Page 14 of The One I Hate
Charlie
“More shots!”
“Yes!” Mellie yells back. “Another round, barkeep!”
Should we be ordering more shots? No. Absolutely not.
Are we? Abso-fucking-lutely.
I need to push past this depressing stage of drunk that I’m currently in. I think I’m at shot six. Maybe. I’ve lost count. Six-drink Charlie is sad.
I bet Seven-drink Charlie is a lot of fun.
“Here,” the hot bartender says. “But only if you drink all this water right after.”
I force a wink, except I think I do it with both eyes, as the bartender walks away. I was going for sexy. It was not sexy.
“He’s hot,” I mumble.
“He is,” Mellie says as we lick, shoot, then suck the tequila back. “I wonder if he’s single.”
“Probably,” I say, swaying to the background music of Bar 615, the swanky bar off Broadway we like to go to when we’re feeling fancy. We tried going to the honkytonks, but there were too many people. And as much as I wanted a fun night on a rooftop bar, I wasn’t feeling it. I was in a shitty mood.
Thanks, Simon…
“Are we going to talk about it?”
I look over to Mellie, who is giving me a very sad look. I think. There’s two of her right now.
I shake my head, which was a bad idea. “Nope. Not talking about it.”
“I think you need to,” she says. “When I find my best friend crying in the alley, and all she can ask is if ‘he’s’ gone, I think we need to talk about it.”
“We don’t. Everything is fine.”
Everything is not fine. I thought running into Simon four months ago at the wedding was going to be a one-time thing. So what if it was confirmed we were a few degrees of separation away from each other? That didn’t matter. I live in Nashville. I since found out from Whitley that he lives in Rolling Hills. That’s a forty-five mile separation. Plenty of space between me and the man who broke my heart and gave me trust issues a mile high.
But when I saw him today, it hit me—Simon Banks is back in my life whether I like it or not. He now knows where I work. It won’t take him long to figure out where I live. The man will annoy me and pester me and do whatever it takes to get what he wants—the reason why I left.
Which is hilarious. Like he doesn’t know.
“Yoo-hoo!” I wave for the hottie bartender, who comes back toward me, carrying now two glasses of what I hope are tequilas but I’m pretty sure are waters.
“Yes, darlin’?”
Goodness gracious, can I record this man saying “darlin’” and have it as my ringtone? “What’s your name, hot bartender man?”
He chuckles. “Max.”
“Hi, Max. I’m Charlie. This is Mellie.”
“Hi!” she yells with a big wave.
“Can I ask you a question, Max?”
He chuckles. “Sure.”
I know I need to talk, but if I could listen to his thick drawl all day, I wouldn’t be mad. “Would you ever tell a girl you like them and then go and hook up with another girl hours later?”
