Page 21 of Dirty Ink

Rachel

Now…

Coffee sloshed over the edge of the cup. The waitress who set them down hadn’t exactly been the pinnacle of fine service. She hadn’t tried to hide at all that she was pissed about having to work the late shift again at the BoBos Burgers (a funny name for a burger joint until you were told Bo was Gaelic for cow), a Dublin institution on Wexford St that stayed open late. The waitress’s loud sigh was meant to be heard. Meant to be interpreted exactly as: fuck you. Fuck your drunken selves. If you fuck with me and my peace and my magazines, I will fuck. you. up.

As she walked away, I eyed her warily as I slumped in the booth across from Mason. Arms crossed petulantly across my chest. Toes tapping on the sticky floors beneath the table.

“A wonderful country,” I grumbled. “Really just a lovely place. With lovely people.”

Mason and I had been talking (and drinking) all day long. It was now dark. Probably somewhere around midnight. My phone was long dead. My vision long past being capable of focusing on the little clock on the wall across the diner. My sense of time and place so fucked up that I guessed it was midnight, midnight later that night, but it could very well have been midnight ten years in the future. Or ten years in the past.

I’m not sure Mason and I had really gotten anywhere in our long, antagonistic discussions except for wasted. Very wasted. My head buzzed. Bitter laughter came easily to my lips like bubbles to the top of a glass of champagne.

“Tell me something,” Mason said, dragging his finger through the spilled coffee.

I’d told him everything already. Everything that he needed to know at least. We were married. I didn’t want to be married. He needed to put his signature here, here and here. What else was there to know?

To know why electricity still snapped between us so we were forced to avoid each other’s eyes most of the night?

To know why every glance at him brought me back to Vegas? To his hands all over my body? To the way he made me feel? Alive. Free. Me.

To know why after all this time we had been thrown back together after we’d been ripped apart? After he ripped us apart?

I don’t think either of us wanted to know any of that. I don’t think it was smart, asking those questions. I don’t think it was safe, looking each other straight in the face and answering those questions.

I slurped at the coffee like it could sober me up. Like sobering up would give me clarity. Like I wasn’t already ready to leave that burger joint and find another bar. Another drink. Another shot of whiskey. Another chance to go back. To be back.

“Tell you what?” I said, probably slurring. Definitely not caring.

It was kind of nice actually. With Tim I had to watch what I said. How I said it. When I said it. Decorum was important, not feeling. I had my role to play. Innocent. Sweet. Someone, something to be saved. It was kind of nice to curse at Mason. To grumble and complain and annoy Mason. To be hurt and confused and loud and filthy. To be honest.

“Look, does this place sell beer?” I asked before Mason could answer, craning over my shoulder to spy the waitress and her “don’t fuck with me” eyes. “Or something stronger? Anything stronger?”

“Tell me something,” Mason repeated, still playing with the mess on the table.

“You already said that.”

“Tell me how you found out,” he said.

I was sober enough to realise that I’d walked into a trap. And drunk enough to not really know how in the hell to get out of it.

Mason’s eyes darted up to mine and I saw: he knew there was an answer there. Maybe an answer he’d been avoiding since the very moment I told him that we’d been married this whole time. Maybe an answer he feared. Maybe an answer he didn’t really want to hear. An answer the whiskey made him want to hear. Or stupid enough to hear.

A trap, a trap, my mind was shouting. No way out, no way out, my heart was pounding.

“How did I…?” I asked stupidly, buying time even though it was pointless.

There was only one reason why someone would find out that they were secretly and unexpectedly married. It was, of course, the only reason I found out: I was trying to marry someone else.

I knew this. But did Mason? Was that why he’d waited so long to ask? Was that why he’d asked it with just a dart of the eyes at me? Was that why he wasn’t looking at me any longer, but circling his finger round and round in the spilled coffee which was dripping now off the edge of the table?

“How did you find out that we were married,” Mason answered. Softly. Almost sadly.

His eyes darted again to mine when I remained silent. Silent too long. The answer hanging there between us. The answer I didn’t want to speak. The answer it seemed Mason didn’t want to hear.

But it was stupid, wasn’t it? It was silly. I should just come out and say it: I’m engaged to someone else, Mason. He provides for me. He’s there for me. He wants to marry me. His name is Tim. JoJo’s voice came into my head as I stared across the booth at Mason, And you love him…right? Why didn’t I just say it? Why couldn’t I just say it? I love Tim, Mason. I love the man I am engaged to be married to. I love him and I want to marry him and that is how I found out that we were, all this time, all this long time, tied to one another.

The dripping coffee marked out the passing seconds which grew longer and slower.

---