by Sam Mariano
“I don’t want things to be…” He sighs, like he already knows finishing the sentence is pointless.
“It doesn’t have to be weird,” I tell him, hearing the woodenness in my own voice. “I mean, the first time it probably will be, but… We’ll snap back. Things will be fine.”
Cocking a skeptical eyebrow, he finally meets my gaze. “You think so?”
I don’t know how easy it will be, but I’ll find a way.
“I’m not going to be one more thing that stresses you out, Rafe. I never want to be that for you, not for any reason,” I explain. “I’m an adult. I made a decision that I knew was risky, that went against my better judgment, and it didn’t work out—my, how shocking,” I add, trying for lightness. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine.”
“I’m so sorry, Virginia.”
I manage a faint smile. “I know.”
There’s nothing more to say, no last minute save coming to rescue me from heartache, so I have to convince my body to move again. All I need it to do is get me to my car. Since we didn’t want to appear to be coming together, we drove separately. Rafe stopped to grab wine so we wouldn’t arrive at the same time.
Tears blur my vision, but Rafe doesn’t follow me to my car, so it doesn’t matter. I pull down my visor and brush the tears away, annoyed by their presence. My brain tells me I don’t get to cry right now. This is exactly what I knew would happen, and now—oh, God.
His smile shreds painful new claw marks into my heart when my spiteful brain replays the memory of him lying in bed, caressing my jaw with tenderness for me shining in his brown eyes.
Alcohol never works, but maybe it’s worth a try. Tomorrow I’ll feel better, but tonight I’m going to cry. Tonight I will mourn the loss of my fantasy, I will curse the inevitability of midnight.
Rafe’s bullshit spying almost urges me to go home, but I’m off tonight. It won’t even cross his mind to look at the footage from the restaurant. He will assume that I went home.
So instead, I head to the restaurant.
Felix owes me some shots.
19
Virginia
By the time I get to the restaurant, I feel fogged. Being here in our place feels surreal and wrong, like I’ve stepped into an old version of my life that doesn’t fit anymore. It feels worse than a normal break-up when you have to keep coming to work and seeing that person over and over again, when you can’t escape them just because they took a sledgehammer to your heart.
This is exactly why I don’t date co-workers.
This is exactly why Rafe doesn’t fuck his employees.
Putting this life back on and convincing myself it fits isn’t going to be easy. Just the thought of having to watch him bring other women in after this makes me feel empty.
I keep my head down as I head to the bar, trying to avoid the notice of all the other employees. I shouldn’t have come here. They all know me here. It’s just that no one else knows, and now that it’s over, there’s no point telling anyone.
I’m not a big hugger in general, but no one at work would ever even consider wrapping their arms around me. That’s how I know my face must look like my heart feels when Felix glances up, catches sight of me standing here like I’m lost, and immediately walks around the bar, grabs me, and pulls me in for a hug.
My eyes well up and I wrap my arms around him lightly, absorbing his comfort.
“That didn’t take long,” he mutters.
I sniffle. “You can go ahead and say ‘I told you so,’ but if it helps, I told myself so, too.”
Felix shakes his head and rubs my back. “No I told you so. Just shots. Lots of shots.”
He promises lots of shots, and boy, does he deliver. I can’t even walk straight by the time the restaurant closes. One waitress noticed me over here, but I was too drunk by that point to care. Trent must have caught wind that I was here, because he wandered over, too.
“Just can’t stay away, can you?”
“Nope,” I say, grabbing a shot and downing it. “Love this place too damn much.”
Trent seems amused by my drunkenness, but since I’m generally the restaurant nark, he doesn’t hang out too long before returning to doing his job.
The alcohol exhausts me. Or maybe it’s the tears that keep creeping out of the corner of my eye and trailing down my cheek. All I know is, as long as Felix is feeding me shot after shot and keeping me company when he doesn’t have a customer, I don’t have a chance to replay any haunting memories.
