Page 31 of What are the Chances

“Excuse me, sir. Might I please get a pint of Guinness?”

“In a moment, lad,” he mutters, his shoulders hunched over, his flat cap pushed down in the front, shadowing his eyes.

“Thank you.” I rest my forehead in my palm and dig my fingers through the front of my hair. My thoughts are cloudy. It’s like I’m driving down a dirt road, Charlotte driving the car in front of me. The more I follow her, the more her car kicks up the dirt. Everything becomes obscured, and I have no sense of direction.

My head is near exploding when a full glass of beer is placed in front of me.

“Here you go, laddie. That’ll be five euro. Unless you plan on starting a tab,” the bartender says.

Looking up, I furrow my eyebrows, knowing I’ve seen this man before. A similar look of recognition spreads across his face at the same time.

“Wait a minute. Bern, right?”

“That’s right.” A small smirk curls on his mouth as he chuckles. “You’re a friend of the young woman I took home the other night, correct?”

“Yeah,” I grin. “Charlotte. My name is Mason.”

“Nice to see you again, Mason. How is the poor American beauty doing? I felt terrible for what happened that day. I swore if I ever saw that sorry excuse for a man in here again, I’d give him a beatin’ before delivering him a good kick in the arse on the way out the door.”

My smile falters, and I wrap my fingers around my cold glass. Bringing the glass to my lips, I take a small sip and watch as I place it back down onto the white napkin. I stare at my glass and spin it around with my fingers.

“I appreciate that, Bern. I also very much appreciate you giving her a ride home the other night.” I take a deep breath. For some unknown reason, an unfamiliar feeling spreads across my chest. I can’t form the words or seem to offer Bern an answer to his question.

“Is she your girlfriend, lad?” Bern asks, bringing my attention away from my beer. “She’s a very beautiful girl. You’d be out of yer mind if ye were to ever let that one get away.”

A heavy weight falls on my shoulders, and the longer I stare at Bern, the more I begin to understand my feelings. He’s the second person to assume Charlotte and I are together. Not to mention, neither man had ever really seen me interact with her, so where were they coming up with this idea? Were my feelings for her that apparent on my face? Then as clear as day, I see the writing on the wall.

It didn’t matter who had said it, whether it was Daniel or Bern. It didn’t matter whether I was the biggest asshole in the world or the sweetest man to ever walk on this earth. I care for Charlotte. I’m near hesitant to call it love. The last time I was in love things didn’t pan out so well, so my experience in this department is a little rusty. Not to mention, I’ve only known Charlotte for a few days, and the first day wasn’t exactly the most pleasant of meetings.

But does love even have a limit? Is it possible to care for someone so deeply when you barely know them? I don’t know the answers to my own questions, but there is one thing I can’t deny—regardless of how I feel about Charlotte, there is still the problem of Kyle. Fucking Kyle.

I look into Bern’s eyes, studying the wrinkles surrounding them and sigh.

“She’s not my girlfriend, Bern. She’s just a friend.”

Bern’s mouth opens as if he was going to respond to my remark, but his eyes drift to my left, looking past my shoulder, his hands curling into tight fists on the bar top.

“Looks like my wish is about to come true,” he says through clenched teeth. Backing away from me, Bern starts to make his way out from behind the bar.

Halfway turning in my barstool, I look over my shoulder to find a man stumbling through the front door. His dark green jacket hangs loose around his emaciated, haggard body, his blondish hair greasy and slicked back.

My eyes dart to his jacket pocket, a hot pink wallet halfway hanging out of it. Aside from the obvious reasons knowing it can’t be this man’s own wallet, I distinctly remember seeing it before. I saw that same wallet the day I met Charlotte, the day she stormed over to me, angry at me for stealing her seat at the airport.

My skin flashes with heat, and my blood boils.

“Bar keep,” the disgusting man shouts. “Get me a whiskey. Double.”

“Oh no, ye mangy arse.” Bern’s now on my side of the bar, slowly walking toward the man. “I’ll thank ye one time. You’ll find it in your best interest to hand over the stolen wallet, then turn right around, back through that door.”

A large, scraggly laugh erupts from the man’s throat. He leans back and stumbles, gripping the back of the nearest chair for support.

“You can’t refuse to serve me, barkeep. Plus, this wallet’s mine. The bitch left it on the counter, free for the taking. I said I wanted a whiskey—“

The man isn’t able to finish his sentence before my fist meets the side of his face. It’s not like I’ve never been in a fight before. Considering Sam and my small age gap, we’ve been known to have our fair share of fist fights growing up.

But there’s something to be said about laying your fist into someone so deep and so hard, out of pure hatred. I’ve never held so much animosity toward someone in my life. It’s this moment, the moment I deliver the third blow to the man’s face, I realize I’ve fallen for Charlotte. So fucking hard, I’m afraid it’ll ruin me.

I’m kneeling over the bastard when I rear my arm back again, ready to give him one last hit. A hand wraps around my elbow, stopping me.

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