by Ivy Black
“What’s going on, Bullet?” Nick asked from his seat at the bar. “Bad night?”
In order to take attention off myself and hopefully get the bar back to the state it was in when I arrived, I went and took the stool next to Nick and sat down. Sally, one of the bartenders slid me a beer without my even asking for it, but I needed it so I didn’t complain. A few people were murmuring around me, but I had no one to blame for my reputation but myself, so I did the best I could to ignore it.
“Yeah,” I said. “Bad night.”
Nick didn’t ask anything else, which I was glad for, because I was fully prepared to just drink my woes away. I couldn’t get Celia off of my mind any more than I could get her saying we were just friends with benefits out of my ears. Was that truly what she thought? That was all these past couple of months had meant to her? Just sex? Had I just misinterpreted our relationship? I’d expected that maybe Celia was moving slower than I was, but I had no idea she wasn’t getting anything else out of it.
That was disappointing to say the least.
Even though I probably wouldn’t have answered even if she had, I was even more upset to see that Celia didn’t call or even text me after I left the theme park. Part of me wanted to do the gentlemanly thing and make sure she’d successfully met up with Laura and was able to get a ride home, but if I did that, I wasn’t sure what I might say. She wasn’t a damsel in distress by any means, so I left it alone.
“So, uh,” Avery said, sitting down next to me about an hour after I arrived, “I’m gathering by the multitude of beer bottles that your big date with Celia didn’t go so well?”
“We bumped into a bunch of her friends and she told them we were just friends with benefits,” I said.
“Ouch. This girl just doesn’t let up, does she? One thing right after the other.”
I shook my head. “She’s a little ruthless.”
“That wasn’t the vibe I got when I talked to her,” Avery said. “Not only considering the fact that she looked me straight in the eyes and said she wasn’t just playing games with you. Either she’s one hell of a liar, or she’s conflicted about you.”
“What’s conflicting?” I asked. “We have an amazing time when we’re together, she obviously isn’t complaining about the sex if that’s the only thing she’s willing to admit to. Until that happened, we were having the best time at the theme park. I just don’t get what the issue is.”
“I mean, Nick had to force you to go out with her in the first place,” Avery said. “Maybe there’s a ‘hates men’ situation hidden somewhere that you don’t know about and you just have to unearth it and get rid of it. Once that barrier is broken then you should be okay, right?”
“I don’t know how to unearth it. She won’t open up to me at all and shit like this keeps happening.” I finished the latest of my beers and flagged down Sally to give me another one. She was reluctant but passed it over after a glare that I quickly grumbled, “Sorry,” for and then, “Thank you.”
“Are you getting drunk?” Avery asked. “I haven’t seen you drink this much since college.”
The theme park date kept playing over and over in my head. Cuddling in the lines for the rides, enjoying all the delicious food, getting heated in the dark ride. All up until we bumped into her friends. We were having the best time we’d had since we started dating. I very nearly started to admit how serious my feelings were starting to get for her, and I felt like it was the same for her. Was it dumb to wish that her friends just hadn’t shown up? I could have lived in ignorant bliss for a few more hours at least.
“I just don’t want to think about it,” I replied to Avery finally.
“Well, I’m about to leave, but don’t drink yourself stupid, all right?”
I waved my hand and grunted at him like a grumpy old man, and he chuckled and walked away.
And I did not listen.
Every time my beer emptied, I asked for a new one. Each time, Sally got more nervous about giving it to me, but did anyway, either because she didn’t want to cross the Steel Knights or because I rarely got drunk. Either way, it didn’t matter to me. I just wanted to be a haze of memories and so drunk that I’d be unconscious as soon as I got to my bed.
“Bar’s closin’ up,” Sally said after giving me the last of my beers and collecting the other bottles to discard. “You’re not driving, right?”
That was a good question, one I hadn’t thought of. “No. I’m way too drunk.”
“Understatement of the year, Bullet.”
She shuffled away and I fished my hand into my pocket to pull out my cell phone. As I was dragging it out, it got caught on the fabric and dropped to the floor. I let out a loud groan before hopping off my stool to bend over and get it, but in doing so, I bumped into the next guy over at the bar. He had the last of his drinks in his hand and it spilled all over his shirt.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” I slurred out and resumed trying to grab my phone. As if to make things worse, when I finally was able to claw my phone up, I bumped him again as I stood up. “Damn it. So—”
“What the fuck is your problem?” he growled at me. “If you can’t hold your liquor, don’t drink.”
“Okay, Dad,” I hissed. It was odd that he was coming at me at all on the Steel Knights’ turf, but I was too tipsy to be worried about it.
I started to return to my seat so I could finish my last beer, but the man reached over and tipped the beer over intentionally, spilling it across the bar.
“What the fuck, man?” I barked.
“What? You spilled mine, I spilled yours,” he responded.
“Mine was an accident.”
He looked back at me stone-faced. “Oops.”
I definitely felt a gut urge to sock him in the face but resisted. After the night I’d had, I didn’t want any more frustration, so I rolled my eyes, climbed off the barstool again, and started toward the door, but not without grumbling, “Dick,” under my breath.
