by Hazel Kelly
“I broke up with my girlfriend, and my best friend has been blowing me off all day.”
I swallowed. “You broke up with Chelsea?”
“Well, she didn’t break up with me if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I’m not. I just-”
“Good. How soon will you be here?”
“A half hour?”
“Sounds good. I’ll be the guy with the great haircut and an empty barstool beside me.”
“Got it.”
“And wear something low cut. I could use a pleasant distraction.”
My jaw dropped as he hung up. I didn’t know what to think. He’d never said anything like that to me in my life. Suddenly, I was overcome with anxiety. Should I wear something low cut to indulge him or wear a fucking turtleneck so he didn’t dare speak to me like that again?
When I finally picked my jaw up off the floor, I felt ridiculous. It was not okay for him to talk to me like that even if he was hammered. So why couldn’t I stop smiling?
I wished Fiona hadn’t left so I could ask her advice. Then again, I knew she would want me to dress like a total skank if I told her he said that.
I sighed. I supposed the least I could do was oblige him a little. Maybe some collarbone and a hint of cleavage just to be playful. I mean, he was probably being facetious anyway. I put on my favorite scoop neck black shirt and looked in the mirror.
What if he was embarrassed that he said that, and then I showed up with a low cut top on? What if he wasn’t embarrassed and he actually checked me out when I walked in?
I needed to calm down. It didn’t matter what I wore. He was just being drunk and flirty to take his mind off the fact that he and Chelsea broke up. If anything, I should just be happy that I was off the hook for telling him the truth about her. And even though he would probably just move on to a newer model of the same ridiculous type of person, that didn’t concern me.
What concerned me was being for him now when he wanted to get drunk and rant so he could move on with a clean slate.
I put in the little sunflower earrings that always cheered me up when I was feeling down and started to apply my makeup. I figured, given the circumstances, that it wouldn’t hurt to put on a few extra coats of mascara. After all, the guy sounded depressed and he’d basically asked me to get dolled up.
Which- as much as I hated to admit it- was really flattering because it meant that at least he didn’t think of me as a sister and recognized the fact that I was a woman. And maybe it was only cause he’d recently seen the shape of my breasts down my shirt but still. It was something.
I dug around for some lip gloss and blotted my lips on a crumpled tissue that was lying on my dresser. Then I slipped a short skirt and my black boots on and grabbed my purse.
I looked in the mirror again for a second and cocked my head. For a split second, I actually thought I looked kind of pretty, but a moment later, I felt a sad gnawing in my heart.
Even at my best, I would never be a leggy blond model who looked good in pink and could pull off electric blue eye shadow. I would never be the kind of girl that men fought to open doors for or the type that walked straight to the front of the line when she went clubbing. Shit, I could barely walk in heels to save my life.
The best I could hope for was to be attractive enough to distract Aiden for a few minutes when he was down on girls like that.
And I could be that girl.
I always had been.
Chapter 10: Aiden
I was so happy to see her it was stupid.
In light of the bullshit demise of my sad excuse for a relationship and the annoying tone in my Mother’s voice when I told her I’d dumped another girlfriend, I was starting to think Lucy was the only person that didn’t think I was a total fuck up.
Then again, maybe she did, but at least she didn’t make me feel that way. Which I have to assume is why I craved her company when I loathed the thought of being around anyone else… besides my good friend Jack Daniels, of course.
And it was Jack that was comforting me when Lucy walked in wearing a short skirt.
“How you doin’, champ?” she asked, sliding onto the stool next to me.
“Never better.”
Lucy lifted a finger towards the bartender. “I’ll have whatever he’s having,” she said, nodding towards my drink.
“Make it two,” I added.
She rolled her eyes. “Please tell me it’s a cuba libre.”
“Jack and Coke I’m afraid.”
She laughed. “Shit. Good thing I wore my drinking boots.”
“You always wear your drinking boots.”
She shrugged. “Well, you can never be too prepared.”
“You look nice,” I said, wondering what color underwear she was wearing.
“Thanks. You look like you’ve been drinking since noon.”
“Three actually, but I make good time.”
She shook her head. “I wore my little sunflowers to cheer you up,” she said, turning her head so I could see her earrings.
“Are those the ones you got in Chinatown?”
“Yep,” she said. “Best quarter I ever spent.”
“You like ‘em that much, huh?”
She nodded. “I think it’s because sunflowers always look like they’re smiling to me.”
