stage, returned for a one-song encore, and exited again. This time for good.
The house lights brighten overhead, and with it, the spell dissipates. Looking at Lola, I want to ask, What am I supposed to do with my life now? But instead, I say, “I need to pee,” because I have a bladder the size of a walnut.
She’s covered in a dewy sheen of sweat and fanning her face with her hand. “Meet me out front? I need to get some air and bum a smoke.”
“Sure,” I agree, and set off in search of a restroom.
“Closest one is in the back, down the hallway to the left of the bar,” a friendly security guard tells me when I ask.
Everyone is exiting toward the front of the building, and I’m swimming against the stream like one of those freakishly determined salmon.
Coming down from the dopamine high of the past two hours, I’m in that in-between place where I either need to have another drink in an attempt to hold onto the fun that’s already a memory or go to sleep.
I probably just need to go to sleep.
Narrow hallway located, I snake through its twists and turns and am led to a near-empty women’s restroom with a vacant stall. Small miracles.
After taking care of business, I glance at my reflection in the mirror while I’m washing my hands.
Unlike Lola, I’m not dewy. Dewy is feminine and ethereal.
I’m sweating like I’ve been tending to an open pit BBQ for hours on a summer day.
In the bowels of hell. I probably even smell like brisket.
I wet a paper towel and mop away the worst of it, along with the mascara smudged raccoon-like under my eyes.
“Good night?” the woman who steps up to the sink next to mine asks. She has an accent I can’t place, British maybe? The smile in her eyes is knowing and friendly. She’s like walking sunshine with her long blonde hair and floral maxi dress.
I nod automatically, not wanting to be rude. “Yeah, it was.” And then realize how true that statement is.
“Was?” she questions, while applying lip gloss. “The night’s still young; it’s not over yet.”
Her accent is Australian and adorable, as is everything else about her. I watch her in the mirror, radiating lightheartedness like Lola, and wonder what it’s like to be the type of person whose night begins after everyone else’s ends.
Dropping the tube of gloss into her purse, she rubs her lips together and pats me on the shoulder, repeating, “It’s not over. Have fun, love.”
I smile back at this radiant woman whose words have reminded me that when I get home tonight, I’ll have to walk past boxes of Chance’s things, climb into an empty bed with his ghost, and likely troll his Instagram feed like a scorned, bitter ex. “How about you have enough fun for the both of us?”
She laughs unexpectedly loud, “Done,” and winks at me on her way out the door.
With a dull ache in my chest, I take comfort in the fact that I have no doubt she will. Taking my cell from the back pocket of my jeans as I quickly exit the restroom into the labyrinth that doubles as a hallway, I begin to tap out a text to Lola,
My bladder and I are friends again. I’m on my wa
And collide like a battering ram into a solid object.
“I’m so sorry,” I reflexively apologize.
At the same time, he says, “Shit, I’m sorry. Totally my fault.”
Eyes still downcast, I realize I’m gripping his arm with my free hand to brace myself through the rebound and regain my balance.
He’s doing the same: cell in one hand, my arm in the other.
The difference being that while he’s steady on his feet, I’ve managed to rip his sweatshirt in my inelegant attempt to not fall on my ass.
“Oh my God, I’ve mangled your sleeve,” I say, horrified.
“The sleeve gave way, so you didn’t. That’s a fair trade; don’t worry about it. You okay?” the man I’ve assaulted asks with genuine concern.
His hushed, gravelly voice sends an honest-to-God, full-body lust shiver through me—which has never, in my life, happened.
Releasing the soft, shredded cotton from my grip, I take a half step back.
“Yeah. The dangers of texting while walking are real. Don’t try it at home, kids,” I joke, before apologizing sincerely again.
“I’m so sorry.” When I finally lift my chin to ask, “Are you okay?” a set of intense hazel eyes are there to meet mine.
They’re a kaleidoscope of green and gold.
His head, covered in a black hood, nods, and he laughs quietly.
“The dangers are real. I’m fine.” Goddamn, his smile is even cuter up close.
I feel the pressure of his fingers lighten, and his thumb gently sweeps my inner wrist, not once but twice.
It’s kind, not creepy. His eyes rove my face, assessing for any damage from the impact.
