4. Rory

CHAPTER 4

RORY

M att gave me a strange look when I returned to the other bar ten minutes later. Cornelius and Nic were well drunk at that point and hadn’t noticed I’d been gone longer than your average bathroom break. Matt, on the other hand, was trying to stay relatively sober, and he saw right through me. I tried to ignore his penetrating gaze as well as his knowing line of questioning, but when he cornered me near the bar while I waited for someone working there to get me a glass of water, I knew I had no choice but to fess up.

Matt had a face you couldn’t lie to.

It was really annoying.

“You went back to Smart Choice, didn’t you?” he asked, digging an elbow into my ribs. “To talk to that cute bartender.”

“Maybe I did. So what?”

He smiled. “So, did you get her number?”

“I didn’t even get her name,” I scoffed.

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, well, what can you do? She’s obviously still mad at me for spilling all those fucking beers on her. I can’t believe I did that. Hands down the stupidest thing that I’ve ever done, and it had to happen in front of a literal goddess.”

“She wasn’t that pretty.”

My eyes widened. “Are you kidding me? She was stunning! Did you see her eyes? They were almost amber-colored! And the way her short hair framed her face? She looked like an elf or something. Like she belonged in a storybook.”

Matt laughed. “Wow, she’s really got you on the hook, doesn’t she?”

“I’m not on the hook,” I said. “I just don’t like being patronized. She truly was that pretty.”

“Alright, fine. You win. She was a 10 out of 10, but if you like her so much, then maybe you need to go back and try to seal the deal. Explain yourself. Apologize again. She has to know that you knocked into her by accident. Is she really going to hold that against you?”

“Seems like it.” I waved a hand in the air. “Besides, I can’t go back there a third time. I’ll look totally desperate.”

“Aren’t you?”

I made a face. “I’m never desperate.”

“Ah,” Matt said, shaking his head. “Spoken like a true asshole. You really haven’t had a woman turn you down before, have you? That’s why you don’t know how to react.”

I furrowed my brow in thought. “Hmm, I think you’re right, actually. Nobody has ever turned me down. Not that I can think of, at least.”

“I suppose there’s a first time for everything,” he said. “Welcome to the world the rest of us have been living in all this time.”

But Matt was being a bit hypocritical. He was handsome and had been in a number of relationships ranging in levels of seriousness, but all with beautiful women. I let him have this little ride on his high horse, however, and ordered my water without further discussion. Back at the table where Cornelius and Nic were waiting for us, we interrupted an argument the two of them were having.

“You’re completely off base!” Cornelius said. “I didn’t get fired from the fishery because I wasn’t doing the job correctly. I got fired because I wasn’t doing it the way they wanted me to.”

“Semantics.”

“No, not semantics! The way they wanted me to organize their files and invoices was totally inefficient. My system worked so much better. If they had just listened to me, I could’ve saved the company time and money. Isn’t that what every business owner wants?”

“No, business owners like to run their own business,” she said. “They like to be in charge. What they don’t like is being told that they are doing everything wrong by someone who has only been working at the company for five days!”

“It was seven days.”

Nic rolled her eyes. “Either way,” she said. “You still let your own type-A nonsense get in the way, and you lost a job that I had to pull a lot of strings to get you.”

“Are you two still fighting about this?” Matt groaned. “It’s been weeks! Just let it go already.”

“But he promised,” Nic whined.

It was true. When she convinced our manager to give Cornelius the open position in the accounting department of the fishery, Cornelius had promised her that he would do his best to actually hang onto this one. The four of us shared a rental house near the beach, and our monthly expenses were on the rise, so we needed Cornelius to pull his weight more than usual. He swore he would put his quirks aside and try to do the job without getting fired.

A week and a half later, he was boxing up his things and saying his goodbyes. Nic had been doing a piss-poor job of biting her tongue ever since.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” said Cornelius. “I really thought I was helping. I didn’t mean to cause trouble for you, though. You know that.”

Nic breathed in and exhaled audibly. “Yeah… I do. I shouldn’t have even brought it up. It’s just because I got an email from the gas company today, and we’re late on another payment. It’s stressing me out.”

I put a hand on her back and smiled. “We’ll figure it out, Nic. I’ll take an extra shift or two and it’ll all be fine.”

She smiled back. “Yeah, alright.” She glanced guiltily at Cornelius. “Sorry for snapping at you.”

“Me too,” he said.

“I think this was mostly the alcohol talking,” said Matt. “What do you say we head back to the house and call it a night?”

“I’m fine with that,” said Nic. “I need something to eat anyway, and we still have leftover pizza in the fridge.” She looked at me. “What about you? You ready to go back, or are you going to insist on hitting a fourth bar along the way?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Really? You never like to turn in this early.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just not feeling the vibe tonight.”

She shrugged and finished off her drink with one last sip, and then slid off her stool and led the way out of the bar. “Okay then. Off we go.”

Cornelius went directly to his room after we got home, which came as no surprise. Matt, however, sat on the couch and turned the TV on. He always needed to unwind a bit after we’d been to the bars. Nic grabbed the pizza from the fridge and put it on the coffee table. I grabbed a slice and sat down in the loveseat with it. The volume of the TV was on low, and only Matt was paying attention to it. He liked to watch the news and know what the weather was going to be like the next day.

“I’m glad we went out tonight,” Nic said, sitting next to Matt and tucking her legs underneath her. “It was just what I needed.”

“Same here,” Matt said.

“Really?” I laughed. “Even though you were the one claiming it was a school night.”