“Thanks for coming to meet me, Luce.”
“Don’t mention it. I was thirsty anyway.”
The bartender put two drinks down and Lucy grabbed hers, sniffed it, and made a face so disgusted I was surprised she didn’t hold her nose when she downed half of it in one go.
“How can you drink that shit?” she asked, putting her glass down.
“Pretty much the way you just did,” I said, draining the sweating glass in front of me.
“It tastes like hangover.”
“It tastes like forgetting.”
She rolled her eyes.
The bartender looked over his shoulder at us as he jammed some Corona’s into a bucket of ice. “Well, you know what they say about that.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “You know I’m good for it.”
Lucy looked back and forth between us. “What? What do they say?”
I smiled. “They say those who drink to forget pay in advance.”
She laughed. “I see.”
The bartender lifted the packed bucket with two hands. “That policy is the only reason we’re still in business,” he said, excusing himself to deliver the Coronas.
Lucy turned towards me and tilted her head. “So you want to tell me what happened?”
“I didn’t love her,” I said. “And to be honest, I don’t think I ever did.”
She nodded and turned her attention to swirling her drink.
“Plus, I think she was cheating on me.”
Lucy looked up. “Really?”
“I wasn’t positive before I confronted her about it, but she didn’t exactly deny it.”
“I’m so sorry. That sucks.”
“I’m mostly irritated because she said it was my fault.”
Her eyes grew wide. “What?”
“I know. Apparently it’s my fault for being too trusting and making it really easy for her to go behind my back.”
“Aiden, that’s terrible.”
“I know,” I said. “My Mom thinks it’s my fault, too, like I’m defective because I can’t keep a girl happy or find someone.”
“That’s ridiculous. That’s not your problem at all.”
I laughed. “Oh really? What’s my problem then?”
“Your problem is that you set yourself up for disappointment by dating women who are really hard to please.”
“By hard to please, I’m assuming you mean high maintenance?”
“Yeah,” she said. “What you need is to find a girl who’s really busted. That way, she’ll be happy with whatever you give her and she’ll never stray or get greedy.”
“Where am I going to find a catch like that?”
&
nbsp; Lucy looked over her shoulder at the packed tables behind us. “This looks like it might be a good place to start.”
I looked around to see if she was on to something, but all I noticed was that Lucy was by far the best looking woman in the bar.
“And if I decide I don’t want to alienate the people in my local, I suppose there’s always Tinder,” I said. “Isn’t that where you find the creeps you go out with?”
“They’re not all creeps.”
“If you say so,” I said. “Seriously, though, has anyone ever met someone they were actually compatible with using that?”
Lucy shrugged. “Fiona might have.”
“Really?”
She drank the rest of her Jack and Coke. “Yeah, some male nurse who works in the children’s hospital.”
“Sounds too good to be true.”
“I know,” she said. “But he seems okay so far. She’s actually on her third date with him right now.”
“Their third date, huh? Sounds sticky.”
“If it’s anything like their first and second date, I’m sure it will be very sticky indeed.”
I smiled and raised my glass. “So aren’t you going to say I told you so?”
“About what?”
“About Chelsea.”
“No,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m right. Just cause I didn’t like her doesn’t mean I’m happy she fucked around.”
I cringed.
“Sorry,” she said, crinkling her nose. “I didn’t mean to-”
“It’s cool. It’s just still kind of fresh, ya know?”
“Well, for what it’s worth, she wasn’t good enough for you.”
“Thanks, Luce.”
“I mean, she was a total bitch to me for one which should’ve been a deal breaker right away.”
“I know.”
“Plus, she was basically allergic to food.”
“And fun,” I added.
“And she cried all the time about stupid stuff.”
“And then didn’t cry that time we watched The Fox and the Hound.”
“Oh my god, I forgot about that,” she said, raising her eyebrows. “Remember how freaked out I was about that?”
I nodded. “Yeah, she wasn’t really an animal lover which was kind of suspect.”
“And wasn’t Ringo her favorite Beatle?”
I shook my head. “No, it was Mick.”
“But he’s not even-”
“I know,” I said. “My point exactly.”
“I’d say you dodged a bullet there in the end.”
“Probably.”
Lucy turned to order another drink, and I looked at where her little sunflower earring met her delicate jawline.
For a moment, I wanted to smell her hair. And that thought led to me wondering what it would be like to watch it drag over my naked torso knowing that she was going to wrap her sassy mouth around me. And in my mind, I imagined that she’d make the same face she made when she was eating ice cream, that her dark eyes would be full of enthusiasm and mischief.
