Who am I kidding? I’m still questioning myself. I glanced back at the list, rereading the items and wondering. What if?
Aaron spoke over his shoulder. “We’ll have a few drinks—don’t worry, nothing wild.”
Maybe drinking on a weeknight will be good practice for when I no longer have a job to wake up for in the mornings.
Felicia flashed me a sly grin. “But you never know when that stranger might show up.”
Three
I pushed through the crowds at Spur, surprised Aaron had picked a spot in the Loop with so many tourists. The trendy place was packed with bodies even on a Tuesday night, but I managed to grab the lone open seat at the bar while I waited for my friends.
“What can I get you?” The young bartender’s gaze darted from me to the perky blonde on my left who cried, “Woo-hoo!” several times along with her friends, arms waving in the air and breasts spilling out of her top.
Compared to her, I looked like Mary Poppins, or a more conservatively dressed version of Mary Poppins. I unbuttoned the cardigan sweater to reveal the neckline of the dress I’d pulled from the back of my closet. I considered the challenge to wear better-fitting clothes and glanced at the bartender. He was kind of cute, in a scruffy twentysomething I-have-a-decade-of-bad-decisions-ahead-of-me way. Couldn’t hurt to try . . .
As he approached with the drink, I leaned forward, pushing my breasts together with my arms, and smiled as the articles I’d read on flirting suggested. I gave myself a pep talk. You’re going to check this off the list.
When Twentysomething took my credit card and set down my gin and tonic, he spilled a third of the contents on the bar without looking at me or apologizing. A smile was plastered on my face like an idiot as he eyed the woo-hoo girls.
Fail.
I exhaled and relaxed my arms. Felicia would have demanded another drink, but I wiped up the spilled liquor with a napkin and took a sip from my glass. It wasn’t worth drawing attention to myself, especially after he completely ignored me, and I wasn’t quite pathetic enough to pull up the how-to articles again while sitting there. I re-buttoned my cardigan, admitting my unsuccessful attempt, and looked around for Felicia and Aaron. This was such a bad idea.
The woman who’d been in the seat next to me had slipped out while I focused on my mortification. A man took that stool, and catching sight of him in my peripheral vision, I coughed, choking on the drink. The straight posture, the athletic build, the polo shirt. My pulse raced, and my muscles tensed. I searched out the exits, making sure I had a clear path away from the bar.
It’s not him. It’s not him.
I returned my gaze to the bar, but not before a memory left me momentarily frozen. One night after we’d been dating a couple months, out with Davis’s friends in a bar like this, I’d corrected a mistake he’d made in relaying a story from the New Yorker. He’d joked about it in the moment, but on the drive home, he was silent, his lips pressed into a firm line. When we got into my apartment, he’d gripped my upper arms hard and ignored my cry of pain.
“Don’t do that again.” His voice had remained steady, even, and quiet as his fingers continued digging into my flesh despite my protests. “It won’t make people think you’re smart or interesting. It just makes them think you don’t respect me.”
I’d stared, wide-eyed, as he dropped his hands and strode into my bedroom as if nothing had happened. Later that night, he’d kissed me and apologized, telling me he was just stressed. In retrospect, I knew it wasn’t normal for men to get violent, but I reasoned that he hadn’t hit me, and I’d embarrassed him. He was just more sensitive than I’d thought. From then on, though, I questioned myself before speaking up, increasingly attuned to his reactions during our two-year relationship.
I shook away the memory, rubbing my upper arm absently where the small, round bruises had taken two weeks to fade.
I have to stop looking for him.
I knew that logically, but the message didn’t always reach my brain. I glanced toward the door for Felicia and Aaron again, anxious for the distraction they always provided. I could usually get out of my head when they were around.
I drew a slow breath before downing a large gulp to settle my nerves. I tried to signal the bartender for another. He looked at me with a bored expression that left me feeling frumpy, like I annoyed him by pulling his attention from the hot girls who had moved to the other end of the bar. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the stranger also studying the woman and her friends.