I stumble to the bathroom to pee, but get sidetracked wondering if Felix will be here tomorrow night when I’m working. I always check the schedule of everyone who will be on the floor with me, but I didn’t check who would be working at the bar. Now I look, see it’s Lucinda, and feel mildly disappointed. I slap the schedule back up on the wall and wander off to the bathroom. It’s nearly time to close, so it has already been cleaned, but whoever cleaned did a shitty job. I mentally pull up the schedule in my head so I know who to scold tomorrow.
I’m gonna tell him right to his stupid face that I still want that head waitress job. I deserve it, dammit. I deserve so much more than that. I could be a fucking lawyer right now, and I’m bringing rich assholes their meals and alcoholic beverages. Fuck this shit. I should quit! I really should. My whole life has been paused for Rafe, and he can’t even face his fear of commitment for me.
I’m feeling empowered as only a drunk girl can when I get back to the bar and half-fall onto the stool. On one hand, I want to quit, but on the other, my mind is already aware I’m not going to do that, so instead it settles for planning for when I do have a title.
“I want to train you to work the dining room,” I inform Felix.
He looks up at me as he wipes down the bar. “Yeah?”
I nod my head. “If you want to. I think you’d be really good at it.”
“I like tending bar. Could I still do that?”
“Of course. We could alternate you nights. It never hurts to know more than one position. I could do any position in the whole restaurant. I thought someday maybe I would be manager, and the manager has to know every position, so… yeah.”
“Still thinking that?” he inquires.
“I don’t know,” I mutter, resting my chin on my hands on the counter. “I’m too drunk to make big decisions.”
Felix smiles. “Yes, you sure are.”
“Thank you for buying me shots,” I tell him.
“Anytime. Hopefully not for the same reason,” he adds. “You’ll stay away from him now, I hope.”
“I will stay away from him naked,” I offer. “Can’t really stay away from him altogether.”
“I mean, you could,” he points out, stopping and bracing his weight on the bar as he looks down at me. “What are you still doing here, Virginia? You could be doing a hell of a lot more with your life.”
I offer a bumpy nod, my chin hitting my knuckles. “I know.”
Now he leans down, his dark eyes meeting mine, and for just a moment, reminding me of Rafe. “Can I ask you something? Didn’t you go to law school?”
I don’t think I ever told him that. I review the files in my mind, skimming folders full of memories. Nope, definitely never told him that. He may have stolen a peek at my employment files. I had just started law school when I started working here, and I was honest on my application, because it seemed like the kind of thing you wouldn’t want a mob-owned business to find out you lied about. If they decided not to hire me because they knew up front, that would be better than broken legs later.
“I never told you that, but yes,” I affirm.
Lifting a pointed eyebrow since I verified what he already knew, he says, “So, what are you doing here?”
“Piz!”
He jolts backward, confusion all over his handsome face as I point at him accusingly. “What?”
“You’re Piz.”
“I’m… what?”
“He’s Logan,” I state, miserably. “It could have been e
pic.”
“I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about right now.”
Sighing heavily, I rest my face sideways on the back of my hand. “I’m a marshmallow.”
Giving up on getting me to make any sense, Felix states, “You’re drunk. Let me finish up back here and I’ll take you home.”
“Yeah, I can’t drive,” I tell him.
“I realize that,” he says, sounding mildly amused.
Trent is still here since he has to close up, so Felix leaves first. Trent shoots us an odd look when he sees that Felix has an arm around me and he’s escorting me out, since I can’t walk straight on my own.
“Hey, hold up. What are you doing?”
Felix hangs back. “Me? Leaving.”
“With her?” he asks, his eyebrows rising. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
Rolling his eyes, Felix says, “G’night,” and leaves without further explaining himself.
I like that. I fucking like that a lot. Felix is a badass. I like Felix.
