Kimber’s heart turned over at the vague mention of Jay. “I don’t know what you mean.” Had Taryn heard them screaming at each other through the walls? How could she not have? The partition that separated the apartments might as well have been made from popsicle sticks and Scotch tape.
Taryn straightened then propped a foot on the stair railing and reached for her toes. “I bumped into him out here after I got in a huge fight with Brad yesterday night. I’ve been doing all I can not to think about him but…” For a moment, her eyes clouded. Then she brightened. “Anyway, I saw Jay and thought, hey, the perfect diversion.”
“Oh.” Kimber took a slow, deep breath, trying to calm down and decide for what reason she felt the need to calm down.
“But after he said yes when I asked him out, I was like, what the hell are you doing, Taryn? You don’t know anything about this guy. And it’s not like Brad and I are big on going out on the town, so I have no idea what’s cool to do around here.”
“Uh huh.” Jay had spent the evening screaming about being in love with her then turned around and agreed to date the neighbor as soon as he was out the door? What the hell was going on?
“Since you and Jay are such good friends,” Taryn said, picking up the jump rope at her feet and hopping like the White Rabbit on amphetamines, “I figured you’d be the best person to ask. What do you think he’d want to do?”
“Tonight.” Taryn sighed. “This whole thing has been very impulsive.”
A scheme Kimber didn’t quite comprehend took a nebulous shape in her mind. “There’s this local band he loves playing at Bellringer’s tonight. Have you ever heard of Aural Stimulation?”
“Bables!” Dane looked so happy to see her when she approached him at the counter of Bellringer’s in between the band’s first and second set that Kimber almost wished she still felt just an ounce of longing for him. He engulfed her in a hug, and she could feel how hot his skin was beneath his plaid button-down shirt. They swayed in a tight embrace, the kind she used to want to last forever but now seemed excruciatingly endless. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too.” She gave his spine a soft pat and pulled away, craving the end of the uncomfortable hug.
He released her albeit with reluctance. “You want a beer?”
There was no way she could survive the night without one-or several. “Sure. Whatever you’re having.”
His mouth twisted in apology. “I’m drinking straight Jack.”
Of course he was; there was no mistaking that beautiful glitter in his blue eyes that foretold he was already wasted on hard liquor. For once it didn’t bother her. It was even somewhat comforting that he was so the same while she was the one who changed. “I’ll have that, too.”
Dane called over the bartender while Kimber glanced around, hoping it wasn’t obvious that she sought Jay. Her body jolted with anxiety when she spied a man of a similar height and build with an arm around someone, but it was only an acne-riddled teen wearing too much eyeliner, and his companion was another boy. If Kimber had come to learn anything about Jay, it was that he definitely wasn’t gay, not even close. Her cheeks burned, recognizing that she knew this for a fact.
“For you, my queen.” Dane pressed a glass of whiskey in her palm. “I gotta get back to the band though. Break’s almost up. You gonna be all right by yourself?”
She nodded. That had been the situation all along when it came to the two of them.
Relief bloomed on his face. “Good.” He brushed his knuckles across her cheek. “I’m so glad you’re here. We’ll talk more after this next set, okay?”
Kimber bobbed her head again and Dane ambled off, his step light. She made herself comfortable in a vacant seat at the bar, hoping no one would talk to her yet hoping someone would, in the event Jay might be around and looking her way. Even though she’d just told Ferney that he wasn’t in the picture, now there was no other thought more attractive than him watching her with a lustful, deliciously tortured expression in his eyes, all the while knowing he couldn’t have her. Looking good and living well was really the best revenge.
But she’d be lying if she said that all day long, she hadn’t been alternating between schemes of how to make him completely miserable and fantasies of him pinning her against the Monte Carlo in the parking lot and having his way with her. She took a sip of her whiskey, trying to swallow her complex feelings with it.
Aural Stimulation took the stage, and though the bar was crowded, no one seemed to notice. Alex’s bass drum throbbed a few lazy times while the bassist, Ted, walked his fingers up and down the neck of his bass. Dane slid his Native American-patterned guitar strap over his head, played a quick albeit complicated riff, and then gave the band a nod. Alex returned the gesture and crashed his drumsticks together overhead, and the band lapsed into a cover of “Casey Jones.”
Kimber’s legs bounced in time to the music, partially out of nervousness regarding what the evening might bring and partially because she could never stop herself from moving with the beat. Despite his flaws, Dane was a phenomenal guitar player, his heroes being Jimmy Page and Stevie Ray Vaughn, and his talent transcended dive bars in northeast Pennsylvania. Kimber watched him play his guitar, stroke the strings, and she recalled how badly she used to want him to have a similar intensity about her. She’d wanted him to love her like music and couldn’t understand why it had been so hard.
“Thank you both, you’re too kind,” Dane quipped in a monotone as the song closed to the response of less than a quarter of the patrons half-heartedly clapping. He paused to take a swig of his whiskey, which rested in his microphone stand’s drink holder. “This next song was written about Catherine the Great’s horse.” Aural Stimulation’s rendition of “Hash Pipe” soon blasted from the amplifiers.
Kimber downed her drink and beckoned the bartender over for another, the whiskey’s warmth spreading through her, and a lazy, lighthearted pleasure took rule of her heart. This wasn’t so bad. This was even fun. She was out on the town, getting tipsy and listening to a good cover band. She was even happy Dane was around, thankful for his reassuring predictability and that she no longer had expectations of him. It freed her to see that he wasn’t really a bad person, just someone who wasn’t right for her, and there wasn’t anything wrong with that. She was alive and doing okay, had made it past the end.
No sooner had Kimber decided to enjoy the night, no matter what, her fitness-friendly neighbor’s sudden appearance shocked all the toasty happiness from her body.
“Hey there!” Taryn hugged her with a fierceness their relationship hardly warranted. “I didn’t even see you come in. When did you get here?”
“Only a little bit ago.” The now familiar unease and horror returned to Kimber as Taryn released her. “What about you?”
“We got here about twenty minutes ago.” Taryn gestured between herself and the man beside her, ordering drinks, and it wasn’t until he looked her way that Kimber registered the man as Jay. Her heart halted like a needle scratching to a stop across a record, her mind white at his transition from her daydreams to standing right in front of her.
To make matters worse, he tossed his chin her way. “Hey, Kim. How’s it going?”
“Great, you?” The words left her in a rush although she couldn’t wrap her mind around their meaning, so stunned was she at Jay’s friendly ambivalence. It was like she was a stranger, like he hadn’t known her for years, like he hadn’t ever poured his heart out to her, like he’d never been inside her, making her come. She forced herself to behave the same and ignore the swell of guttural screams now looping through her head.
Taryn’s eyes sparkled as she bobbed her head, perhaps a bit too vigorously. “Everything’s going good. Really good.”
“Have you heard from Brad?” Kimber asked, hoping that Taryn had, that her neighbors’ love life would resolve and stop intruding on hers. Not that Jay was in her love life but-
“No.” A dark, sad look filled Taryn’s light green eyes, and Kimber regretted saying anything at all-until Taryn beamed and patted Jay on the back. “No, I’m not going to think of him tonight.”
Kimber forced a weak smile, keeping her gaze on Taryn’s face and refusing to let it drift in Jay’s direction.
“Hey, we’re sitting at a table near the stage,” Taryn added. “You should definitely join us.”
