Chapter 4
Tuesday nights are called Ladies Night at Water Street Tavern, one of the campus bars, where well drinks are all a dollar
for girls. I stand at the busy bar with my debit card in one hand and my empty glass in the other. Wes and Marissa are at
the other end of the square-shaped bar and from here I have the perfect view of her twirling her ash-blond ponytail through
her fingers as she smiles up at him. Wes leans on the counter, his white quarter sleeve tightening on muscled arms. He turns
to whisper something in her ear, exposing his cut jawline, and Marissa laughs. The grip on my glass tightens.
“Jealous?” Asher leans back on the bar beside me, his head cocked to the side.
I look over at him with a tight smile. “Jealous of what?”
He turns around and leans down, propping his elbows on the counter so that we’re side by side. His bare arm brushes against
mine and I tuck it closer to my side. “My cousin, over there with his girlfriend.” The emphasized word is like a punch to
the gut.
“Not at all.”
“Then why are you standing here staring at them with a white-knuckled grip on your glass?”
I loosen my hold, flexing my fingers. “I’m just waiting for a drink.”
Asher smirks, and it’s hard to deny that he’d be just as attractive as Wes if he wasn’t such a prick.
“I’m also seeing someone, so,” I lie.
“Another professor?” he muses. “What does this one teach? Anatomy?”
I turn my gaze back to him. “Do you have a reason to be over here other than to be a dick?”
“I do, actually.” He stands, and with our height difference I have to look up at him. “I’m conducting a little experiment.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I say under my breath, rolling my eyes.
“Last night I asked Wes if he’d mind if I asked you out.”
My eyes practically pop out of my head. “You did what?”
“And you know what he said?” Asher goes on. “‘Why would I care?’” The words are another knife that strikes hard and true.
“He doesn’t know that I know what you two did. But you know what I think?” I only stare ahead, my teeth grinding together.
“I think he would care.” Asher leans down again, this time getting so close that his mouth practically touches my ear as he
whispers, “Very much.”
I lean away, giving him a hateful glare. “And your experiment is what exactly?”
He remains close enough to whisper, this time tucking a piece of my hair back, slowly tracing his fingers over the strands.
“Working,” he says, moving just his eyes to where Wes and Marissa still stand. Marissa is talking to the bartender, but Wes
is staring right at us, his jaw clenched. He looks away when our eyes meet.
Asher walks away, no doubt feeling satisfied with whatever fucked-up game he is playing, and I order two vodka sodas, both doubles, and both for me.
I walk back to the tables that our group occupies and take my seat in between Annica and Dani.
“What was Asher whispering to you about?” Annica asks when I sit down.
“Yeah, we were debating on coming up there to save you,” Dani says.
“Nothing important, just his usual hateful bullshit.” I look across the tables to where Asher sits still grinning. He winks
at me and I gag internally. “He’s so annoying. Why have we even tolerated him in this group for so long?”
Annica leans back in her chair. “Because he’s Wesley’s cousin and even though we don’t like him, the boys do.”
“And because he’s hot,” Dani adds. We both give her a look. “What? He is.”
Annica scoffs. “Are you forgetting about the time we were walking to their house in the pouring rain and he drove past us
honking his horn instead of giving us a ride?”
“Or when the PC gossip page posted my DUI mug shot, only to find out he was the one who sent it in,” I add.
“Well, yeah, I didn’t say he was nice to us; I just said he’s not the worst thing to look at.”
“Change of subject,” I say. “How are your classes going this week, Dani?”
“While you guys are getting a syllabus week, my classes have all jumped right into the material. But I get to do clinicals
this year and I am so excited. What about you guys?”
“Our only exciting class is senior seminar,” Annica says.
“Yeah, our professor is having us all write a short story, and at the end of the year he submits the best one to Boston’s short-story writing competition,” I add.
Dani’s face lights up. “Really? That would be so amazing for you guys!”
“Well, it would only be one of us.” Annica looks at me and I see the competitive fire in her eyes.
“It could very well be neither of us,” I say, trying to put it out.
Jake comes back to the tables with a tray of shots full of a clear liquid.
“What are these?” Sam asks, hesitant to take one.
“I have no idea,” Jake says. He lives for chaos, and it shows. Sometimes I think Jake may be the only one in this friend group
who makes more reckless decisions than I do.
Charlie picks one up and questions, “You don’t know what kind of shots you ordered?”
“I told the bartender to surprise me.” Jake beams. “Happy first Ladies Night of the year, bitches!”
We all take one. My eyes slide over to Wes, where he has Marissa on his lap. “Actually, give me two,” I say, reaching across
the table again.
In the low light of the bathroom at work, I don’t look that hungover. With my hands gripping the sides of the porcelain sink
I ask myself why I picked up a double the day after Ladies Night. Tuesday nights can get a little out of control due to the
dollar drinks, but it’s syllabus week—it’s practically like a free week to get adjusted. I’m just getting adjusted, that’s
all.
The wine bar I work at, Cantine, is located in Bloomfield, the town next to Pembroke, a rich little suburb full of WASP moms married to lawyers and CEOs.
The building sits in the quaint town square in between a Lululemon store and a vegan ice cream shop.
Each shift I watch the stay-at-home moms walk around the square, going from shop to shop while their kids play in the grass square that the shopping area surrounds.
Until they come in for happy hour, kids in tow, and order cheese plates and talk shit with their other rich friends about Lisa, whose husband lost his job and had to pull her son from private school to go to public school.
The horror. But it’s not the wine and cheese that brings them in; it’s Tristan Brent.