Rafe didn’t think Felix was gay. This is a weird moment to think about that, but while I was too surprised when it first came up, I now recall Rafe and Felix shooting the shit behind the bar one day when I was making a drink, talking about some girl Felix was dating at the time.
He only asked me that to see how I would respond. Rafe wouldn’t be suspicious about me and Felix if he didn’t genuinely like me. He doesn’t play that game with booth girls. Only girls he’s serious about trigger his possessive side.
Felix opens his car door and reluctantly releases me. “You okay? Don’t fall.”
“I’m fine,” I assure him, slinking into the passenger seat of his black Camry.
Felix walks around and gets in on his side. Once he’s in the car with me and he fires up the engine, I ask him, “Are we going to my place or yours?”
Cocking an eyebrow, he asks, “Do you want to go to my place?”
“I don’t want to go to mine,” I admit. I’ll just be sad if I go there.
“You’re pretty drunk,” he says. “And you’re sad. How do you mourn break-ups? Bending the ear of your girlfriends, or finding a new bed to warm?”
Sinking back into his seat, I say, “Offering my unwavering devotion to the first man who makes my heart ache less.”
Rocking his head to the side, Felix says, “All right, we’ll go to my place.”
Fine, whatever. I mean to say it, but I think I forgot to open my mouth. My tingly mouth. Why does my face tingle? I giggle at the absurdity and curl up so I can rest my head on Felix’s car door and rest my eyes for a minute.
I either fall asleep or black out, but next thing I know, Felix is outside the car opening my door and offering me his hand to help me out.
“Thank you, Felix. You’re very gallant,” I tell him.
“Uh huh,” he murmurs, wrapping his arm around me to support my weight. “I’m on the fourth floor. You think you can make it up all those steps without killing yourself?”
The click of metal doesn’t alert me to trouble, but the sight of Rafe settling the barrel of his gun against Felix’s temple sure does.
My eyes widen as Felix releases me and slowly raises his hands.
“I’ll take it from here,” Rafe says, calmly.
Felix should immediately say okay and run inside his apartment, but instead he cuts his eyes in my direction, as if for permission.
“Oh, my God, go,” I say, shooing him. Then I turn to glare at Rafe. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“The better question is, what the hell are you doing here?” he demands.
My eyes bulge out of my head, since poor Felix is still stuck here. To Rafe, I demand, “Put that stupid thing away so Felix can go inside.”
He doesn’t. First, he asks, “Did he touch you?”
“No, he didn’t touch me. Not that it would be any of your business if he did,” I add.
Now he drops the gun to his side, nodding his head in Felix’s direction without looking away from me. His tone is at once dismissive and derisive as he tells him, “Run along, white knight, your services are no longer needed here.”
Felix’s jaw locks, but since Rafe is who he is, and since his gun just rested against his temple, and since even dumbass Trent told Felix he was crazy for taking me home, Felix goes inside and leaves me here with Rafe.
“Trent,” I say, the name coming out like an accusation.
Rafe doesn’t bother arguing. “Maybe I won’t fire him after all.”
“That rat bastard,” I curse.
“You’re a belligerent little drunk, aren’t you?” Rafe asks, grabbing my arm and hauling me toward his car.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I tell him.
“I’m taking you home,” he informs me.
“How’d you know I was coming to his place anyway? He could have been taking me to my house.”
“He could’ve,” Rafe allows. “I sent Sin there, just in case. Lucky for me, I chose right.”
“I wasn’t going to fuck him,” I mutter.
“No?” he asks mildly.
“Probably not.”
“Oh, well, as long as you’re sure,” Rafe states, his tone a little cooler.
“I can fuck whomever I want,” I tell him. “You don’t want me, remember? You called us a mistake. So if I want to have sex with every man in Vegas now, I can.”
“Over my dead fucking body,” he states, his fingers around my arm tightening. Without warning, he hauls me up against him, looking down at me with such cool anger that he makes my inside churn with arousal.
Wait, that’s not the appropriate response, is it?
