Page 17 of Marked by the Demigod

"I didn't know they were doing a show here tonight, I swear." Trixie blurts out.

It's such an obvious lie that Aimes pats her on the shoulder. "Of course you didn't."

Trixie loves live music, the sadder the better. Aimes would bet actual money that Trixie checked the website before drinks.

The bartender hands them their drinks without having to wait for orders, and they sit and listen until the girl finishes a song. It washes over Aimes, washes over all the strangeness and the loneliness and the confusion of the past days. With the half bottle of wine, she feels almost as if her eyes are prickling and her skin is puffy.

She's not gonna cry in a cheesy bar with neon blue walls and fake palm trees, but her body sure is gonna try.

The song ends and Trixie exhales, loud and forceful, then turns back to Aimes. "God this week is a mess."

"Yeah. Yeah it is." Aimes swivels back and forth on the bar stool, out of a lack of anything else to do. "Anything else happen to you?"

"I have a date tomorrow night. Like an actual date date." Trixie stares at her drink, before taking a noisy drag from it.

Trixie doesn't date well, and doesn't relationship well. In the time they've known each other, Trixie has had...maybe six dates. And no second dates. Sex, yes, and plenty of it, but not so much on the dates.

Aimes claps her hand on her shoulder. "Need me to keep an eye on your GPS signal?" Their phones are fantastic. They keep track of each other during those situations in the modern world where single girls need to keep an eye out to each other without having the time or ability to be in the same room.

"I just don't think it's going to be worth it. He wants to get to know me." She slurps again from her drink. "Like it's important to him, that I have a personality."

Aimes knocks shoulders with her as the singer starts up a new song.

If only she had tried to get to know the guy before jumping into weird sex with him at a hotel.

She turns to her own drink, scanning the crowd out of sudden paranoia. No one is paying her extra attention, no one is staring.

As the song turns sad and tragic, Aimes wonders if she should approach the next person who does. If she should sit and chat with them, see what some random stranger will say. See if she'll get that pity or that condemnation they spoke about.

Maybe that’s all the support structure Katya mentioned. Maybe there’s a group, like Alcoholics Anonymous, where you sit in a circle and discuss things.

Sitting in a circle is so not her brand.

The song ends and Trixie turns back to Aimes.

"Do you think it's worth it?" Her voice is scared, young.

"Do you think you can like the guy?"

She shrugs, and the bartender replaces her now empty drink. "I don't know. Maybe?" She fiddles with her phone. "He's nice, he's sarcastic, he likes my lighting designs, he's not an actor."

"That's important."

Trixie tends to just sleep with actors, but hates talking with them, and right now it seems like such a small problem, especially since Aimes apparently got accidentally magically married and...

...And she can never tell Trixie.

She ducks into her own drink with a pang of...something. She doesn't even know who the guy is. He had promptly fucked off after fucking her and, if Katya’s to be believed, changing her life.

"Go have the date and chat a bunch. If it doesn't work for romance, it could work for friendship?" She pulls away. "We could use some guy friends that aren't, you know, coworkers that are a few decades older. Or actors."

Trixie' face warps into a perplexed shape. "But what if I'm lame?"

And that's what it boils down to. The feeling that she's gonna be too lame for these people. And she isn't the one who was left at the metaphorical alter. The metaphorical magical altar that was mostly weird sex.

"You're not lame, just don't take him to a bar with music." Aimes says, and is rewarded by a small smile from Trixie.

"I think he's taking me to Girasol near Aroma." Trixie shrugs, like it isn't just the nicest restaurant ever. "It feels too fancy, I'm just gonna want to order wings and get messy."

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