This was a bad idea. I could see that from my vantage spot on this hard stool in this shabby bar. But since the second I decided to find out what I could about Ronan, I’d been obsessed. What happened the night of the gala had been running through my mind on a loop, forcing me to live in this sort of anguished, disbelieving and constantly turned-on place.
And I didn’t know a single thing about the guy other than how his hand felt against my throat. What his voice sounded like in my ear. How his wrist felt against the bare skin of my belly.
Sex wasn’t something I thought about. Not for a long, long time. And now, the brush of my clothes against my skin put me on edge. The seam of my jeans between my legs had me halfway to orgasm. I wanted to forget everything he did to me. But I replayed every moment like my sister played Pink’s Greatest Hits when she was eleven. Nonstop.
“You want food or something?” the bartender asked, sliding a plastic menu at me. He could not seem less invested in me wanting food.
“I’m fine. I’m just meeting someone.”
“Whatever,” he said and turned back to the baseball game playing on the television over the bar.
I’d never been in a bar like this. Sticky floor. Neon signs. There were bowls of peanuts, and people just threw the shells on the floor. It was unhygienic, disrespectful, and dangerous for people with allergies and... amazing.
All these people who just did not give a shit? I mean... I didn’t want to know them, but it was fun to see it happening.
Zilla had told me to dress down. To try and not stand out, so I wore jeans I hadn’t worn in years and a sweatshirt from Union College, my alma mater. My hair was back in a ponytail, and I had no makeup on my face. Not even mascara. I found an old pair of Converse tennis shoes in the back of my closet from my days before Jim, and they fit just like they used to.
I felt like a kid doing something really wrong.
And I kind of liked it.
The bell over the door rang out, and the bartender looked over and threw his hands up in the air.
“No way, man,” he said. “Again?”
I turned as a man walked in wearing a suit and a do-not-fuck-with-me expression. His silence was seriously the most threatening thing I’d ever experienced, and he just stared at the bartender and his armpit hair.
“Everyone clear out,” the bartender finally shouted. People ignored him until he brought his fingers to his lips and split the air with a whistle that got everyone’s attention. “I said get out.”
I’d already paid my bill, so I grabbed my purse and went to walk out with everyone else. Was it some political thing? Was the president coming in? Oh my god, was it the mob? It hardly mattered, I was just happy to get out of this suddenly tense bar. But the silent man at the door stopped me. “Not you,” he said and pointed me back towards the bar stool I’d just left.
“But—” I looked up at his face and shut up. This unassuming man was nothing but dark inside. Dead. His eyes were reptilian. A chill ran down my spine.
I turned and sat back down on my stool.
“You know every time this shit happens, I lose thousands of dollars,” the bartender said.
“Abe,” a woman said as she came walking in the door. If I was dressed down, she was dressed to the nines. A fur coat and long dark brown hair. Diamonds in her ears, more on her fingers. Leopard print Louboutins. “Every time this shit happens, I pay you more than this place makes in a year.”
“It’s the principal, Eden.”
“It’s a shithole, Abe.”
“Well, it’s my shithole. And I’ve got some pride.”
“Here.” Eden made her way over to the bar and pulled from her Coach+Billy Reid Crocodile Tote a stack of bills and put it on his bar. “That should help with the pride. And bring me a bottle of whatever passes for vodka back there.”
Abe rolled his eyes but pocketed the bills and brought over to where I was sitting a bottle of Grey Goose and two rocks glasses filled with ice. He set them on the bar, and I sat back like they were alive and going to bite.
So, clearly, I’d made a few mistakes in asking for this meeting.
“Thank you, Abe,” she said in a sing song voice as she walked across the bar to me. Prowled really. I felt like I was being stalked by some jungle cat.
This was my sister’s Morelli. She had the signature dark looks and the same frantic energy just under her skin. The same fuck-you-world way of moving through a place. The fur coat parted as she walked, sliding down over a shoulder. The mink grazing across the floor, through the peanut shells.
I winced on the mink’s behalf.
“You look like a tourist,” the woman said. Eden? That was what the bartender called her.