“Buy me a drink, Scott,” I say, as I grab his collar and lead him towards the bar. “It’s the least you can do after the crap you pulled in high school.”
“You got it, Blondie.”
Holly seems to be hitting it off with the new bartender, who seems real nice and is certainly pretty enough to look at. We don’t normally have the luxury of having bands play at the Sugartown Hotel, but the new guy somehow convinced Dave that bands would get more patrons in the door, and so far it appears to have worked.
Holly and I make a show of dancing. We both agreed it was the right thing to do to support the new guy’s band theory. Best intentions aside, I know we’re both just trying to gain the attention of the two hottest men in place. I make the mistake of seeking out the gaze of one of those hot men and earn a stab to the heart because of it. Elijah once said he couldn’t imagine anything hotter than Holly and I together and, as the band blasted out a very sexy and slightly emo cover of The Divinyls’
Scott jumps right on in behind me and I feel my spine turn to slush when I think about the last time a guy stood that close behind me. Then I remember the way Elijah had reacted to that scenario and, with a quick glance in his direction, I excuse myself and head for the bar. He doesn’t make a move toward me, but I feel his eyes burning a hole in my backside until I’m sitting safely on a stool.
Holly stays on the dance floor and I’m okay with that, because it gives me a chance to suss out the new guy and see if he meets the best friend seal of approval.
“Thirsty work, huh?” He leans over the bar and his eyes are sparkling as he winks at me. He’s got a very Adam Levine kind of vibe—sex on a stick and just as cheeky too. “What can I get ya?”
“Johnnie Walker, blue label, neat.”
“Ooh, top-shelf? Either you’re in for a big night or you’re buying for the guy in the corner who’s been tossing them back like lollies and hasn’t taken his eyes off you all night.”
“Let’s go with the first one,” I say and slap a fifty-dollar note on the bar. I gulp down the shot. My stomach threatens a mini revolt and I have to choke it down again before it makes an embarrassing reappearance. After the burn settles all I can taste is Elijah, and my heart hurts all over again.
“Tonight, I’m drinking for Australia,” I declare and tilt my glass toward him in a salute.
“Thatta girl.” He refills my glass and shakes his head when I slip another fifty-dollar note from my clutch. “This one’s on me.”
“Thanks.” I smile and sip the shot slowly, and then, because the taste is so familiar I hold the glass beneath my nose and inhale. When I open my eyes sex on a stick is watching me with a half-smile and a knowing glint in his eye.
“How long has it been?”
I don’t know if he’s talking about the last time I got laid—which sadly has been never—how long it’s been since I had a drink—I am sort of acting like a raging alcoholic—or how long since Elijah and I broke up, but I find myself answering the latter, anyway. “Four weeks.”
“I think from the death glares he’s sending me right now that it’s safe to say he wants you back.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Yeah? So is life.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“That dance you two were doing, was that all for him?”
“Mine was. Holly’s though, Holly’s was all for you.”
“And this Holly, is she complicated?”
“Surprisingly not.” I lean back on the stool a little to get a better look at him. It’s kind of an odd question for a guy who doesn’t know her from a bar of soap, and I feel a flutter of excitement for her when I realise he wants to get to know her a lot better. “Holly’s a great girl. She’s calls it like she sees it, she doesn’t like to be undermined, patronized or interrupted when she’s ranting. She’s loyal to a fault and she’s been a bossy, nosy bitch since kindergarten.”
He laughs and shakes his head. “Wow, that’s really a stellar recommendation.”
“She’s the best woman I know. I hear she’s also fireworks in the sack, though that little titbit came from her, so don’t blame me if it turns out not to be true.” I swallow back the rest of my drink and slide off the stool I’m occupying. “Will you tell her I went home? I don’t want her to feel like she has to take me home when there’s someone else waiting for her.”
“I’ll tell her.”
I swing around and face the room, my eyes automatically searching out Elijah’s, as if they’re on autopilot. Disappointment washes through me when I don’t find them anywhere. Maybe he went home, or maybe he’s in the bathroom taking a pee. That thought automatically makes me need to go myself so I turn back around and say, “Oh, and if you break her heart I’ll hunt you down and rip out yours.” And then I strut away to the ladies.
I’m still laughing at the look on his face when I stumble into the bathroom and freeze in my tracks. Propped up against the wall is a young couple fucking one another’s brains out. Crude, yes, but there’s really no other way to describe it. His jeans are down around his ankles displaying a firm arse and two long muscular legs, one with a very detailed tiger tattoo. Her legs are wrapped around his hips. One of his hands supports her weight while the other palm is slammed flat against the tile, and his thrusts are hard enough to nail her to the goddamn wall. He groans with each one and the sound rings in my ears—primal, animal, it calls to some baser thing inside me yearning to be let out of her cage.
The moment seems to stretch on for eons.
Neither one of them has noticed me yet. Her eyes are shut tightly, and the noise of the door banging shut is swallowed by her moans.
“Oh, fuck me harder,” she cries out and I find I’m equal parts aroused and revolted. Also, I can almost pinpoint the second when my addled brain catches up to what my eyes are witnessing and my heart shatters in two. I can’t look away, and yet I’ll never be able to look at him the same way again. In this moment, all the bullshit that had transpired between us before seems like just that, bullshit.
This is the sort of betrayal I can never forgive him for, because no matter what the excuse, he knows how I feel about him. He also knows how I feel about her and he knew there was a chance I would find the two of them like this, and the fact that he’s willing to hurt me for the sake of a quick fuck makes me hate him just a little.
I’m not an idiot, though. It’s obvious he’s enjoying himself, too. That’s evident by what he says next as he hammers into her, “God, you feel so fucking good.”
Nicole lets out this ridiculously high-pitched giggle and opens her eyes. They widen in shock and then narrow down as she registers that I’m standing there, watching. A smile spreads across her face, wide and victorious. And then she grabs his arse with her long taloned hands and drives him into her faster.
It isn’t long before he’s finishing hard and fast, exactly the way he never could with me. And that cuts deeper than anything I’ve seen so far in this disgusting bathroom. He leans against her, spent. He doesn’t kiss her; there’s none of the tenderness of our post orgasmic moments, but that hardly matters. The truth is, he still fucked a girl up against the bathroom wall knowing I was in the very next room.
Nicole bends down to whisper into his ear. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves an audience.”
Elijah freezes and then he turns his upper body to face me. Only his upper body, because I’m assuming the lower half is still buried in that whore. “Ah, fuck.”
I don’t say a single thing in return, though there are many, many words on the tip of my tongue. I simply convey all of the hurt I’m feeling with one look before calmly stepping through the door.
Once I’m in the hallway with that mind-fuck of a mess behind me, I take a deep breath and bolt outside. My plan is to run all the way home. It’s just a few short blocks, and the bathroom incident has sobered me enough to ensure I won’t wind up stumbling and passing out in someone’s front yard. That’s the plan, but life hardly ever goes according to one.
“Ana!” I hear his footsteps pounding the pavement behind me, but I don’t bother to turn around, I just run faster and pray he doesn’t catch up. Apparently I’m not that lucky though. Elijah reaches out and yanks me back
