Chapter 19
LOREN
Rat Bag
Call me now.
Somehow, I managed to keep it together until the end of the day, but the moment I get back to my apartment, madness descends, and I spend the next hour deep diving into Rebecca’s socials and kicking myself for not stalking her sooner. At least then I could’ve found out the news in private.
Okay. Time to regroup.
If I stay in this apartment, this disaster is going to consume me.
I need to get out of here.
I need Meg.
Thankfully, she answers on the first ring. “How are you?”
Terrible. Shitty. Angry. Sad. Spiraling. “I want to go out.” Scratch that. “I need to go out.”
“Tell me when and where, babe.”
“Meet me here in an hour.”
“See you in sixty.”
We hang up, and I head into mold-central for a quick shower to wash the stress sweat from my skin. Then I change into a silky green dress that I was saving for a special occasion.
Being cheated on seems like as good a reason as any to wear the outfit. It’s not as if I’ll be celebrating anything worthwhile any time soon.
Hidden beneath is my favorite bra of all time. My secret weapon.
Meg arrives right as I’m putting the finishing touches on my mascara. “Damn, girl. Your boobs look fantastic.”
“Thank you.” I always feel like a superhero in this bra. It’s like a hero cape for my boobs. “Meg, meet sex bra.” My best-kept secret that has seen too little action of late.
“That thing is doing wonders for your rack. You are getting some tonight.”
After what happened this morning, “getting some” is the last thing on my mind.
“Oh, no. I want every single man who sees me in this to suffer in agony when they realize they’ll never get a glimpse of what’s under here.
” I don’t care if Harry Styles himself waltzes into the bar. This girl is off-limits.
Agreeing that going back into the city sounds like a particular brand of torture neither of us want to endure, we decide to find a bar close by.
Meg offers to drive and then we’ll catch a ride share home, which is smart because neither of us plan to be anywhere near sober enough to get behind the wheel.
The place where we end up doesn’t look like much from the outside, with Christmas lights still dangling from the gutters and neon signs in all the windows, but the inside is packed. Unlike the bars and restaurants on Broadway, there isn’t one pair of cowboy boots in sight.
As we make our way to the bar, the crowd seems to part like the Red Sea, and I discover a familiar face behind the taps.
“Holy shit.” I grab Meg’s arm, dragging her closer. “I know him.”
Her head swings, and her lips kick up. “Which one?”
“The guy in the black shirt. That’s my neighbor I was telling you about.”
“Ohhh! Does this mean I finally get to meet Hot Elliott?”
I slap my palm across her lips. “Quiet!” Yeah, it’s busy in here and there is almost a zero percent chance Elliott can hear her over the music and chatter, but it would be just my luck for him to find out that I have, in fact, referred to him as “Hot Elliott” on multiple occasions.
For that reason alone, I remain at the high-top table while Meg goes to order us drinks.
No men approach me while I wait, which is a relief.
I don’t have it in me to play nice tonight.
Tonight is for drinking and drowning and bitching about the terrible monsters that are the opposite sex.
“Men are the worst,” I moan into my glass of gin and tonic as the lime inside sways like a sad little boat all alone on the sea. That’s me. I’m a sad boat. All alone. Drifting nowhere.
Meg rests her chin on her elbow with a heavy sigh. “Agreed.”
“Why do we waste our time with them?”
“Don’t know.”
Neither do I. I tip my glass into my mouth and nearly drop the thing when the ice cubes avalanche into my face. “Do you know what else is the worst? Freaking ice.”
“Awe, no. I love ice. I’d never drink water if it weren’t for ice.”
That’s true. Maybe all ice isn’t bad. Maybe it’s just the ice in my glass.
A shadow passes over us and a man appears as if he heard us talking about how awful they all are and has made it his personal mission to prove us wrong. Unable to read the room, he props his elbow on the corner of our table. “Hey there.”
Meg shoves her hand toward the intruder’s smirking face. “No.”
“What—?”
“I said no.”
The man slinks off, but not before calling us bitches.
“Do you ever wish you could bite people?” Meg muses, spinning the ice cubes around her glass with the straw.
