Chapter 1 #2
I hate it here already, I think, scowling at the bar top, missing the life I had before everything happened.
Grant checks his phone, brows furrowing before clicking it off with rapt speed and I brush off his comment. “Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
I trace the lines of the cartoonishly illustrated bar top with my index finger, trying to follow it to a conclusion.
I consider spilling everything right now: telling him about Elliot, about Mom contacting me and telling me she’s sick but sober, about the twelve sticks I peed on before calling Clemmie, about leaving my art program without notice, about how if our parents find out any of this they’ll probably, finally, cut off my allowance and then I’ll be directionless and poor.
Instead, I say: “Nope. Bartender?” The wide, bulky man who crafted my drink earlier flicks his brows up at us. “Can we get—”
“She’ll have water,” my brother interrupts. “Thanks.” He checks his phone again, and I decide not to get into it with him so he doesn’t keep prying.
I squint my eyes, studying him for a long moment. His gaze flits around the bar, like he’s fighting the urge to check his phone again, and it’s so unlike him. The only other time I’ve ever seen him this distracted was in the tenth grade, with that one girl…
“This is crazy,” I finally say, my smile bleeding true contentment.
“What?” he asks, oblivious.
“You have a crush,” I tell him softly. “Is she supposed to be meetin’ you?” I imagine my brother, open-hearted in a way he rarely is and smile a little deeper.
He shakes his head, scoffing. “I don’t have a crush. And no one—she’s not meetin’ me.”
“So there is a she?” I challenge him. “And if you don’t have a crush, why are you checkin’ your phone?” I pause when I notice how unsettled he looks. “Oh my god…does she have a boyfriend?” I gasp, pretending to be scandalized.
The look he gives me is full of disgust, and I have the urge to preach at him about judgement. He’s so full of it that I sometimes wonder how we’re this related.
“No, Sloane. She’s just…unavailable.” He glances away, clearly irritated by my probing. He’s so occupied by thoughts of her, so lost in thought about this mystery woman, that he doesn’t notice when I slide his phone off the counter and unlock it.
The only girl name in his entire text log is a “Gen,” and it feels right. I tap a message into his phone, hiding it under the table when his seat swivels toward me, but it swivels back.
“What’s her name, at least?” I ask innocently.
“Gen,” he admits gruffly, and I hum like it’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever heard. Unfortunately, my brother hears his phone buzz beneath the bar, and I’m found out. “Sloane,” he groans, swiping his hand down his face.
“You needed a push! You were being kind of pathetic. Look.” I pull his phone out and show him the “I need to see you” message I sent. “She answered! See?” I show him her where are you? response, but he’s not nearly as pleased as I thought he would be.
“Did you consider that maybe I don’t need to see her?” he says, annoyance lacing the anticipation I’m tracking in his posture.
“Trouble in paradise?” I reply cheekily, typing out Pub 24 before hitting send.
“You’re here for thirty minutes…” Grant muses, and I feel his disappointment in me drop like a rock in my gut. The quick reply from Gen does little to make me feel better.
“Well…you’re welcome. I’m gonna go to the restroom,” I lie, desperate for the kind of disillusionment I usually find in places like this.
I spot the billiards table behind the thick haze of cigarette smoke and feel oddly at home when a buzzy Budweiser sign comes into focus, the blue glow like a homing beacon.
I run my hand along the smooth velvet that runs parallel to the wood of the table, shutting my eyes for the briefest second.
I think about my flight earlier, and the stale pretzels they offered; I think about the last night in my apartment, already emptied into a storage unit; I think about breathing Elliot in, curled up against his side on the oversized bean bag chair in the loft over the top of the studio.
I let the smoke curling through the air from the couple in the corner cleanse me, and I open my eyes to find Andy, a curious smirk tugging on his lips, approaching me.
“Sloane, was it?” He says my name slowly, like he’s memorizing the feel of it and for a second I’m surprised he knows it until I remember where I am and how quickly news spreads here.
“I see you’ve been asking around about me, Andrew?” I mock, walking past him to grab a pool stick from the rack, fighting the way my lips want to pull upward.
“I could say the same to you,” he nods, a cocky grin on his face as he rests against the wall near the rack so that he’s facing me. “Everyone calls me Andy, by the way.”
He’s distracting to look at, with this sadness in his heavy-lidded gaze, a sea of story raging behind them, the messy tousle of his hair, the ease with which he carries himself, all broad shoulders and leaned out strength, and it’s hot. Unfortunately.
I assemble the balls in the triangle, rolling it back and forth until it’s right. Out of the corner of my eye, Andrew preps a pool stick with a blue cube of chalk.
“How do you know my brother?” I ask, hoping I’m setting an obvious boundary.
The last thing I want is Grant’s disapproval or irritation, when what I desperately need is his support—for Connie’s sake.
All she wants is to make amends with her son, to heal all the hurt she caused for however long she has left, and I told her I could do it.
I would get him to talk to her…eventually.
His eyes, an amber brown, narrow at me. “I’m on the team,” he says, his smirk softening into an assessing smile as he takes me in shamelessly.
I can tell by the heated glint in his eyes that he appreciates my red cowboy boots, the black miniskirt wrapped tightly around my hips, the sliver of skin left exposed by my crop top despite the oversized bomber jacket I have on.
There’s this unspoken dialogue that happens in the space after this question. It happens when he lets my gaze rest on him, when he doesn’t look away, and it’s full of recognition. Like, this could easily happen and, under other circumstances, it would.
