Page 1 of Her Embarrassed Bear Mate

ONE

Alix

Alix wasn'tsomeone who usually drank her problems away but the current circumstance definitely warranted it. That was why she found herself inside the bar of a random posh hotel with a ridiculously overpriced cocktail in her hands. She was well aware that getting drunk would solve nothing but she just wanted to forget.

The clicking of heels sounded behind her and a woman sank down on the stool next to her. "Whisky. Neat. And make it a double."

Just from the tone of the woman's voice, Alixcould tell she also wasn't having a good day. She didn't know why or what but it made her feel slightly better knowing that all around her, other people were having shitty days too.

She took big swigs from her cocktail, glad that the taste of pineapple masked the harshness of the alcohol. She could never drink whisky the way the woman next to her was chugging it down.

"Another one," they said at the same time.

The bartender gave both of them a polite smile and swiped their empty glasses away.

"Rough night too?" the woman said.

Alix gave her neighbour a proper look. The whisky drinker was a stunner. Dark-haired with long eyelashes and smokey eyeshadow that made her blue eyes pop. She had a distinct beauty mark under her nose that drew anyone’s gaze to her full lips and sat on the barstool like it was a throne. On top of that, her handbag was an expensive brand and the necklace and earrings looked like they cost a fortune.

She was exactly Alix's type. Beautiful, out of her league, and clearly damaged.

"You have no idea," Alix responded finally. Usually, she would never confide in a stranger but that first cocktail was alreadymaking her lips looser. "I'm being forced to move even though I don't want to. It's not like I have a choice in the matter. You?"

"My dad is being an asshole."

The bartender arrived with their new drinks.

Alix picked up her pina colada. "Cheers to misery."

"They do say misery likes company," the woman toasted back.

Without hesitation, Alix took a big drink from her cocktail. It was sweet, creamy, and very coconutty. It was also a drink that suited a hot summer day on a beach, not a rainy night in the city. It certainly didn't suit her broody aesthetic.

The woman next to her, that was how it was supposed to look. Beautiful, mysterious, chugging whisky with a doomsday expression.

Alix chugged her cocktail down, trying not to think about how she could've gone to a supermarket and gotten drunk for the price of a single of these overpriced drinks. If it hadn't been raining, that would've been her choice but here she was.

Instead of ordering another pina colada, she asked for a glass of whisky too. The woman next to her radiated class and wealth so Alix felt silly sitting there with her childish cocktail. She took a big sip, too big, and was overcome by the harsh burnt taste.She fought against the urge to cough which was a big mistake because it made her expel the sip with violent force. It sprayed all over the bar and some of it even hit the other woman’s arm.

Alix wanted to die.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry!” she shouted, her entire body growing hot of embarrassment.

The woman next to her was a class act. She just smiled and dried her arm with a little napkin. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not used to whisky,” Alix confessed.

“I can see that,” she said while taking a smooth sip of her whisky. Such a flex.

Alix considered leaving hers except that it cost way too much to waste it. She took the most miniscule sip but it still made her grimace. “Yugh. How can you drink whisky straight-up like that?"

"Practice," the woman rasped. "It's my dad's favourite drink so I developed a taste for it."

"The dad that's being an asshole?"

"The very same. Even when I’m mad at him, I’m still trying to get his approval. Pathetic, right? Anyway, if you don’t like whisky, consider yourself lucky. It’s a money trap. You have no idea how much money my dad has spent buyingthe finest bottles of whisky from goddess knows where. Not to drink, but to have.”

Just like Alix suspected, the woman next to her wasn’t just rich but wealthy. It made her feel even more embarrassed and small. While she got used to the whisky, she checked her phone to see if she had any new messages, like perhaps an apology from her mother, but no. It seemed like her mother genuinely didn't care that she was uprooting their entire life just for a new man.

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