“I’m really sorry,” he apologizes again.
There’s a processing delay, but when my brain finally catches up with my tingling body, it shouts, Say something!
It’s him! “Fuck, you’re pretty.” That thought was only supposed to exist in my head, but it slipped past the gatekeeper because alcohol has apparently given my filter the night off.
I wonder what he would look like out of those clothes flat on his back with my mouth wrapped around his—
“Ever! Hurry up, man! I need help with the van!” someone shouts from down the rabbit hole behind me.
I’m not the most intuitive person. I’m hit or miss when reading people, but for a split second, the nearness of him feels like mutual attraction. And then I blink. It’s the alcohol. The floodgates open and embarrassment surges, heating my cheeks. I avert my gaze.
“Ever!” The demand comes again.
“Gimme a minute, Jess!” the body in front of me, the one that smells like fabric softener and sweat, responds.
His name is Ever. I store that away with the voice, and the hands, and the smile in the fantasy file I’ll enthusiastically thumb, or more accurately finger, through later.
“What’s your name?” he asks in a soft, deep rumble that short-circuits something in my brain.
On cue, the up-for-anything Australian woman walks up behind him. “There you are,” she chides playfully.
His eyes still on me, “Do you—" but I cut him off because I suddenly feel like the third wheel.
“I better get going.” Stating the obvious is unnecessary. I need to move on and get back to my life. He needs to get back to his. And her, clearly, but because I don’t know how to not make things awkward, I add, “It’s past my bedtime.”
He laughs again, and it hits me how sincere it sounds. “Me too.”
Sure, it is, I think. Ms. The Night’s Still Young is primed and ready; you’re not sleeping any time soon.
He lets me make the first move, and as I walk around the cutest couple to ever couple, they both say, “Night.”
“Night,” I echo. What does it say about me that I’ve already removed myself from my fantasy and am picturing the two of them going at it instead? Jesus Christ, even my imagination is substituting a pinch hitter now.
On my way out, I take a few quick photos of the band’s banner on stage. There’s a venue employee flitting around like a worker ant, dismantling the stage setup.
Out front, Lola is leaning against the brick exterior near the front doors, cigarette between her lips, pecking away at her cell phone with a single pointer finger like it’s her first day with a smartphone.
“Hey,” I say as I approach.
She takes a drag from her cigarette and angles her head slightly to blow the smoke away from me. “Hey. I was just texting you. What took you so long? I was worried I’d have to sweet-talk my way back in to rescue you.” She wasn’t worried. It takes a lot to worry Lola.
I contemplate not telling her about my encounter because I know she’ll grill me and then tell me I did it all wrong. Then I tell her anyway because that’s what sisters do. “I ran into the guitarist on my way out of the restroom.”
The pause is long. When her smile morphs into something more serious, she asks, “You’re fucking kidding me?”
I shake my head, and when my smile breaks through, she grabs my arm.
“Holy shit, what happened?”
“I literally ran into him. Like a wrecking ball.” I rub my forehead, realizing only now that it’s a little sore and a small bump is forming. “We were both on our phones and weren’t paying attention. I tore the sleeve of his hoodie to break my fall. It was not a meet-cute. A meet-brute, maybe?”
She shakes my arm a little too hard, the way only siblings can get away with. “And then you talked?”
“Well, there were several apologies on both sides, a heavy dose of internal lusting on my side, and then I told him he was pretty and it was past my bedtime,” I explain, trying to keep it vague.
She shakes her head in open disappointment. “You did not tell him it was past your bedtime.”
“Well, it is. Plus, there was a cute woman with a cool accent waiting on him.”
She shakes my arm again. “Please, please, please for the love of the Goddess, tell me you at least took a selfie with him?” She always refers to the Goddess. It’s a nod to her feminist roots and a middle finger to an upbringing she vehemently resents.
I laugh because she knows I have an aversion to selfies. “You know I don’t take selfies.” I’ve never liked seeing myself in photos.
She drops my arm and huffs. “For him, you make an exception to your lame-ass rule, Soph. You snuggle up to that gorgeous specimen, smile like you fucking mean it, and click off five or six shots so you can dump the ones where your eyes are closed.”
I shrug an apology.