When I walk out of the bathroom, I stop short of the bar, because there he is stocking the glasses. I run to the back of the
kitchen where the schedule is, and sure enough, there is his name below mine.
“Fuck,” I whisper to myself.
Tristan Brent is a shameless flirt. The twenty-two-year-old had been working at the wine bar all throughout college, and was
the one to train me when I started working here last year. I would watch and learn as he greeted everyone with that side smile
that held too-perfect teeth and created a too-perfect single dimple on his left cheek, his blue-gray eyes holding each stare
in conversation. With light brown clean-cut hair, a finance degree, and a part-time gig as a firefighter, he was every WASP
mom’s wet dream. I used to laugh at the grown women who came in here and fell over him like schoolgirls but soon I, too, found
myself struggling to find words when he looked at me. It wasn’t long before he screwed me over and I had to kill him.
In my journal, obviously.
I decide to go back out and just pretend he’s not there. He’s standing behind the bar, arms crossed, leaning against the counter. I walk in and start rolling silverware, not sparing him a glance.
“I take it you’re still mad at me,” I hear him say. I don’t give him the satisfaction of a response. “Over something I didn’t
do.” I pick up a rag and start wiping down the bar. “Come on, Sloane, it’s been months. I can’t get a hold of you, because
I’m assuming you blocked me. And you’ve purposely scheduled yourself to avoid working with me for the past six months.”
I finally give in. “And there’s a reason for all of that.”
“I never made that bet.”
The bet was one that he made with our two cooks, that he could get both me and Alaina, the other new waitress at the time,
to sleep with him before his last shift, which was supposed to be at the end of the spring last year. But here he is, still
working here.
“Honestly, Tristan, whatever. I just decided I don’t even care anymore whether you did or didn’t make the bet. Let’s just
move on.” But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Because I do care. So much so that you’d think my name was Sloane Vendetta
Sawyer. I just couldn’t let go of the past. But when I think of Jonah, and how I wish that I could’ve had just one last conversation
with him . . . I am willing to try.
“Oh.” He’s taken aback by my sudden change of heart. “Okay, great. Let’s get this shift started then, bar buddy.”
Tristan opens the doors right at 11 a.m. and in walks Asher McCavern.
“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I mutter.
He takes a seat right in the middle of the bar. “I’d like a beer.” He flashes an arrogant smile that makes me want to punch
him.
“And I’d like you to leave,” I say, putting my hands on my hips.
He remains seated and pulls his phone from his pocket. He types something in and then lays his phone on the bar. It rings
Annica. I quickly grab it and hit the end call button.
“What kind of beer do you want?” I toss his phone back at him.
“What’s on draft?” he asks.
It’s a wine bar: The entire back wall of the room is lined with hundreds of bottles on shelves with a rolling ladder attached.
Whenever I have to use it I think of that scene in Beauty and the Beast when Belle slides across the library on one. Except these aren’t books—they’re wine bottles—and I guess that makes me Beauty
and the Bottles. Unless I’m hungover like today, then it’s more like Bottles and the Beast.
I point beside me at the only three draft handles we have. “Use your eyes,” I say.
He only huffs a laugh at my blatant rudeness. He chooses the IPA and I grab a glass to pour, purposely not a prechilled one
because he doesn’t deserve it. It’s the little spiteful things.
“I actually came here to talk to you,” he says.
“Our arrangement was free drinks, not conversation.” I set his room-temp glass down in front of him.
“Fine, then I’ll talk, you listen.” He takes a long sip of the beer and sets it down, before casually running his hand through
his hair in the same exact way that Wes does. “I think we can help each other out. You want Wes, and I want the family business.”
I blink at him, confused. “How do these things even relate?”
“Our family’s resort in Colorado is run by his dad, so naturally it goes to Wes, but he doesn’t want it.
I do. And I only get a shot if he passes on it.
” I know all about their fancy ski resort in Vail.
Their grandfather started the business and passed it down to his oldest son, Wesley’s father, but he and Asher’s father work together on it. Or so I thought.
“What does this have to do with me? And how do you know he doesn’t want it, did he tell you that?”
“No, but I can tell. His dad wants him to move out there after graduation and run the day-to-day at the resort. Wesley hates
it there but is too afraid to disappoint his dear old dad. That’s where you come in. I can help you win him over, if you can
convince him not to take the job.”
“Why would you think he even wants me in the first place?”
“My experiment, remember? I suspected he’d be jealous. I just needed to confirm it.”
“Then why would he say he just wants to be friends?”
Asher shrugs. “He likes his girls to be predictable, like Marissa. Cookie-cutter sorority girl with two brain cells, but her
dad is on the board of trustees for the school and I hear she gives good head.”
I roll my eyes.
“But you, Sawyer, are unpredictable. And so is whatever would come out of a relationship between the two of you. The whole
dynamic of the group could implode, which, honestly, I would enjoy seeing.”
“There is something wrong with you,” I say. “And by ‘unpredictable’ you mean I’m not up to his standards, is that it?”
“Well, you sleep with married men and drink and drive. I don’t think you’d be my aunt’s first pick for her son, but”—he holds up a finger to silence me before I can even get started—“I can help with that.”
“So that’s how I’m going to win him over? By making him jealous? With you?” I laugh at how ridiculous that sounds. “Like anyone
is going to believe that I’d ever date you.”
“Ouch.” He takes down the rest of the beer in a few gulps and sets the glass on the counter. “Just think about it,” he says,
before walking out of the bar.
I grab his empty glass and imagine Wes and me together. But do I want it if I have to scheme with Asher to get it?