by Amy Daws
“Finley.”
“Finley,” he grins like he knows a secret no one else knows. “Leslie is correct, Finley. I do like brunettes,” he smiles brazenly at me.
I raise my eyebrows and turn back to Leslie, “Whew! Lucky me. He doesn’t even have to know me before he decides he likes me!”
He squints his eyes in response to my sarcasm, clearly not impressed.
“I was worried for a second there, but nope, now I got it. My hair is brown—I win! I’m the perfect female specimen because I have shit-colored hair,” I hoot obnoxiously, taking a swig of my beer.
Leslie drops her chin and glares at me. Visibly uncomfortable, Frank looks down at his beer.
Liam lets out a huff of air and a small bark of a laugh as he stands up and gently smooths his wayward blonde hair to the side.
“Leslie…Frank…it was nice to meet you guys.” He turns to me, “Fin, I’m glad to see you’re feeling better. Enjoy the rest of your evening.” And with that, he makes his way away from our table and back toward the bar.
Frank is the first to break the uncomfortable silence, “Christ, Finny. That was downright bitchy, even by my standards.”
“Yeah,” Leslie juts out her jaw, shaking her head at me. “Not cool, Finley.”
What’s wrong with me? Sure, I’m sarcastic and like to joke around, but even I don’t know what the hell that was all about. Without thinking, I jump out of my chair and press my way through the crowd toward Liam’s blonde hair that stands out above the heads of people.
“Uh…Liam!” I shout, trying to get him to slow down so I can get through the swarm of people.
He looks back with a confused frown on his face as I finally catch up to him.
“I’m not a bitch,” I say, in a normal voice.
Liam gives me a puzzled look, turning his ear towards me.
“I said…” I yell, “I’M. NOT. A. BITCH!”
He stares at me speculatively, dancing his eyes down to my mouth again. Damn, why does he have to do that? It does serious things to my belly.
“Prove it!” he shouts back at me.
Hesitating, I try to decide if he’s worth the effort. I figure I need to do this for myself as much as I need to do it for him.
A railing that surrounds the dance floor is to the left of where we are standing. Three metal beams parallel each other horizontally with a good two feet between each.
I smile and hold my index finger up to him, encouraging him to watch me. I walk over to the bars and climb up the first two beams, throwing my leg over the top beam to straddle, and balance my feet on the second beam with my long red skirt bunching up on top of the bar. I look over to him as he gazes at me, expectantly.
I take a deep breath, cup my hands around my mouth, and shout as loud as humanly possible, “I’M NOT A BITCH. I’M JUST HAVING A REALLY BAD FUCKING YEAR!”
“Oh stuff it, would ya!”
“Get a life, loser!”
“I’ll shag ya!”
“Shut the fuck up!”
I glance around trying to place the voices of all the people heckling me, then look over to Liam. He’s smiling and nodding his head approvingly.
As I crawl my way back down the tall barrier, I feel large hands grab me by my waist and guide me down to ground.
“No need to bloody shout!” Liam yells in my ear, pulling back and laughing softly at me. “Want to get some fresh air?”
“Sure,” I reply. He leads me by the small of my back out the front door to where the doorman is holding back a line of people waiting to get in. We get stamps on our hands so we can return without having to get back in line, and Liam ushers me down the side of the brick building a small distance away from the people.
My head is readjusting to the deafening silence outside compared to the booming bass inside. I drag my hand down the side of the brick wall and look over to Liam with a smile on my face. He smiles back at me and it feels like we’re having a complete conversation without saying a word.
“So,” Liam starts, “A bad fucking year, eh?”
“You could say that.”
“I’ve had some of those,” he replies, leaning next to me alongside the brick wall and crossing his arms over his chest. “So, what are you going to do about it?”
“That’s the million-dollar question,” I say, turning around, picking at the brick with my fingernails.
“Have you seen much of London yet?” he asks, turning and mirroring my movements.