Her shoulders drop melodramatically, she sighs heavily, and then she loops her arm through mine as we walk to the taxi line. When we’re sitting in the backseat and well into our journey home, she asks, “Is his voice as sexy as the rest of him?”
I look at her and tilt my head to one side like I’m thinking it over. “Sexier. He could recite the Declaration of Independence, and I’d probably come.”
She rolls the window down and momentarily hangs her head out like a joy-riding dog. “Fuck, why didn’t I have to piss? I’m the one who had a kid. Shouldn’t I be the one with the delicate bladder?”
“Absolutely.”
Pulling her head in and rolling up the window, she looks at me, her long, auburn hair whipped by the wind into a tangled mess. She looks crazed and somehow stunning at the same time, beauty illuminated by unrestrained emotion allowed out in the open. “Damn straight.”
At home, I lead a suddenly sleepy and still intoxicated Lola downstairs, help her out of her dress and heels, and into bed. She’s half asleep when I return with a glass of water and two aspirins.
“The room’s spinning,” she says as she props up on an elbow and takes them obediently.
“No doubt.” Propping her pillows up and easing her back into them so she’s not lying flat but can still sleep, I ask, “Better?”
She smiles with closed eyes. “Better.”
As I turn off the light, she whispers in her sleepiest voice, “Post the rest of the photos you took tonight. Miguel and her cats are waiting.”
I have very few followers on Instagram, but one, in particular, has liked and commented on every photo I’ve shared since I started my account six years ago.
According to his profile his name is Miguel, and he lives in S?o Paulo.
Lola jokes that Miguel is actually retired CIA and lives in Scranton with her twelve rescue cats.
“With bated breath. Especially Skittles the Persian,” I deadpan.
Lola has named all the imaginary cats.
A muffled laugh drifts through the dark. “Skittles is the calico.”
I laugh at the correction because, even drunk, her memory is top notch. “Sleep tight, Lo.”
“Nighty night, Soph.”
In my bedroom, behind closed doors, I open the windows to get some air circulating, strip out of my jeans and top, slip on my oversized Spiritbox tee, and climb into bed under the top sheet.
In the dark, I risk a deep inhale. I smell him.
It’s his pillow. Or the sheets. Or my memory being an asshole and sticking the knife in and twisting.
Chance, always predictable in his steady normalness, turned out to be not so predictable. Or steady. Or normal.
I know I shouldn’t, but with a knot in my throat, I open Instagram and type in C-H-A. Don’t do this! the protective side of my brain shouts.
I’ve never been a very good listener.
There’s one new post.
It’s an hour old.
And he’s not alone.
“That fucknut,” I whisper.
It’s a selfie, Chance and a woman at a restaurant. Since when does he take selfies? He’s always been anti-selfie, like me. She’s cute. She’s blonde. But more than anything else, she’s young.
He’s tagged her in the caption.
Italian with @ashkaye_2003
Again, I can’t stop myself from tapping on her name to open her profile.
Ashton Kaye
21, Aries, Yoga Enthusiast, Horrible Bowler
Kudos for a sense of humor or blunt honesty, I guess.
Her posts are mostly selfies. She looks flawless and fun in all of them.
I’ve always been the type of person who is rock solid in areas like responsibility, work ethic, and daily flossing, but unfortunately woefully lacking in others.
In other words, I’m human. But damn if looking at this woman doesn’t stir up all kinds of feelings in me.
I suppose jealousy or rage should come out on top, but more than anything else, I just feel boring… and old.
Old.
At thirty-four.
She’s twenty-one. Biologically, I couldn’t be her mother. But in my mind, that ages in dog years, I could.
And Chance is thirty-nine. He could biologically be her father.
Gross.
Hypocrite, my memory chides, as it flips through a quick highlight reel of Ever images from earlier tonight.
I sigh and then whisper, “Since I’m going to hell anyway,” as I search Thicker Than Water, follow them, and scroll through their feed.
There are only a dozen photos, but Ever is in most of them. And, whether posed or candid, he’s eye-catching.
My eyelids are drooping and heavy. I need to shut this down. Sleep now, stalk later.
Before I do, I choose the five best photos of the night, edit them to black and white, and include them along with a twenty-second video clip in a single post. No caption, no hashtags, because that’s how I roll.