Page 5 of She Used to Be Nice
“Awww, really? Nobody’s even here. Who’ll know?” She gave Jim a playful, inviting smile, turning on the charm as high as she could. “Do it for me?”
Jim poured her the shot and slid it over without a word. “I can’t. Sorry.”
Avery scowled. Some girls were worth marrying but she wasn’t worthonedrink? Even one she was going topay for? “In that case …” She tossed back the Fireball, her adrenaline racing so much that she didn’t even feel the cinnamon prick her body with chills. She dug through her purse for her credit card and slammed it onto the bar. “I’ll take the check.”
A flicker of fear flashed across Jim’s face as he gave her the bill. She scrawled something illegible on the dotted line and thrust the paper back to him.
“Thanks,” she said, her voice tight. “And fuck you.”
She darted out the door and took a lap around the block, the sting of rejection burning a hole in her insides. When Ryan dumped her, she’d fully abandoned the idea that anyone would love her ever again, but they were still supposed to want her body. Her boobs were supposed to be foolproof.
She peered into the windows of the bars she passed in search of somewhere crowded. She wanted to get lost in a sea of people and forget her own name, if she was lucky. She stumbled into the first Irish pub she saw and shoved her way through the two feet of walking space toward the bartender, then asked for a double shot of tequila and a beer. After taking the shot, she glanced around, trying to make eye contact with a cute guy. But there were none.
“Whereiseveryone tonight?” she said out loud to nobody. She supposed it was time for the apps, ignoring the voice in her head scolding her for seeking out a second hookup in the same night when she hadn’t yet showered after the first. She opened Tinder and started swiping, her thumb aching from how fast she was moving it across the screen. She matched with a couple of guys and beamed at the boost of confidence. Both of them were hot, too, and probably looked even better in person. Ever since she started using dating apps, she found that guys were more attractive in real life than in photos, because they had no clue how to choose flattering pictures of themselves for their profiles. Unlike women, whowere far too in tune with their appearance from every possible angle, cognizant of their good and bad sides and when a picture displayed each. Avery knew her left side was her good side, how to twist her body in full-length mirror pictures so that she looked slimmer, and that she would immediately untag any Instagram photo that prominently featured her side profile.
She often wondered how much easier her life would be if she were a man. What it’d be like for her body to be hers, not something that existed for others to ogle at and consume. Surely nobody had ever made Noah feel as powerless as he made Avery feel at that party senior year. Avery never should’ve danced with him in the basement, even in a silly way in a circle of people on the crowded dance floor. All it did was provide him with an opportunity to sweep his eyes across her chest, then lead her up the stairs under the guise of getting some fresh air. God. She shouldn’t have evenglancedat him, let alone been so naive as to giggle and dance in his vicinity. She should’ve looked for Ryan first to see if he wanted to join them upstairs. But she wasn’t thinking. She was fully drunk by the time she and Noah reached Ronald’s bedroom, incapable of being anything but a body for Noah to bleed dry.
If she was going to be just a body, she would wield it like a weapon. Demanding back her power.
“Can I get a beer and a water?”
Avery startled at the sound of a man’s voice, her ears perking at his pronunciation of “water,” likewudder.Sometimes her own accent slipped out when she was pissed off, though it was pretty much gone otherwise.
“Hey,” she called out to him, sitting up straight to maximize his view of her chest. “I like your accent.”
The guy turned to look at Avery. He flicked a lock of dark brown hair out of his arresting blue eyes, which were made even brighter by the glow from the neon Guinness sign on the wall above him. “My accent?”
She gave him a drunken smile. The double tequila shot had hit her; she felt warm and buoyant, like a hot air balloon rising higherand higher, suspending her above reality. She was free now, detached from it all. “Don’t act like you don’t know you have one. I’d recognize thatwudderanywhere. Where are you from?”
“New York, born and raised.” He rested his arm on the back of his stool, his button-down shirt lifting slightly to reveal the waistline of navy chinos. And, she noted with interest, some abs. “The accent definitely slips out sometimes. If I’m drunk enough, I start going full Tony Soprano.”
Avery laughed. “I can relate. I’m an Italian-American girl from New Jersey. I’m basically a real-life Meadow.”
The guy took a sip of his beer without taking his eyes off her, drinking her in. Avery knew that look. It meant he wanted to have sex with her. The rush of validation coursed thick and hot through her veins. Maybe she wouldn’t have to go home alone after all.
“Well, I’m assuming Meadow isn’t your real name,” he said.
“Your assumption is correct. I’m Avery. What’s yours?”
“Nice to meet you, Avery. I’m Pete.”
Pete grinned, and Avery admired how straight and white his teeth were. Fuck Jim and his rotted smile.
“Do you wanna do a tequila shot, Pete?”
Pete gave her an enthusiastic nod. “Hell. Yes.”
Avery waved over the bartender and ordered the shots, and he brought them over complete with salt and limes. “We need to toast to something first.” Avery grabbed her glass. “You can’t take a tequila shot without celebrating.”
“All right,” Pete said with a chuckle. “What are we toasting to?”
Avery raised her brows suggestively. “To the nightjustgetting started.”
“Cheers to that,” Pete said before taking his shot. Avery took hers, too, then set her empty glass down on the bar. She made pointed eye contact with Pete as she sucked on her lime wedge, letting her tongue dance along the fleshy green surface. Pete’s eyes lingered on her mouth, just as she intended. Then he quickly met her eye, seemingly catching himself staring for too long, and cleared his throat.
Avery took a satisfied sip of her beer. She was ready to ride this wave until she crashed. “So,Pete.” She liked Pete’s name. One syllable, short and sweet and easy to moan in throes of passion. “How’s your night going?”
“Not too bad.” Pete pointed at a man and woman in business casual arguing in the corner by the pool table. Patrons were maneuvering around them to access the cue balls. “I’ve spent the whole night third wheeling my friends over there. They’re fighting now, though.”