“Not much…some of the neighborhood I’m staying in, I guess, but that’s it so far. I haven’t been here long.”
“What are you doing tomorrow, then?” he leans one shoulder against the brick and crossing his arms again like he’s posing for a Senior Picture.
I can sense where this is going and my heart races with anxiety. This guy is cute, enormously cute. He’s got an unbelievably sexy accent and seems nice and normal. But I can’t even consider dating anyone yet or spending any significant amount of time with someone that is so obviously interested in me.
“I still need to do a lot of unpacking. My suitcases…and in here,” I say, pointing to my head.
“Ahh, that’s probably a heavy load,” he replies, touching my head and lightly brushing his fingertips in my hair.
I close my eyes and relish in the touch for just a second.
“I should hope it’s a heavy load, otherwise one could call me a ditz,” I retort back with a small grin.
“That is one thing I can definitely tell you are not,” he says, standing upright off the brick wall. He glances back toward the club. “Well then, perhaps I can give you my number on the off chance you finish unpacking early and want to buy more things to unpack.”
“That would probably be okay,” I reply, tentatively.
“And in case you forget that you want to purchase more items to unpack someday, maybe I can get your phone number, too. For purely logistical purposes, of course,” he declares, dropping his chin and raising his eyebrows shamelessly.
When I look a little skeptical, he quickly adds, “It really is the least you could do after treating me so rudely this evening. And on my birthday, of all days.”
My eyes turn wide, “It’s your birthday?” I ask, shocked.
“’Fraid so,” he sucks a big gulp of air between his teeth and rocks back and forth on his feet. “So, unless I get this gorgeous, passionate, and funny brunette’s number tonight,” he smiles, cheekily, “I may have birthdays ruined for me for the remainder of time and space.”
I frown as I consider his ballsy joke. It takes guts to throw the brunette thing back in my face so soon, but it’s exactly something I would do, so I can’t help but smile a little. Not to mention gorgeous and passionate are ringing in my ears on repeat in his sexy British tone. I shake my head and concede, “You’re good,” I reach over and grab his phone out of his hands, “I’m giving you my freaking number just because that speech was that good. Bravo, Romeo. Bravo.”
He smiles proudly at me. He looks so adorably pleased with himself right now.
After assuring me he understands I’m not ready to hang out any time soon, we part ways and I return to my table of redheads. Leslie appears to be deep in thought. I eye her speculatively but she shakes her head, so I let it go. I’m still feeling slightly gloomy about the whole Brody situation, but I know Leslie is right. I made this decision. I need to stick to it.
CHAPTER NINE
My first two weeks in London have gone by pretty quickly. I actually feel like I am finally getting into a groove with the city and my new roomies, though I don’t see Julie and Mitch very often. They stow away in their bedroom most of the time, and when I do run into them, they seem to make excuses to leave again. I try not to take it personally, especially since Frank says he never speaks to them either.
Leslie and I slip back into our old routine of late night conversations and cackling fits over the most ridiculous impressions. We love imitating comedy actors from TV and voicing great movie qu
otes. Sometimes we laugh for no reason at all. As kids, we used to hang our heads off the side of the bed and force ourselves to laugh until the laughing became real. I don’t know if it was the blood rushing to our heads that caused our fits of giggles, or just the ridiculousness that we were re-enacting stupid crap we did as grade-schoolers now that we are 25 years old, but that is right when Frank walks in on us. I’m sure the image of us both hanging our heads off the side of the bed looks insane to him as he tries to act all mature and superior, but only five minutes later, he dives in between us and joins in the fun.
We go out a few nights a week, too. Mostly to the pub around the corner, which is quickly becoming my favorite place in London. Frank and Leslie are sure to show me all their other favorite spots in the city, as well. They appease me and do the whole tourist double-decker bus tour with me. Frank keeps hiding his face, afraid someone might recognize him every time we are on busy corners, but I can tell he is enjoying the historical tidbits the announcer says into the microphone. Julie and Mitch even join us one night for some Indian food in West London. Mitch doesn’t say much the whole time, but Julie is very chatty and friendly. I genuinely like her. I discover that Indian food is as popular in London as Mexican food is in the Midwest.
