Page 44 of Bullet
“What’s going on, Bullet?” Nick asked from his seat at the bar. “Bad night?”
In order to take attention off myself and hopefully get the bar back to the state it was in when I arrived, I went and took the stool next to Nick and sat down. Sally, one of the bartenders slid me a beer without my even asking for it, but I needed it so I didn’t complain. A few people were murmuring around me, but I had no one to blame for my reputation but myself, so I did the best I could to ignore it.
“Yeah,” I said. “Bad night.”
Nick didn’t ask anything else, which I was glad for, because I was fully prepared to just drink my woes away. I couldn’t get Celia off of my mind any more than I could get her saying we were just friends with benefits out of my ears. Was thattrulywhat she thought? That was all these past couple of months had meant to her? Just sex? Had I just misinterpreted our relationship? I’d expected that maybe Celia was moving slower than I was, but I had no idea she wasn’t gettinganythingelse out of it.
That was disappointing to say the least.
Even though I probably wouldn’t have answered even if she had, I was even more upset to see that Celia didn’t call or even text me after I left the theme park. Part of me wanted to do the gentlemanly thing and make sure she’d successfully met up with Laura and was able to get a ride home, but if I did that, I wasn’t sure what I might say. She wasn’t a damsel in distress by any means, so I left it alone.
“So, uh,” Avery said, sitting down next to me about an hour after I arrived, “I’m gathering by the multitude of beer bottles that your big date with Celia didn’t go so well?”
“We bumped into a bunch of her friends and she told them we were just friends with benefits,” I said.
“Ouch. This girl just doesn’t let up, does she? One thing right after the other.”
I shook my head. “She’s a little ruthless.”
“That wasn’t the vibe I got when I talked to her,” Avery said. “Not only considering the fact that she looked me straight in the eyes and said she wasn’t just playing games with you. Either she’s one hell of a liar, or she’s conflicted about you.”
“What’s conflicting?” I asked. “We have an amazing time when we’re together, she obviously isn’t complaining about the sex if that’s the only thing she’s willing to admit to. Until that happened, we were having the best time at the theme park. I just don’t get what the issue is.”
“I mean, Nick had to force you to go out with her in the first place,” Avery said. “Maybe there’s a ‘hates men’ situation hidden somewhere that you don’t know about and you just have to unearth it and get rid of it. Once that barrier is broken then you should be okay, right?”
“I don’t know how to unearth it. She won’t open up to me at all and shit like this keeps happening.” I finished the latest of my beers and flagged down Sally to give me another one. She was reluctant but passed it over after a glare that I quickly grumbled, “Sorry,” for and then, “Thank you.”
“Are you getting drunk?” Avery asked. “I haven’t seen you drink this much since college.”
The theme park date kept playing over and over in my head. Cuddling in the lines for the rides, enjoying all the delicious food, getting heated in the dark ride. All up until we bumped into her friends. We were having the best time we’d had since we started dating. I very nearly started to admit how serious my feelings were starting to get for her, and I felt like it was the same for her. Was it dumb to wish that her friends just hadn’t shown up? I could have lived in ignorant bliss for a few more hours at least.
“I just don’t want to think about it,” I replied to Avery finally.
“Well, I’m about to leave, but don’t drink yourself stupid, all right?”
I waved my hand and grunted at him like a grumpy old man, and he chuckled and walked away.
And I did not listen.
Every time my beer emptied, I asked for a new one. Each time, Sally got more nervous about giving it to me, but did anyway, either because she didn’t want to cross the Steel Knights or because I rarely got drunk. Either way, it didn’t matter to me. I just wanted to be a haze of memories and so drunk that I’d be unconscious as soon as I got to my bed.
“Bar’s closin’ up,” Sally said after giving me the last of my beers and collecting the other bottles to discard. “You’re not driving, right?”
That was a good question, one I hadn’t thought of. “No. I’m way too drunk.”
“Understatement of the year, Bullet.”
She shuffled away and I fished my hand into my pocket to pull out my cell phone. As I was dragging it out, it got caught on the fabric and dropped to the floor. I let out a loud groan before hopping off my stool to bend over and get it, but in doing so, I bumped into the next guy over at the bar. He had the last of his drinks in his hand and it spilled all over his shirt.
“Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” I slurred out and resumed trying to grab my phone. As if to make things worse, when I finally was able to claw my phone up, I bumped him again as I stood up. “Damn it. So—”
“What the fuck is your problem?” he growled at me. “If you can’t hold your liquor, don’t drink.”
“Okay,Dad,” I hissed. It was odd that he was coming at me at all on the Steel Knights’ turf, but I was too tipsy to be worried about it.
I started to return to my seat so I could finish my last beer, but the man reached over and tipped the beer over intentionally, spilling it across the bar.
“What the fuck, man?” I barked.