“What the fuck you say?” Objects on the bar clattered as he stood up, but I didn’t even stop and turn around. “Hey! Get back here.”
Waving my hand through the air, I pushed through the front door of the Taphouse and walked out into the fresh, evening air. The cool air felt good against my heated face and I was hopeful that after letting the air bring down my drunkenness a little bit, I could call for an Uber. However, I didn’t get that far because the brute I’d bumped into came ambling out of the bar.
“You made a mistake turning your back to me,” he growled.
“Yeah. I’m super scared,” I replied flatly. “Just go about your business. You’re gonna get caught in the middle of something you aren’t prepared for.”
“Oh, are you a big man now?” He rolled up his sleeves. “Come on then.”
My head was pounding, and I really didn’t want to get going with this guy, but he was advancing on me and I could tell that things weren’t going to go my way. He took a few steps toward me and swung on me. I swiped my head backward away from his hand and then as his head came forward with the momentum of the swing, I slammed my head back forward, cracking it against his. There were a few people in the parking lot turning to watch us as he grabbed his head, and I could feel blood sliding down mine. He wasn’t deterred though, and he advanced me again, this time fooling me with a fake hook that he then bailed out of and gave me a hard uppercut to my stomach. I grunted as I crumpled around his fist, and my drunkenness swirled around me. My disadvantage in this fight was that I was drunk, and barely able to stay on my feet.
As he pulled his fist back, I dropped to my knees. He stood over me and grabbed me by the shirt and dragged me up to my feet and pulled his fist out to punch me, but then someone else grabbed his shoulder, flipped him around, and punched him in the face instead. As a reflex, he let me go, and I wobbled but was able to stay on my feet. I threw a punch out and struck him across the face, and as he dropped to the ground, I saw that the person standing on the other side of him that had help
ed me, was Seneca.
“You okay, VP?” Seneca said in a much more formal voice than I’d heard her use before. “Want me to rough this guy up?”
“Fuck, you’re a Knight?” the guy grunted on the ground.
I was so drunk that I hadn’t realized that because I’d come straight from my date, I didn’t have my jacket on me with my colors on it. “The Vice President,” I replied, wiping some of the blood from my head. “Get the fuck out of here.” The man scurried up from the floor and walked off, hissing a line of swear words under his breath. I looked at Seneca and probably would be embarrassed if it wasn’t for how blitzed I was. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” she replied. “Are you drunk?”
“Would something like twelve beers get you drunk?”
She laughed. “Yeah, Bullet, it would.”
“Then yes, I am definitely drunk.”
She tapped a hand on my back. “Come on then. I’ll get you home.”
“Thanks.”
Hoppa’s was a safe place to leave my bike overnight. Nick certainly wouldn’t have it towed, and with it parked in one of the Steel Knights’ designated spots, no one would dare mess with it, and we had cameras if they were dumb enough to. I’d catch an Uber back the next morning to collect it. I followed Seneca over to her bike and she climbed on, then I climbed on behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist.
“I’m just gonna use your back to keep my head from falling off,” I joked.
“Good idea,” she called back.
My head fell to Seneca’s back and the grumble of her bike as she started it up was comforting and my eyes felt heavy. I was able to keep myself awake enough to give Seneca directions to my house, which, fortunately, was only about five minutes from the bar. She parked her bike in front of my house and actually helped me off and up to my house. Fortunately, the ride back had been sobering enough to help me be able to get my keys out with minimal effort, and as soon as I opened the door, the cats started to meow angrily at me.
“I know,” I murmured.
“My dogs hate it when I’m gone all day, too,” Seneca said. She reached around the doorframe to get me in my house and then flipped the light on and then stood aside so I could pass her to cross the doorframe. “Are you good from here?”
“Yeah. Thank you for your help. I swear I don’t normally get shitty drunk.”
“Happens to the best of us. Was it Celia?” she asked.
“Yeah. That advice you gave me was great, but she decided to just reduce our relationship to fuck buddies before I even got that far.”
“If she’s a commitment-phobe, that’s pretty one-o-one. I wouldn’t give up just yet.”
I gave something between a shrug and a shake of my head. “Whatever. The ball’s in her court. I’m so exhausted with it at this point.”
“If she calls, just know you’re on the edge of a breakthrough and hang in there,” Seneca told me.
“Really?”
“Yeah. She claims to be afraid of commitment but keeps coming back. Must be something about you that she’s into.”
Celia had said something similar when she showed back up after the last time she ghosted me. “Here’s hoping.”
“See ya, Bullet,” Seneca said, turning around to head down the walkway.
“Harry,” I called after her, and she looked back at me. “You can call me Harry. Or Bullet. Whichever.”
She nodded. “Cool. See ya tomorrow, Harry.”
I kept watch as she mounted her bike. As long as my godfather and I had been looking for my younger sibling, I’d been hoping that it would be a younger brother, but Seneca was making me wish for the opposite. A little cutthroat girl to keep me in line that I could protect didn’t sound half-bad. Seneca gave me a final wave after pulling her helmet on and then rode off. I shut the door and trudged back to my bedroom. My bed felt like clouds as I face-planted it, immediately followed by the feeling of tiny paws stepping all over my back and head.
