by Meg Ripley
By the time Atreides started setting up, some of the people who’d only come for Jackal 5 or Heatkeeper had wandered off, and Nick and Olivia and Mark had found me where I’d camped out, next to Sophie and Benny, who had broken down at record speed after his band finished. I watched Mark flirting with Sophie and didn’t tell him about what Benny had told me on the subject of Sophie’s prospect of being picked up; instead I just watched as she flirted every bit as hard as Mark did, but without giving a single inch—it was like watching a cat with a cloth mouse: the cat’s obviously having fun, but has no intention of actually doing anything to the mouse or even killing it, since it can’t be killed in the first place.
Atreides finished setting up and started sound check and I watched a total change come over Sophie’s demeanor; she no longer even pretended to pay attention to Benny or Mark or even me, but instead started jumping up and down, screaming for her sister. It was adorable. “Oh my gawd, Jess Riviera! Have my babies!”
“Bitch, that’d be incest,” Jess called back from the stage.
“Not if you’re just a surrogate,” Sophie countered.
“Find a sperm donor then!” It went on like that the whole time Jess, Nelson, and the rest of the band went through sound check; I wasn’t the only one enjoying the side-show, but I had the front row seat, so to speak.
When Atreides started playing I actually did pay full attention to them, barely even noticing Sophie next to me. I sang along with Jason, Nelson, and Jess; I jumped when they told the crowd to jump. I grinned at Sophie during one of the slower songs and followed the chant. It was a good show—as good a show as any that Molly Riot have ever put on—and I was glad I’d come out to see it, even if I couldn’t get anywhere with Sophie.
After the set was finished, I turned my attention back onto the bar. People started closing out their tabs, heading for the next spot on their evening out, but Sophie hung around, and so did Mark and Benny, so I had no reason to leave. Nick and Olivia took a few minutes to chat up the members of the band, and I was pretty sure that Olivia got whatever it was she needed for her article; they left after a quick drink to celebrate the show. Within thirty minutes of the show finishing, the crowd at Prop was only about a dozen people; it was the time of night I liked the best. Jess and Ricky were making out at one of the tables off in a corner, and Mark was talking to Benny about the studio. The air conditioning started to be better than theoretical, and I was more than ready to close the place out. I wanted as much of a chance to see what the deal was with Sophie as possible.
CHAPTER FOUR
“You don’t have to walk me home, you know,” Sophie said, listing slightly to the left as she turned to look up at me.
“Someone got knifed in this neighborhood last week,” I pointed out to her. “I don’t want to log onto Facebook tomorrow and see a bunch of Respects bartenders paying tribute to their fallen comrade.”
“They wouldn’t anyway,” Sophie told me, shaking her head. “They’d hold a benefit concert for me in a couple of weeks to help Jess and my parents pay for my funeral, and that’d be that. Apart from the help wanted ads.” I laughed.
“They’re pretty efficient,” I agreed. “But I still don’t want to see it. You’re too cute for me to let anyone replace you at the bar.”
“Blah, blah, blah,” Sophie said, rolling her eyes in disapproval. “Do you know how many times I’ve been told I’m cute?”
“Far too many?” I reached out and corrected Sophie’s leftward reel.
“Like…a thousand. In the past month.” Sophie sighed. “I know I’m short and I have fairy-hair, but the cuteness thing is getting old.” I chuckled, using the excuse of helping her to keep my hand on her shoulder.
“If you don’t want people to call you cute, maybe you shouldn’t go around in miniskirts and Docs, or keep your hair in pigtails,” I suggested.
“I put my hair in pigtails because it’s too short to put in a ponytail,” Sophie informed me. “Docs are solid footwear. Miniskirts…” she shrugged. “And anyway, why should I change the way I look for people to take me seriously?”
“You think people don’t take you seriously?” Sophie shook her head.
“As soon as something’s cute, it’s not serious,” she told me. “It’s…like…small, and funny, and a million other things. But never serious.” I thought about that for a moment as we turned the corner onto Sophie’s street.