Val sends me two copy-writing assignments for a new indie author they are doing marketing and public relations for. When I’m not sightseeing with Leslie or Frank, I stow away in my circular room. I enjoy the noise of the skate park across the road as I type press releases and various synopsis options for the first novel I have to read.
I am really starting to love my circular little cave of a room. It lets in a lot of bright, natural light, allowing the old wooden floorboards to shine. I still don’t have a desk or chair, so I do all my writing on the mattress that still sits in the middle of the room on the floor. I’ve sorted and arranged all my clothes to sit in folded piles inside the suitcases on one wall. I really should consider buying a dresser, but the idea of asking skinny little Frank to help me carry it up three flights of stairs seems like too much work. Leslie is probably stronger than Frank, come to think of it. She did grow up on a farm, but I can’t ask her. She’s been working a lot of hours designing an extra bag that Nikon wanted added to the line last minute.
I haven’t heard from Brody and I know I can’t call him, even though I desperately want to. All I hear echoing in my head is the pain in his voice when he told me he was giving up on me. I hate that we left it so badly. I’ve talked to Cadence a few times through Skype and she informed me she hadn’t had any more drunken visits from him. I feel like she’s holding something back from me. I keep pestering her to let it out, but she refuses.
I fear the worst, that Brody has met someone and moved on. I know I have no right to care because we’re broken up, but I can’t help myself. I have to know. I decide to reactivate my Facebook account. Val’s assignment can wait. Life has been brutal without Facebook for two whole weeks.
I immediately pull up Brody’s profile and a sick feeling washes over me as I see his relationship status changed to Single. Why the hell does that surprise me? I left him, for goodness sake. Of course he should be single. I click on his profile picture that used to be a photo of the two of us. Now it’s just a photo of him at some outdoor festival. I can’t tell where he is and it pains me to realize I don’t know everything he’s doing anymore. I scroll through the rest of his profile pictures, assuming I’ll see all the old ones of us, but they are nowhere to be found. I broaden my photo search, desperate to find a picture of the two of us. He couldn’t have totally erased me from his life could he? There is not one damn picture of me anywhere on his profile.
What I do find are multiple, very recent photos of Brody with a girl I know extremely well.
Olivia. My blood begins to boil.
Olivia is a friend from my early college days. I use the word friend loosely here because we don’t speak anymore. She lived on the same floor as me in the dorms, but was two years ahead of Brody and I.
Olivia and I became fast friends because she had this sweet, good-natured way about her that everybody seemed to love. She was also really cool because she was older and had more connections and friends at the university. Therefore, she knew where all the great parties were. Everyone wanted to be friends with Olivia.
We hung out a lot in the beginning. She got my obnoxious sense of humor and we had some really fun times in our dorm rooms. We even went on spring break together.
Then there was Jake. Jake was a basketball player living in the same apartment complex we all lived in senior year. He was tall with really dark hair and one of those classically beautiful faces that made you look at him and want to say, seriously? I was smitten. We became close over the summer before our final year and then had a class together first semester. We were hanging out all the time since his apartment was straight across the parking lot from mine. Seriously, we did everything together. We went to parties together, ate lunch with each other everyday, watched movies, and went to the gym to shoot hoops. Jake would call me every night to talk me to sleep because he knew I had trouble falling asleep.
My roommate thought Jake and I would end up married and have a bunch of babies together. I always laughed at her, but secretly hoped she was right. Even Jake’s teammates made comments. All my girlfriends knew I had it bad for Jake—it was so obvious. But for whatever reason, we never hooked up.