“Kneel,” he says.
Fire flashes in my eyes. “Fuck off.”
His eyes narrow and he yanks open his passenger door, then shoves me inside.
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I insist, as he slams the car door in my face.
Rafe drives like a bat of hell back to my place. He must not have thought to call and let Sin know he had me and he could go home, because Sin is still standing in my parking lot when Rafe gets me back to my apartment building.
I don’t get out of the car. I mean to, but I’m tired and overloaded with too many feelings, but the most prominent right now is stubbornness. I’m not ordinarily overrun with stubbornness at all, I’m normally a reasonable being, but right now, I’m so mad at Rafe for ruining us, for breaking my heart, for cheating us both out of something so good, I just want to punish him. I consider telling him all the nasty things I’m going to let other men do to me, just to put those pictures in his head, to let him know how it feels to be tormented by memories.
Unaware of my spiteful thoughts, Rafe walks back from dismissing Sin and opens the passenger side door. “Come on,” he says, his tone even. “Let’s get you inside.”
“I’ll go when I’m good and ready,” I tell him.
“You’ll go now,” he assures me, reaching in and grabbing me by the arm, guiding me out of the car. I try to jerk my arm away, but it’s futile. He’s much stronger than I am, and he only rewards my struggle with dry amusement. “Are you done?”
I ignore him and start walking toward my apartment.
When we get outside the door, I fumble around in my purse looking for the keys, but I can’t find them. It’s not even a big purse, but I feel from side to side, then the middle. It feels like my brain is floating in alcohol. It has been a long time since I was this hammered. I should remember, in the future, that shots are not my friend.
I should also remember that Rafe is not my friend. He’s a heartbreaker, and I knew it right from the start.
“I’m not going to remember any of that,” I mutter, finally locating my keys and beginning the difficult work of trying to fit the right one into the lock.
“What’s that?” Rafe asks.
“Don’t talk to me,” I tell him.
Since I’m still struggling with the keys, he says, “Give me the damn things.”
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“No,” I snap, hugging them against my chest. “I don’t need your help. I can do it myself.”
“You’re so drunk, you probably see three of me,” he states, snatching the keys out of my hand.
I don’t want him opening my door. It’s irrational, but it makes me angry as he takes the key and easily fits it into the same lock I missed four times.
My insides feel heavy again, and it takes a second for me to remember why. It takes a second for the memories of him in Sin’s back yard to come floating to the surface, but then they make it, and the word mistake plays on a loop in my head.
“I loved you, you know,” I tell him. “Not in the romantic way, weirdly, but as a person. Just… I thought you were the best person. Even your flaws. I even thought your flaws were great, because they were yours. I didn’t think you were perfect, I wasn’t naïve about it, I just thought… I just thought you were wonderful.”
“You were wrong,” he says soberly.
“Yeah. Maybe I was.”
I don’t know where I expect this extended break-up to go, but Rafe pushes me back against the wall, kneels down, and tugs my shoes off my feet. It’s a nice thing to do, and not something I expect him to do, but it’s nice.
It’s also the worst, because that nugget will get stuck in my brain. The image of Rafe kneeling to take care of me while I’m drunk nearly to the point of incapacitation. We broke up today, and here he is making sure I got home safe.
No, here he is making sure no one else fucks me. I’m being too generous with him. I’m giving him too much damn credit. Dammit, Virginia, quit that shit!
He’s not being nice, he’s being a selfish jerk.
I still kinda like it though. I’m hopeless.
He tries to wrap his arm around me to escort me down the hall to my bedroom, but I shove his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”
“You’re a pain in the ass when you’re drunk,” he informs me.
“You’re a pain in the ass when you’re sober,” I shoot back.
He lets that nugget of truth slide, pushing open my bedroom door and turning on the light. “I know you’re drunk and sad, so your judgment was impaired, but don’t get involved with Felix. I won’t like it.”
