Chapter 8
Koen~
Three weeks later, I was still showing up at Liquid IV in the hopes of running into Rya, and the plan was to keep showing up until I saw her again.
Though I hadn’t pressed Leandra for more information about Rya that night, she’d gone home with Joseph, and the next day, he had tagged her in a photo of the two.
Armed with that notification, I had managed to find out that Rya’s last name really was Harlow, but upon my online stalking of the woman, I had also discovered that all of her accounts had been set to private, which had done me no good.
What had been especially curious was how she’d even had her DMs disabled, so I hadn’t even been able to send her a message through her accounts.
Now, while I understood how direct messaging could get out of hand when people didn’t have your phone number, I didn’t know anyone who’d ever disactivated their DMs completely.
Granted, with social media being the toxic cesspool that it was, I could understand how someone would want to control what they were subjected to while online, but I’d just never known someone who practiced that level of privacy before.
So, after getting nowhere online, I had resorted to heading back to the bar with the hopes of running into her.
The bartender had said that she randomly showed up on Wednesdays, and at this point, I wasn’t overly concerned with looking too obvious anymore.
I wanted to ask her out, and I was hoping that my borderline stalking skills would show just how much I wanted to get to know her.
“The usual?” Ellen asked, the daytime bartender that was beginning to know me well.
“Please,” I replied as I took my seat at the end of the bar.
Now, luckily for me, Liquid IV had been designed where you could see the front door from any seat at the bar, and whether it’d been meant to be or not, it was a great safety feature.
If you were being responsible enough to pay attention, then no one would be able to come from behind to surprise you.
It was also convenient in the event of a fire or any other hazard like that.
Getting comfortable, a baseball game was on, and while I liked sports just as much as the next guy, I wasn’t here for that.
Nonetheless, I watched it just for something to do.
Honestly, I was trying to appear like a normal guy who’s just having a drink after work, but since my office was miles from here, no one who knew me would buy that.
Just then, the door opened, and all six heads that were perched on a barstool turned to see who was walking in, and my heart slammed in my chest when I saw that it was Rya.
She had her hair thrown up in a simple ponytail again, her face looked fresh like last time, and she was dressed in a green shirt, black jeans, and no jewelry.
“Hey, Rya,” Ellen greeted as I watched her make her way up to the bar. “The usual?”
“Yep, please,” she answered as she took a seat clear on the other side of the bar.
Needing an opening, when Ellen walked back to the refrigerator, I said, “I’ve got her drink.”
Ellen’s blue eyes regarded me closely for a second before just nodding, and I couldn’t believe how nervous I felt.
I helped my father broker million-dollar deals all the time, and that felt like child’s play compared to asking Rya out.
I wasn’t even sure why, either. I was twenty-seven and had asked out my fair share of women, so this wasn’t anything new.
Still...
My heartbeat was drumming in my ears as I watched Ellen place Rya’s beer in front of her, and when she gestured towards me, clearly letting her know that I was buying her beer, Rya looked over, and the surprise in her green eyes could be seen all the way from where I was sitting.
Nonetheless, as was customary, I raised my own beer, saluting and acknowledging that she was here.
Rya lifted her beer in return, and I felt the rejection like a quick kick to the chest, but when Rya stood up, then began making her way to the end of the bar, my hopes began to soar before I realized that she might just be walking over to reject me in private.
“Hey,” I greeted as she took a seat next to me, and because I was an idiot, I was secretly pleased that there were two empty barstools between us and the rest of the bar.
“Hey,” she greeted back. “Fancy seeing you here again.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to make up some stupid excuse of why I was here, but then I remembered that I was a grown ass man.
I was here to ask her out, and it’d be stupid to pretend otherwise.
Besides, most relationships that began with lies-even if they were little ones-weren’t destined to make the distance.
Plus, if she suspected that I was lying, then it’d be over before it even started, and that was not a road that I was willing to go down.
“Not really,” I replied. “I heard that you stopped by some Wednesdays, so I’ve been coming by in hopes of seeing you again.”
Her brows shot upward in surprise. “Leandra told you that?”
I immediately shook my head. “No, she didn’t. I asked the bartender from that night about you, and all he’d cop to was that you stop by on Wednesdays every now and again.”
“Okay, you’ve got my attention,” she said. “What did you want to see me for?”
My brows immediately furrowed because she sounded like she was speaking to a door-to-door salesman. She didn’t sound flirty or even friendly, and truth be told, she didn’t sound at all happy to be running into me. Nevertheless, I bit the bullet.
“Well, I was wondering if you’d like to go out with me this weekend...or whichever weekend works for you?”
Rya’s entire body froze, and it was the most uncomfortable reaction that I’d ever gotten from a woman after asking her out. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I wanted to know if you’d like to go out with me this weekend?” I repeated.
She looked genuinely at a loss, and that didn’t bode well for me. “You’re...you’re asking me out? On a date?”
I nodded as I grinned a bit. “I’m trying to, but this is coming out a lot more awkward than I had expected.”
“That’s probably because it makes no sense why you’d be asking me out,” she replied rather evenly. However, when she started looking around the bar, that’s when shit really went south. “I mean, unless this is some kind of a joke. Are your friends hiding in the back or something?”
“Wow,” I remarked, more offended than I could remember ever being. “I’m not sure what I did the other night to make you think that I was that big of an asshole, but that’s not what’s going on here.”
Her green eyes looked me directly in the face as she said, “Well, excuse me for assuming that you might be taking one for the team. Since Leandra and Joseph got along that night, it’s quite possible that you’re here on his behalf for some...some double-date sort of thing.”
The quick reminder of how Teddy had been an asshole was enough to put me in my place. “Teddy’s a jerk when he’s drunk,” I told her honestly.
“I imagine that he’s probably a jerk when he’s also sober,” she retorted. “But that’s probably boys just being boys to you.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I replied as evenly as I could. “He’s Ivan’s friend, not mine.”
Before she could say anything to that, Ellen was back, and she was placing a drink token in front of Rya. “That’s from David.”
Rya looked over towards the other end of the bar, and that’s when a man who appeared to be in his late forties lifted his beer to acknowledge her.
Now, while I could just be smarting from her lack of enthusiasm at me being here, he wasn’t looking at her like she was just another patron that he was familiar with.
The beer was an invitation, and I couldn’t help but judge why a man his age would send a young girl like Rya a beer.
“Tell him thanks,” Rya instructed as she smiled up at Ellen.
“Will do,” she replied cheerfully.
“Do you know that guy?” I asked, not being able to help myself.
Rya looked back at me, her brows furrowed a bit. “Look, I’m not sure what’s going on, but we both know that you’re not here to ask me out on a date. So, how about you tell me the real reason that you’re here, Koen?”
That took me aback. “Why can’t I be here to ask you out on a date?”
“Because you have no reason to,” she answered pointedly. “With your looks and money, you can have any girl that you want, and before you give me some nonsense about my personality, we barely spoke the other night. We didn’t converse long enough for you to get any real sense of my character.”
This was the craziest conversation that I’d ever had with a woman, and I was honestly struggling a bit. While she was being direct to the point of rude, she wasn’t exactly sounding rude. Again, she sounded like she was reciting a product description or entertaining a salesman.
“That’s why you go out on dates, Rya,” I pointed out. “To get to know someone better.”
“I understand that, Koen,” she replied a bit condescendingly. “However, what I don’t understand is why you want to get to know me better.”
Yeah, this wasn’t going at all like I had planned.