“Just ratbag.” I catch a glimpse of Elliott smiling across the bar at a woman with purple hair as he makes her a drink. “And maybe Hot Elliott.” For two totally different reasons.
Meg snorts.
“Not in a mean way,” I add for clarification. “More like a your-biceps-look-edible-let-me-nibble-on-them sort of way.”
“He does have edible biceps.”
“He does.” Should I tell him that? If someone thought my biceps were edible, I’d want to know. Might help my self-esteem. Not that Elliott seems to have any issues with his self-esteem. Look at all those women drooling over him.
Still, sometimes our outsides don’t match our insides and we’re more self-conscious than people think.
I slide off my stool and saunter across the sticky floor to the shiny bar, nudging my way between two women in super cute dresses. Meg clambers behind me, squeezing herself into the gap as well so we’re both squished together.
Elliott is too busy pouring a bunch of shots from one of those silver shaker things to notice us. I should get his attention. Say something suave and cool that’ll be the perfect segue into a conversation about his edible arm muscles.
“I know you!”
Totally freaking nailed it.
Elliott’s hypnotic blue eyes widen, and so does that lethal smile.
For the first time since we met, there’s no guilt curling in my stomach over smiling back.
“I might have to sleep over at your place this weekend,” Meg murmurs under her breath.
For some reason, thinking of her being one of Elliott’s many conquests makes my stomach churn. Or that could be the gin swimming around in there. I really should’ve eaten more for dinner than that handful of stale corn chips.
Elliott runs the card for the man who bought the shots, then comes over to where we’re waiting and braces his hands on the edge of the bar. His very large hands that were on the back of my thigh only a couple days ago.
Was he always this tall or has he had a growth spurt?
Remember this weekend when he carried me up that hill? Good times.
The memory makes me smile. Chivalry isn’t completely dead. “You’re a bartender.”
“What gave you that impression?” he drawls, snagging a towel from behind the bar and swiping it along the wood before throwing it over his shoulder like they do on TV.
Elliott could be on TV. He has the face for it.
And the ass.
“Funny.” Hot guys shouldn’t be funny. They don’t need another weapon in their very full arsenal.
Meg extends her hand over the bar. “Hi. I’m Meg. Loren’s very single best friend.”
His hand dwarfs Meg’s when he takes it. “Elliott.”
Is he lingering?
He’s totally lingering.
That’s not fair. I want to shake his hand so he can linger.
“What can I get you two?” he asks, finally letting go.
I squint up at the shelves of bottles. Soooo many bottles. “Drinks.”
“More specific?”
“All the drinks.”
Meg holds up two fingers. Or are there four? “Two gin and tonics, please.”
“Take a seat, and I’ll drop them down to you.”
Sounds like a plan to me. I slap my credit card onto the bar and say a little prayer that the payment I made yesterday cleared some necessary funds.
Meg snaps the card right back up and stuffs it into my purse. “As if I’d let you pay after what just happened to you.”
Elliott’s brows rise toward the bits of dark hair that have fallen over his forehead. My fingers itch to push them out of his eyes but then I remember the threat of hypnosis and figure it’s better if they’re covered.
Makes the hypnosis less effective.
Everyone knows that.
He’s clearly curious about Meg’s comment but there is no way I’m telling him my woeful dating story. Except his stunning eyes are locked on me and I have to say something to break this tension coiling in my chest so— “You need a haircut.”
I am on a freaking roll here.
His full mouth breaks into another mesmerizing smile as he sweeps aside the strands with a careless hand. “Yeah, I know. It’s pretty bad.”
“It’s not bad. It just gets in your eyes, and you have pretty eyes.”
He leans an elbow on the bar, putting us way too close. Almost nose-to-nose.
Elliott has a nice nose. Straight and a little bit freckled. Never noticed that before.
The freckles. Not his nose. Clearly, I’ve noticed his nose. It’s in the middle of his beautiful face.
“Oh, yeah? Anything else you want to compliment about me?”
Okay, flirty bartender. You’re not going to hypnotize me. “You wish.”
Mic. Drop.
His deep laugh booms over the thumping base as I turn and saunter back to our table in the corner.
Let the fun begin.