“Aiden!”
“What?”
“Do you want another one of those?”
“Yeah, sure.” I clenched my jaw and exhaled through my nose, trying to put the image of Lucy on her knees out of my head.
For the next few minutes, I didn’t say anything. Instead, I just focused on my drink, relishing the way the harsh bourbon burnt my throat and sloshed in my belly. “You have dinner yet?” I asked.
“No, but I could eat.”
“Me, too.”
“You wanna get something here or go somewhere else?” she asked.
“I’ve got some nacho stuff and a bunch of taquitos back at my place.”
“That sounds perfect,” she said.
I looked at the lip gloss mark on her glass. “Think you can handle the cooking?”
She shrugged. “It’s not really cooking as much as assembling.”
“True, but you’re probably better in the kitchen than me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Flattery will get you everywhere.”
I poured some ice cubes into my mouth.
“Do you have something besides Jack at your place?” she asked.
I closed my eyes for a second and tried to picture the bottom shelf of my fridge. “I’ve got plenty of beer, maybe one or two bottles of cider, and a half empty bottle of vodka.”
She crinkled her nose.
“But I could pick up some shandys at the store across the street if you want,” I said.
“Are you bribing me with shandys?”
I smiled. “Only if it’s working.”
Chapter 11: Lucy
I was relieved that Aiden wasn’t depressed over breaking up with Chelsea. If he’d been sulking, I don’t know what I could’ve said that wouldn’t have sounded heartless. Not that he was a sulker anyway.
In fact, ever since I’d known him, I was always impressed with the way he just got on with things even when they didn’t go his way. It made him even more attractive than his thick hair and his taut muscles which I watched moving under his shirt as he opened his apartment door with a six pack of shandys under his arm.
“When was the last time you came over?” he asked, flicking the lights on and tossing his keys in a bowl by the door.
“It’s been a while,” I said, remembering how awkward Chelsea had been to me the last time I was there.
Aiden walked over to the fridge and slid my beers in the freezer. “I don’t think anything has changed.”
“This bookshelf is new,” I said, making my way over to it.
“Oh that. I built that myself actually.”
I put my hand on the side of it. “Really?”
“Well, it’s from Ikea, but still.” He took a glass out and popped a few cubes out of an ice tray. “Shandy with ice?”
“Please,” I said, looking at the books on the shelf. They fell into three clear categories: business books, physical therapy & anatomy books, and biographies of sports personalities. “I didn’t know you could read.”
He smiled. “I can’t,” he said, appearing at my side with a cold drink. “But I can sound out the table of contents well enough to get the main ideas.”
I laughed and took the glass from his hand. “Thanks.”
Aiden put two thick fingers on the spine of one of the books and slid it off the shelf. “You might like this one,” he said, handing it to me.
It was a business book called Getting it Right the First Time Around.
“Every chapter is the story of how a different entrepreneur started their first business and what they wish they’d known.”
I put my beer on the edge of one of the shelves. “You got all that from the table of contents?”
He shrugged. “To be honest, I haven’t even read it. I was just hoping you would check it out and summarize it for me.”
I opened it and flipped through the pages. Even though the small print was too blurry for me to make out in my pleasantly drunken state, it was obvious that he had read it. Not only was there something underlined every few pages, but I recognized his cramped hand writing in the margins. “Looks like you’ve already done the hard work for me.”
He leaned against the bookshelf and brought his beer to his lips. “I don’t know how much of it would be relevant to opening a salon, but you’re welcome to borrow it anytime- or anything else in my library that grabs you.”
I rolled my eyes when I heard him refer to the skinny shelf as a library, but there was a twinkle of pride in his eyes that was sort of cute.
“I’m going to throw some taquitos in,” he said, heading back towards the kitchen. “You wanna put some music on?”
“Sure,” I said, looking around.
“Speaker’s on the table.”
I made my way over to his iPod and turned it on. “I can see your musical tastes haven’t evolved.”
“I mostly listen to that when I’m working out. You might be better off finding something on the radi
o if it’s guitar sounds you’re after.”
I switched the radio on and tuned it to my favorite classic rock station, laughing when I heard the familiar melody. “I’d like to dedicate this song to you,” I said, turning it up.
“Hilarious,” he said when he recognized Queen’s I Want to Break Free. “I suppose it beats Bat out of Hell.”