I’d volunteered to walk her home from Kelsey’s place where we’d all ended up; Mark had managed to pass out on Kelsey’s couch, so obviously, I wasn’t going to his brother’s place. Jess and Ricky had grabbed an Uber to their own apartment on the other end of Lake Worth, and Benny had wandered off at some point to another after-party.
“Benny said you don’t date anyone in the scene,” I said, hoping my voice sounded curious but not nosy.
“Nope,” Sophie said. “No scene folks in my love life. That’s the big mistake people make all the time.” She started to list right, almost running into me, but corrected at the last moment.
“Why is it a mistake?” I thought about Jules dating Fran, about Nick dating Olivia; hell, Sophie’s sister Jess was dating someone from the scene.
“Jess used to tend bar, right?” Sophie looked up at me with her big, dark eyes, her expression serious.
“Okay,” I said, gesturing for her to go on.
“So, Jess was dating guys in the scene because they’re readily available. Low-hanging fruit.” Sophie paused and probably realized that I was one of those ‘low-hanging fruit’. “Present company excluded,” she said with that little confident, almost cocky smile.
“Thanks for that,” I said tartly.
“Anyway,” Sophie said, dismissing my comment. “So, these guys Jess dated; they thought that because they were dating a bartender, they’d get free tabs at the bar, or free drinks whenever they felt like it, things like that.” Sophie shook her head. “And they got all bitter and resentful when that wasn’t the case. That is something I don’t want to deal with, so I don’t date scene guys.” I had to admit that it made sense; but it didn’t look all that good for any hope I might have had of breaking the pattern Sophie had set for herself.
“Here’s my place,” Sophie told me after we’d both gone quiet for a few minutes. She waved towards one of the little mini-complexes you see close to the ocean all over South Florida: two stories, maybe six or ten units total, painted avocado green with an orange-red color on the sidewalk and the balconies. In another five years tops it’d probably get torn down and replaced with a bigger, nicer condo building with a rooftop swimming pool and cabana, and the rent would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000 a month. “That’s my door, right there,” Sophie said, pointing to one marked 3619. “You don’t have to come in. No one is going to knife me around here.” I looked down at her, slowing to a stop at the end of the row of units.
“Have a cigarette with me before you go in,” I suggested. Really I just didn’t want to leave her side; I was hoping I could maybe—hopefully—convince her to let me crash on the couch.
“Okay,” Sophie said, reaching into her pocket. She took a pack of Camel Lights out and shook it, frowned, and flipped the top up to reveal that it was empty. “Fuck.”
“Have one of mine,” I said. I pulled out a half-crumpled pack of Pall Malls and showed her that I still had maybe five left. Sophie hesitated, looking from her empty pack to my face, and then shrugged. She plucked one of the cigarettes from the pack and I offered her my lighter to go with it.
We sat down on the bench at the end of the sidewalk, and I lit my own cigarette, taking a drag and thinking about my next moves. “So, you don’t date anyone from the local scene because you’re worried they’ll want something from you—namely free drinks,” I said. “Are you dating someone from outside of the scene?” Sophie looked at me sharply and then shook her head.
“At the moment, I’m not dating anyone,” she said blandly. “Last guy I was with turned out to be a total
disappointment.”
“How?” I flicked ash off the end of my cig and leaned against the wall. Sophie shrugged, tilting her head to the side.
“Just…” she sighed, taking another drag of smoke into her lungs. “He wasn’t what I wanted him to be. You’d think I’d learn.” She smiled slightly.
“What did you want him to be?” Sophie rolled her eyes and I watched as she brought her feet up onto the bench, hugging her knees with one arm while she continued smoking with the other hand.
“I wanted him to be…self-sufficient. Confident. Not in that cheesy, macho way; I wanted him to be secure in what we had together, in who I was and who he was.” Sophie chuckled. “Palm Beach County guys are all the same.”
