Page 21 of Forever Summer

By the time I re-emerged from the toilets Adam was gone, and so was Megsy. Instead of returning to the table where the Onslow Boys awaited with their funny one-liners, I decided to slink back into the back bar and drown my sorrows alone … and admittedly wait for Adam.

Chris peeled his way through the divider from the front bar, raising his eyebrows in question, in the speechless way bartenders did. It was the universal code for ‘you want a drink?’

I couldn’t feel any more rock bottom than I did. I took in a deep breath.

“Hair of the dog, old man, hair of the dog.”

Chris laughed. “You may not be able to hold your liquor but you do have a cast-iron constitution.”

“Aw, that’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Chris laughed. “Jesus, you need to get out more.”

“Clearly,” I scoffed.

A painful hour had passed and there was still no sign of Adam. I sat slumped at the bar, drunk, squinting through a broken pretzel and using it as a monocle.

“I say, old chum,” I announced in a mock English accent.

Chris watched on from behind the bar, his eyes narrowed. Clearly he was not amused.

“How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t do British.”

I removed my makeshift monocle and aggressively snapped my teeth onto my pretzel. “Sod off.” I straightened.

Chris shook his head, an exasperated sigh expanding his chest. “You’re a pitiful sight.”

I grabbed the straws from my drink, wedging them under the corners of my top lip, creating fluro pink fangs, and scrunched up my face.

“Yeah, that’s attractive,” he deadpanned. “I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t want to tap that?”

My instinct was to hiss at him, but was interrupted by a rather defiant, “Shut up, Chris.”

Tammy rounded the corner of the bar like a breath of fresh air, tall, tanned and lovely. Usually a vision in Lycra, tonight she rocked jeans and a white tee, her light brown hair loosely tumbled across her shoulders. It was a wonder why of all the men in the world, Tammy was with Chris, the moody, sullen bartender. She was such a delight.

“Termmy,” I managed past my makeshift fangs; it was so good to see a friendly face.

She stopped short of me, her mouth pouting with sympathy as she plucked the straws from my mouth and shoved them back into my now-empty glass. “How much have you had to drink?”

I squinted my eyes for two reasons: one it helped me think and secondly it stopped my triple vision of Tammy’s silhouette. Failing to accurately calculate what was a rather disastrous sum of booze, I squeezed my half lids and pressed my forehead to the bar with a groan.

“Too many.”

“Chris?”

“What?”

“Why did you let her drink so much?”

“Don’t blame me; she wanted to get loaded, I got her loaded.”

“Well, mission accomplished,” Tammy scoffed. “Look at her, she’s a hot mess.”

“Ha! She was a hot mess sober too.”

I lifted my head. “Hey, I’m still here, you know.”

“Oh, of course you are, honey,” Tammy soothed, rubbing my shoulder.

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