“I’m not the floor,” I grumbled into my blankets, but neither cat seemed to care.
I was just fading from consciousness when my phone rang. It took some doing to get into my pocket in a way that didn’t disturb the cats now curling up on my back, but I finally got it out and my heart leaped when I saw it was Celia. Despite knowing I should probably play a little harder to get after today’s display, I was more relieved to hear from her than anything, and I answered.
“Hello?”
“Hi,” Celia said back.
“Hi.”
She was silent for a few minutes and then said. “Harry, you obviously mean more to me than just a friend with benefits. I mean, we do feel like friends and there are certainly benefits, but I see you as… a boyfriend.”
The word shot straight to my heart. “Really?”
“Yeah. I just freaked out in front of my friends, and I don’t know why, but I’ve never really introduced anyone to them before. Plus, they make it harder by being nosy and judgmental. I like that no one’s really in our business, but I also understand that what I said was upsetting. It was entirely inaccurate.”
“Okay,” I replied.
I wanted to ask her what I did mean to her. If I was the kind of boyfriend that you hang around with for a few months and then ditch, or if I was the kind of boyfriend that you hope might turn into something more someday, but it felt stupid to ask.
“Are you done with me?” Celia asked.
“I don’t want to be. It’s really up to you. Would I be wasting my time to continue seeing you?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “I want to prove it.”
“Prove it? How?”
“Saturday is my next night out. I’m going to plan the date this time. I’ll make all the arrangements, pick you up, all of it. I want to show you that I’m in this for real.”
A smile curved onto my face. “Okay.”
“Okay,” she said, and there was relief in her voice. “I’m sorry again, for today.”
“That’s okay.”
“Can… Can I come over?” she asked.
I very nearly said yes, but then I remembered how drunk I was, and I didn’t want to seem that desperate. “When you prove it, you can.”
She let out a little snicker. “Fair enough. I’ll see you Saturday then?”
“Yeah. I’ll see you Saturday.”
“Okay. Bye.”
“Bye.”
We hung up the call, and almost immediately, my phone rang again. It was Cameron, and a pang of guilt rushed over me. I’d been selling him excuses about meeting his girlfriend for two months now, but it was probably long overdue that I met up with him and did what I told him I would.
That would have to wait until the morning when I was far less drunk, though, and before I even had the chance to change into anything more comfortable or even pull my phone out of my hand, I passed out.
Chapter Seventeen
Bullet
For a minute, I thought a fire alarm or something was going off, but it was just my phone. It was still fastened in my hand from when I was holding it the night before, and the cats were still curled up on my back like I was some kind of luxury cat bed. I pulled my phone over to my face and saw that it was Cameron again and groaned. I really did have every intention of calling him back, but I was hoping to deal with my hangover first.
With a grunt, I pressed the button to answer the call and then set it on speaker and dropped it next to my head. “Hello?”
“Oh hi,” Cameron started, immediately melodramatic. “It’s me, your loving father. The one who saved you from the very brink of destruction. Who took you into his home and cared for you as if you were borne from mine own loins.”
“Don’t go Shakespeare on me, you weirdo,” I said.
“Your father who only loves you to the depths of his being. Who knows your favorite colors, your favorite foods, and your favorite shows. I even know your favorite brand of pen. Oh, how many pens of that brand I bought you because
I love you so.”
In spite of the headache threatening to shatter my skull, I started to laugh. “You are so fucking dramatic.”
“Me,” he sang in a high-pitched voice, “who once dressed up as an actual power ranger because I knew it would make you feel better?”
“It made me feel better because the outfit finally matched the man,” I said.
He gasped and then sighed. “Goddammit, Harry. My soliloquy didn’t call for you to randomly say something so sweet.”
“Sorry,” I replied.
“Are you okay? You don’t sound good.”
“I may be slightly hungover,” I said.
“Hungover? You never drink like that.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of a long story. I’ll explain more next time I see ya.” Shaking my back a little so that the cats knew I was about to move, I slowly started to sit up on my arms, and once I felt both cats hop off my back, I stood up and started by stripping away my t-shirt to get a little cooler and then I picked up my phone and walked into the kitchen.
“When would that be, by the way,” Cameron asked. “Because I’ve been trying to get you over here for like, oh I don’t know, two months. You said you were going to meet Marisha.”
“I am. It’s just been hectic with the—”
“I know, I know, the expansion and the promotion and the new members and you’re dating again, and you know, I’m really happy for you, but I also want you to continue being my kid.”
He sounded so genuinely hurt that I wanted to punch myself in the face. I started a pot of coffee and filled up the cats’ dishes. “I know, Dad, I’m sorry. Really, I didn’t mean to neglect you.”
“I’ve been getting the feeling that you don’t want to meet Marisha. I meant what I said that I have no intention of proposing to her until you’ve met and approved of her. Is it that you know I won’t that you’re staying away? You don’t want me to marry her?” he asked.
“No, Dad, I swear. I wasn’t trying to prevent that at all. In fact, a lot has changed in these past couple of months and I want to meet her more than ever. Let’s do it soon. I’m serious. When do you want to do it? I’ll be there.”