The beginning of senior year is when everything changed. We were all out at the bar, dancing and having a great time celebrating the start of our last year of college. Jake and I were dancing together, as we always did. He was a great dance partner and I loved having him with me so random guys wouldn’t try to grind on me. Olivia was there with all of our friends, and everyone was having a blast. In the craziness of leaving to go back to the apartment complex for the after party, I got separated from Jake and Olivia. On a drunken high, I bounded into Jake’s apartment ready to continue partying and found Olivia. In bed. With Jake. My friend, Olivia. It was the most embarrassing thing I have ever experienced. I quickly dashed out of the room and sobbed into my girlfriends’ arms as they consoled my drunken, dramatic, sorry ass.
My friends were outraged Olivia would cross such an obvious line with a friend. They banded together and we all completely stopped hanging out with her. Jake acted like he had no clue what was even going on, but I knew he knew better because we were never the same after that. We barely spoke in class and only saw each other at parties. We never hung out privately like we used to. It was hell.
Then I met Brody, and Jake was completely and utterly eclipsed from then on. I couldn’t believe I ever pined for a guy like Jake when Brody was right in front of me the whole time. Seeing me with someone else must have bothered Jake because he repeatedly tried to get me to talk to him. It was definitely an area of friction for Brody and me.
Needless to say, seeing Olivia’s arms draped over both of Brody’s shoulders in a slew of pictures on Facebook, makes me physically pulse with anger.
I slam my laptop shut and snatch my phone up off the floor.
“Hello?”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Cadence?” I squeal, hardly able to utter the words because I am so revved up.
“Who is this?” she sings, cheerily in to the phone.
“You know exactly who this is! How the hell could you not tell me?” I boom into the phone.
“Tell you what, sister?” Cadence sings to me again, in an incredibly annoying placating tone.
“You know what! Olivia! O-fricken-livia Gabriel. Is he seriously seeing her, Cade?” I can’t stop the shaking in my hands.
“I don’t know why the heck you even care, Finley,” she bites back. “Seriously, get your shit straight. You dumped him. You got it in your head he won’t want you if you’re barren and now you’ve pushed him into the arms of someone who will probably give him six precious little babies,” she peals into my ear.
I feel my chest rising up into my chin, “That is a
low blow, Cadence,” I pause, my voice cracking, “even for you.”
She sighs heavily, “Well, I’m not sorry! You know how I feel about this whole ridiculous situation you have going on here. You are getting what you asked for.”
“I didn’t ask for this!” I scream, unable to check my emotions, “I didn’t ask for him to run into the arms of the one chick I’ve hated for over five years!”
“You asked for it when you refused to give him a chance to know the truth, Finley. Now you have to learn to live with it. Learn to live with the idea of him snuggling up to Olivia Gabriel. I see her when I go into the city, you know, and she looks good, Finley. She hasn’t aged a bit!” Cadence cheerily adds the last line with melodramatic flare.
I hang up. God, my sister can be a real bitch sometimes! This is bullshit, complete and utter bullshit. I stand up from my mattress and throw my phone down against it as hard as I can. I toss my hair over one shoulder and take a big lap around the tiny room.
When that doesn’t seem to help, I run back to my bed and quickly inspect my phone, fearing I may have damaged it. It’s fine, thank God. But shit, the drama of that toss felt good, damn it. I tuck my phone into the back pocket of my Skinny Jeans and pull the sleeves of my long sleeve navy t-shirt down to stick my thumbs through the thumbholes.
Needing something to take the edge off, I pound down the stairs and head straight into the kitchen cabinet above the fridge where Frank keeps all the liquor. A bottle of tequila looks pretty good. I barely touch the stuff anymore because Leslie and I had once mixed it with root beer when we were teenagers and drank so much we got sick.
I rummage for a shot glass and can’t find one, so I grab a coffee mug instead. I pour an inch or two of the golden liquid and throw back the cup. Oh, crap!
“That was way more than a shot! Way more than a shot!” I screech out loud, jumping up and down with my face pinched.
A strange squeal comes through my throat as I force myself to swallow. I place my hands wide on the counter and drop my head down low, gagging. Oof! Why the hell did I grab tequila?