I pull my bottom lip through my teeth, letting my head roll before leveling him with a knowing look. “So you play ball.” I glance at him sideways, through my lashes, and lean across the edge of the pool table, lining up my first shot. “Point guard?”
“Yeah,” he says, surprised. “You play?” I’m tall, and Grant’s my twin, so it’s not a crazy assumption, but there was only one athletic gene to spare when we were in the womb. It went solely to him.
“No,” I laugh, wiggling my fingers as I hold up my hand. “I paint.”
“She paints,” he murmurs, his gaze casting downward like he’s mulling something over. “Why haven’t I seen you before?” When his gaze pulls back up, his eyes are filled with subtle intensity, like we’re the only people in the room.
“I only visit when I have to.”
“So you’re visiting?” he pries, and I hate the blush that gives me away.
“Visiting…for the foreseeable future,” I laugh, and the white ball violently shatters the careful pyramid. “I was in San Francisco.”
“And you left?” he asks, watching the balls scatter. “I grew up in Huntington Beach, but we made our way up north at least once a year.”
Warmth emerges in his tone when he talks about it, and I immediately know he loved it there. That he, like me, wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have to be.
“You miss it?” The balls roll to a slow stop.
“Everyday,” he says, like it’s the only right answer.
“Why’d you leave?” he asks, the sound softly brushing against my skin, and my stomach dips.
Somewhere in this bar is that handsome stranger who wouldn’t have asked any questions, but I ended up here.
He takes his shot, sinking a solid ball in with ease.
“Are you always this nosy when you meet someone new?” I plant a hand on my hip, cognizant of the way Andrew watches the lazy swing of my long hair.
His throat bobs as he steps forward, shaking his head. “No. But it isn’t everyday that a woman like you walks into a bar.” Thinly veiled lust burns in the back of his gaze, and I laugh.
I roll my eyes, wondering how often that line gets used. He starts to say something, but I cut him off, deciding to save him the effort. “Andy—” my head dips “—this isn’t gonna happen.”
His eyes narrow in amusement, his lips tugging up as he huffs a laugh. “Because…of your brother?”
“That’s honestly insultin’,” I say instead of yes, because I hate that I’m having to tip toe around his irrationality. “And makes this even more of no.” Another lie, because I’ve always loved an arrogant man.
See: Elliot.
Stop thinking about Elliot.
He steps toward me, a smile playing at the corners of his eyes. “Can I at least plead my case?” he asks in a low murmur that feels like he’s wrapping his arms around my waist. He’s not touching me, though. He’s good at this.
“For what? I know who you are, Andrew,” I say on a breathy laugh, fidgeting with the blue chalk.
“And who am I, exactly?” he says, and when I look up I really notice the gorgeously hard lines and muscle subtly rippling beneath his calm exterior.
I notice the perceptiveness that probably makes him a superior point guard, because underneath all of that cool exterior, beneath the cocky confidence and charm, he’s calculating, reading the room, reading me.
I hate that he’s trying to see anything at all, when I just want to disappear.
Hands firmly planted on the velvet edge of the table, I lean forward, pinning him with my gaze, and try to rattle him.
“A fuck boy, for one.” That barely amuses him, so I try harder.
“Deceptively laidback. No strings attached, a good time.” I cock my head to the side, smirking as his jaw twitches.
“I bet you make girls feel real special.” He winces and I catch it before I take my shot.
“And when you let them down, no one can really blame you, because you’re just not that serious.
Except you are.” I see his throat bob. “You’re way too determined to be that superficial.
I know your playbook,” I tell him, flicking my gaze down. “Your turn.”
Andrew sidles up beside me, closer than he needs to, and sinks one of his solids with barely any force, watching as the other balls ricochet across the table, unbothered. Fucker.
“Then you know.” Any trace of that over confident smile is gone. In its place is a quiet one—overwhelming and intoxicating. It pins me in place.
“Know what?” I turn my head to face him, only to find we’re closer than I expected. He’s surveying every inch of my face, until his gaze lands on my lips.
“Exactly what you’d get,” he tells me, wetting his lips as the hint of a smirk travels from the corners of his mouth to his eyes and it’s like I can see it in the dark pools of his irises—the tension.
It’s palpable—feels easily combustible—and I could lean just an inch forward and take it, no questions asked.
I know it, and he knows that I know it, and that is exactly the kind of power I refuse to hand a man ever again, even for just one night. This already feels lopsided, like the beginnings of a power struggle.
Where the hell is ugly shirt man?
“It’s not happenin’,” I whisper, stepping back, pulling the usual nonchalance back into my features. “Clearly, you haven’t seen my brother when he’s angry,” I add with a wink, registering my brother zeroing in on us.
“Or I have, and I just don’t care,” he says. My eyes dip to his mouth without my permission. He sees it, that cockiness broadening his shoulders in real time, and I briskly turn away.
“Well maybe I’m just not into you,” I tell him, leaning across the table as I try to sink a solid green. A curse flies out of my mouth when I fail.
“Sure,” he says, dipping his head low to whisper right in my fucking ear. To my dismay, I shiver just before he rights himself, busying himself with lining up his next shot.
“Thought you got lost in the toilet,” Grant huffs as he swipes at the profuse amount of smoke in the back corner of the bar. “Can you smoke indoors?”
“Don’t be such a Debbie Downer. Live a little,” I tell him as I shove the stick into his chest, sneaking off toward the dance floor before Andrew says another infuriating thing.