“Hey! I resemble that remark,” I told her tartly. “Well, kind of. I don’t live in the 561 anymore.”
“I’m guessing you don’t have a place to stay tonight?” Sophie looked at me intently. “Mark is crashed out on Kelsey’s couch, and you’re still too drunk to drive anywhere.” I nodded.
“I can catch an Uber or a Lyft someplace,” I said.
“Or you can sleep on my couch,” Sophie countered. “As long as you promise you’re not trying to make a move on me.”
“I will be a perfect gentleman,” I told her. Sophie stubbed out her cigarette and flicked it into the trashcan.
“Finish that and I’ll let you in,” she said, nodding towards my hand holding the cigarette. I took a final, quick drag and pinched off the ember, tossing it into the trash.
“Lead the way,” I said, smiling in what I hoped was a friendly way. Sophie wavered for a moment as she stood, and I reached out to steady her, but before I could even touch her she’d straightened up and started towards the door she’d pointed out to me before. She reached into her purse and fumbled around for a few seconds; I heard the clinking of her keys, and the next moment she’d found them.
“Be warned,” Sophie said, turning to look at me over her shoulder as she shoved the key into the lock, “my house is kind of a disaster.” She paused, frowned, and looked at me again. “You’re not allergic to cats, are you?”
“Nah, my mom always kept a cat when I was growing up—I am fine with them.”
“Good,” Sophie said. She turned the key in the lock and then opened the door. The alarm went off, screeching, and she gestured for me to hurry in behind her and close the door as she went to the keypad to shut off the security system. “Drogon! Where is my pretty kitty?” Sophie turned on a light in the main area of the apartment just in time for me to see a small, black, nimble-looking cat emerge from the bedroom.
“Drogon?” Sophie shrugged, grinning in a tipsy way. She knelt on the floor and the cat darted towards her, jumping onto her lap with a chirping mew.
“Just call me Khaleesi,” Sophie said jokingly. The cat looked up at me doubtfully as Sophie petted him, and I could hear him purring as loudly as a Formula One engine, rubbing against Sophie’s hand and leaning against her chest. Lucky fucking cat, I thought enviously. I leaned against the wall and watched as Sophie stroked and murmured to her familiar as well as any witch on the planet could. After a few moments, she looked up and smiled wryly. “I’m being a bad hostess,” she said, shaking her head. She rose and Drogon leapt from her lap, darting into the darkness of the living room. Sophie pointed behind me. “That’s the kitchen,” she said, flipping on another light switch. “Off to the right is the bathroom.” The living room lit up and I saw the couch: it was just long enough for me to lie full length, made of battered black leather, with an afghan thrown over the back.
“This is not a disaster,” I said, gesturing to the cluttered but clean space. “Clearly you’ve never been to Mark’s place. Or mine.” Sophie raised an eyebrow and turned towards the bedroom.
“Let me get you a pillow and a blanket,” she said. “At the other end of the living room is the door to the porch, if you want to smoke.” I walked over to the couch and sat down as Sophie disappeared into her room, closing the door behind her. After a moment, Drogon poked his head out from behind the entertainment center and looked up at me, letting out a curious meow. I patted the couch and he looked at me doubtfully.
“Suit yourself,” I told him, kicking off my shoes and pulling my keys, phone, wallet, my cigarettes and lighter out of my pockets. I set them all down on the coffee table and stretched against the tightness in my neck and back, looking around the apartment. Sophie had some art up: I recognized a piece by Adam Sheetz, vivid with its surreal, calculated grotesqueness, another one by Dana Donaty; she also had a couple of prints: a Monet next to the bathroom door, a Van Gogh at the entrance into the kitchen.
Sophie came out of the bedroom in a wisp of a tank top and equally skimpy shorts, her face scrubbed clean, her hair brushed, a pillow and blanket in her arms. “I didn’t know you liked art,” I said, gesturing at the different pieces scattered around the room. Sophie shrugged.
