That just wasn’t Ellie Charles.
Memories of that night had been coming back to him in blips. The smell of her hair when he held her tight, swaying in time to the music as they danced. The feel of her lips, so soft, so supple. The look in her eyes as she gazed into his.
As he stared at the amber liquid in the bottom of his glass, an uncomfortable feeling settled into his shoulders. He paused to analyze it and realized he was seriously disappointed she turned him down. He’d been looking forward to getting to know Ellie better. As for the kissing and hand holding and relationshipy stuff that would be required to keep up the pretense? Truthfully, that sounded pretty damn good, too.
James took another drink of his whiskey and welcomed the numbness that chased it down his throat. His knuckles stung. Bruised and scabbed from his time on the heavy bag earlier in the day. His body ached, sore from the gym and the repeated falls he took with his sparring partner.
All of it was good.
Each prick of pain kept his mind from the agony he would feel when he returned to his house that was no longer a home.
A familiar voice startled him out of his thoughts. He spun in his seat at the bar and leaned his elbows back on the counter.
Erin was there.
At the bar.
He scanned the growing crowd, hating how eager he was to see her blonde hair shining in the dim light and her blue eyes flashing with the smile he heard in her voice. He should have known better than to look, because when he found her, she wasn’t alone. She had some other guy’s arm around her shoulders.
No. Not just some other guy. That was Leonard. The guy she’d been cheating on him with. The guy she left him for. And her smile was for him. And her laughter was for him. And she was for him and that cut James to the quick.
He watched her for a while, leaning back on the bar, drink in hand. An unnoticed observer of all their longing gazes and meaningful touches. The graze of her fingertips along his hand and the brush of his thumb across her cheeks. Leonard leaned over and pressed a kiss to Erin’s wrist. She ducked her chin in a move he knew meant she was happy.
James waited for pain to flare in his chest, to radiate outwards and transform him back into a big, raw nerve. He braced for the ache to set in, ready to drown it with whiskey.
It never came.
Interesting. What could that mean? The fact that he could watch that interaction without shattering? Was he healing? Or just drunk enough not to care?
Erin glanced toward the bar. Her eyes locked on his. Her jaw tightened and her lips turned down in a frown. Leonard followed her gaze and shook his head, eyebrows pursed together like a furry caterpillar meandering across his forehead. They had a quick, whispered conversation, the words sharpened by tense jaws and angry gestures. James watched it all with detached interest and took another drink, curious about the exchange and surprised by his own lack of gut-wrenching, visceral grief.
Erin held up her hands and sat back from Leonard and he sighed deeply, unhappy about whatever it was she had to say. And then, to James’ complete and utter surprise, Erin stood up from her table and made her way to where he sat at the bar. With his eyes locked on hers and hers locked on his, he brought his glass to his lips and finished the whiskey in one long swallow.
“What are you doing, James?” Erin crossed her arms over her chest and sat back on a heel.
“I’m having a drink.” He held up the empty glass and twisted in his seat to put it back on the bar, indicating to the bartender that he’d like another. “How about you? What are you doing?”
“Don’t be cute.” Erin tightened the grip she had on her arms and leaned forward. “Are you following me?”
James barked a caustic laugh. “You sure have a high opinion of yourself.”
“Or maybe I have a low opinion about you.” She arched an eyebrow and lifted her chin, blue eyes flashing defiantly.
“Careful about casting judgement. You know, stones and glass houses.” When his lifelong girlfriend didn’t respond, James leaned close. “I’m not the one who cheated, sweetheart.”
Erin’s nostrils flared. “Yeah, well I’m not the one who fell to pieces. Drinking myself into oblivion. Hanging out with jerks. And fighting? MMA? Really? It’s like you’re bound and determined to hurt me by hurting yourself.”
James shrugged. Nothing pissed Erin off more than when she picked a fight and he didn’t engage. The bartender sat his drink down with a thunk of glass on wood and James spun on his stool, turning his back on Erin.
Her sharp intake of breath validated him.
He had officially infuriated her.
He took comfort in her rage, knowing it made him a dick. Maybe he would forgive her for how she treated him one day. But that day had not yet arrived.
“You don’t get to treat me this way,” she said.
James craned his neck to look over his shoulder. “The way I see it, I was sitting here enjoying my drink when you came over and started harassing me about my life choices.”
Without another word, Erin pivoted and stormed off. That was fine with him. He leaned his elbows into the bar and couldn’t help but smile. The last time he ran into his ex-fiancé had left him gutted. The days following the encounter were a blurred tangle of women and booze and at least one set of bloody knuckles.
He listened to the now familiar sounds of the bar, the band setting up on the small stage in the back of the room, the ebb and flow of whispered conversation punctuated by random laughter and exclamations. The practiced flirtations of the waitresses angling for better