“I can admit when I’m wrong. I actually had a nice time, and I’m feeling better about getting through the last couple of weeks before summer break. It was just the right amount of fun, and now we’re back here to catch the nightly news. My kind of night.” He then smirked in my direction. “I’m sorry that you, on the other hand, didn’t have that much fun.”

Nic frowned. “What do you mean?” She shot me a look. “You didn’t have fun? Why not?”

“I did have fun!” I forced a laugh, hoping it sounded casual. “I don’t know what Matt’s even talking about.”

“Oh, c’mon,” Matt said. “You and I both know the only reason you were fine with coming home so early is because you were all bummed out.”

“Why would he be bummed out?”

“Because that cutie at Smart Choice totally snubbed him.”

“That’s not true.” I shook my head. “I wasn’t bummed out! I don’t care that she wasn’t into me. There are plenty of women who are, and honestly, now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not even sure she really snubbed me. I think she might’ve just been too stressed out because it was her first shift on the job. She couldn’t focus on anything but that, so, of course, she wasn’t in the mood to be chatted up. Even by someone as hot as me.” I smiled and ran my hand down the sides of my chin to emphasize my point.

“A bartender turned you down?” Nic looked more surprised than I was by this fact. “The one you spilled the drinks on?”

“Yup,” said Matt. “Big time.”

“Oh, whatever.” I took a bite out of the pizza slice but talked with my mouth full. “Remind me not to invite you out drinking next time. I forgot that you’re kind of a snarky drunk. I don’t like this side of you, my friend. Not one bit.”

“Hold on,” Nic said, raising her hands to slow this moving train. She was drunker than the rest of us, and it was starting to show. Her face was flushed a deep red, and she was gesticulating a little too much. “Back this bus up. You were hitting on that girl?”

“Uh, yeah. Why?”

“I just—I didn’t see you talking to her that much. You spilled the drinks, then she ran upstairs, and that was it. When did you even have time to get rejected? Don’t tell me you tried to pick her up while she was still covered in beer and shards of glass.”

“Nah, he went back to Smart Choice,” Matt said. So much for keeping my little escape a secret.

“Huh?”

“When we were at the last bar, he said he was going to the bathroom but actually went to go talk to the girl again.”

Nic put a hand to her head and closed her eyes as if she really had to focus in order to make sense of all of this. “You—you left the three of us at the other bar and went back there? Just to talk to that girl?”

“Guilty as charged,” I said. “Maybe it was my over-eagerness that did me in, but she was just so goddamn pretty. I couldn’t help myself. I had to at least try once more.”

“Too bad it didn’t work out,” Matt said. “You two would’ve made beautiful babies.”

“Wouldn’t we, though?” I said with a laugh.

“She wasn’t even that pretty.” Nic tossed her half-eaten slice of pizza back into the box and stood. “On second thought, I’m not hungry.”

“First of all,” I said. “Yes, she was. And second of all, you should really eat something.” I smiled up at her, picking up on some tension in the room but too tipsy to really know where it was coming from or what to do about it. “Otherwise, you’re going to feel like shit in the morning.”

“I’ll be fine,” she grumbled. “Night.”

She left the room and headed upstairs. Her door slammed shut a few seconds later. Matt and I shared a look.

“What’s her problem?” I asked.

“Beats me.” He grabbed her half-eaten slice of pizza and took a bite. “But hey, more food for us, right?”

I shrugged. “Guess so. You don’t think she’s mad at us, though, do you? Because I hate it when she’s mad at me. She gives me the silent treatment, which drives me nuts.”

“Why would she be mad at us? We didn’t do anything?”

“That hasn’t stopped her from being mad at us in the past.”

He laughed. “Good point. Do you want me to go upstairs and talk to her?”

I thought about it for a second but then shook my head. “No, that’s okay. It’s probably better to let her cool off a bit. I’ll try to talk to her at work tomorrow. At least there, she can’t run away and slam a door.”

“I wouldn’t put it past her.”

After that, Matt and I polished off the pizza and watched the rest of the news. I went up to bed a little before midnight, pausing for a moment in front of Nic’s room. I had my hand up in the air, my knuckles mere centimeters away from the wood when I decided not to knock. If I woke her up, then whatever frustrations she had with me would only be intensified.

I told myself to just talk to her in the morning and then walked away.

In my bedroom, I got under the sheets and listened to the sound of cars driving down the busy highway outside my window. Our house wasn’t on a quaint little street or tucked away in one of the upscale Solara Bay neighborhoods. We picked it because it was the only place we could afford that had enough space for all of us, and what it lacked in charm, it made up for in personality. The floors creaked, and the windows didn’t really close all the way, but it had been our home for almost ten years now, and we loved it here. Nic and I had even talked about trying to put an offer on the place once or twice. Between our combined incomes, if the owner ever wanted to ditch the place without going for top dollar, there was a chance we could make it work.

Matt would probably have to pitch in, too. And then there was the issue with Cornelius. Nic really resented him for not being able to hold down a job and pull his weight like the rest of us. She wouldn’t want him to stay in the house if he couldn’t at least throw some money into the pot. I didn’t care as much about what Cornelius brought to the table financially. He was a great friend and the only reason I made it out of our old pack alive.

I owed him everything, including my unshakable loyalty.

But I was getting ahead of myself. Any dreams of buying this house were far off in the distance. Right now, we still had overdue bills and a leaky faucet that needed to be dealt with.

Like most nights, I started to drift off with thoughts of what tasks I had to accomplish the next day rattling through my head. Only this night, the last thing I remembered thinking about before I fell asleep had nothing to do with house projects or my early morning alarm.

I thought of the woman from the bar. Her beautiful face, the curve of her jaw, her pixie hair, and the way her hips moved when she ran away from me.

And her eyes.

God, those eyes.