“I minored in art history in college,” she explained, handing the pillow and blanket to me. Somehow, in her pajamas, barefoot, with no makeup on her face, she looked even cuter than she had either of the two times I’d seen her before; she looked almost girlish, her eyes softened, her mouth sweet.
“What was your major?” Sophie padded over to the kitchen, yawning.
“Dual major: English and Anthropology,” she told me. I heard the squeak of a cabinet opening. “Want a glass of water?”
“Sure,” I replied. I heard glasses clinking against each other, the faucet coming on, the clatter of ice. Sophie came back into the living room with a glass of ice water in each hand. “English, Anthropology, and art history,” I said. “No wonder you’re a bartender.” Sophie rolled her eyes.
“I didn’t ever really intend to use my degree for a specific career anyway,” she said, handing me one of the glasses. She took a long sip from the other one. “I figured I’d just come up with something once I graduated.” I laughed.
“I’m not much better,” I said. “I studied art and design.” I pointed to the Adam Sheetz print next to the TV. “Actually, had a couple of classes with Adam.”
“So how did you end up the bass player for a huge band instead of becoming the next big cult artist?” I shrugged.
“One of those choices you make,” I said. “I figured I’d try my hand at both, and whichever one showed more promise sooner I’d throw all my weight behind, and that was Molly Riot.” I drank down some water, and Drogon decided he was brave enough to venture out from behind the entertainment center. He mewed at Sophie pathetically and she walked over to him, scooping him up off of the floor.
“I should probably get to sleep,” she said with a sigh, drinking down another gulp of water. “We’re doing a deep clean at Respects tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” I said, setting my glass down on the coffee table—on one of the coasters I saw there.
“There’s a charger station next to the TV—I think I’ve got just about every kind of cable,” Sophie told me. “Other than that, I guess if you’re up by the time I am, I’ll make breakfast.” I grinned.
“For someone who didn’t even want me to stay the night, you’re being really kind.” Sophie rolled her eyes, smiling.
“Once you walk in the front door, you are my guest and therefore I have to be a good hostess. Get some sleep.” She yawned and turned to the bedroom, and I started getting comfortable on the couch.
The pillow smelled like Sophie—I hadn’t even realized that I’d picked up on the sweet-flowery smell that clung to her until I breathed in and caught the scent on the pillow. Whatever shampoo she used, it was awesome. I buried my face against the pillowcase and breathed in and out for a few moments before I realized what a freak that probably made me. I turned over on my side facing the back of the couch and tried to will myself to sleep. I was tired enough: the show had been intense, it was about three or maybe four in the morning, and I’d been in the studio from nine that morning until about two in the afternoon before we’d called it a day; but for the lo
ngest time I lie there wide awake, staring at the back of the couch, wondering about Sophie. It was stupid. It was beyond stupid. But I couldn’t help it.
CHAPTER FIVE
I must have fallen asleep at some point; I woke up to the sound of meowing and the sliding glass door moving along its track. I turned over on the couch and nearly spilled off of it, opening my eyes just in time to catch sight of Sophie stepping through the open door and onto the patio, while Drogon darted out between her feet. Sophie must have heard me—or maybe seen me in the corner of her eye. She turned and smiled ruefully. “Sorry—I thought you were pretty deeply asleep,” she said.
“Don’t sweat it,” I told her, scrambling around onto my feet. I’d woken up at some point and gotten my jeans off—they were just too uncomfortable—and I probably should have felt weirder about standing around in my tee shirt and boxers, but considering that I could make out the outline of Sophie’s nipples against the flimsy fabric of her pajama top, and barely—barely—see the bottom curve of her ass where her shorts ended, I didn’t think I was overstepping any big boundaries.
I followed her out onto the patio, cigarette pack in hand, and slumped down into a chair. Drogon began scratching through his litter box and Sophie produced a fresh pack of cigarettes out of a pocket I hadn’t seen on her shorts. “So,” I said, lighting my own cig and taking a drag. “Why exactly did you let me stay the night?” Sophie shrugged.
