Yet, as I opened the door to the nearly empty bar I’d watched Violet disappear into ten minutes earlier, I felt insane. I almost closed the door and walked back to my truck. It was creep behavior to follow her. Creep behavior that made me feel like I could still be under the redheaded vixen’s spell.
No amount of concern for my mental health would’ve made me turn around. Not when seeing Violet again had made me feel like I was standing on the edge of a cliff, about to jump off. Not when watching her eyebrows work up and down as she tried to process what to say back to her asshole aunt had made my blood rush.
I walked into that bar with the knowledge that I was already fucked.
My eyes found Violet right away. Sitting at a two-top table, she had her back to me, but her hair would’ve given her away in a pitch-black room. When we dated, she’d worn it longer, but I’d liked the way the short curls let me see her face better across the table at dinner. Strawberry blonde, leaning into red, her hair circled her head and sprang out in every direction. It was wild, out of control, and it filled my head with ideas that I needed to get under control.
The backless barstool she sat on allowed me to see the outline of her shape in the dimly lit bar. She’d filled out since we’d dated, and my hands itched to explore the new curves of her body. I had no business wanting the things I did, but there it was. A decade hadn’t been able to erase the desire Violet created in me.
With a soft curse, I settled at the bar and ordered a beer. Turning so I could see her table better, I finally noticed she was sitting with a man. Annoyance bit at me as I wondered if I’d been wrong. I’d been so sure that I could still read her, but what if I’d just imagined what I wanted?
The guy laughed awkwardly and looked around the bar. His eyes stopped on the ass of the bartender before he glanced back at Violet. The way he was sitting, the way he was acting, it felt off.
Then I looked at Violet from my new angle and nearly laughed out loud. The expression on her face was one of pure torture. She had a death grip on a bottle of beer, and her purse was still dangling from her shoulder like she wanted to take off at any moment. I knew from experience that it was a real possibility.
“First date. Awkward as hell.” The bartender leaned on the bar top next to me and handed me the beer I’d ordered. “He keeps looking at my ass, and she’s probably chewed a hole through her bottom lip.”
I did laugh then, understanding that Violet had lied about her perfect boyfriend and was on a terrible first date with an absolute stranger. I ignored the sense of relief I felt that there was no boyfriend.
Violet’s head snapped around to face me. When her eyes met mine, they widened, and her mouth popped open. If she was still the same woman I’d known, her ears were probably deep red with a hot blush.
I tipped my beer in her direction and grinned. I’d planned on going to her right away, but after seeing how awkward the date looked, I decided to watch for a while. It was an asshole move on my part, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d always loved to watch Violet squirm. She’d forever been stubbornly cheery, even when she didn’t feel it. She’d just gone through life smiling, no matter what, and I loved to catch her out of that character. Seeing her true feelings through the cracks of her smile had always been a high for me, so watching her squirm through a date felt like too good of a chance to pass up.
“Oh.” The bartender dragged the word out. “This just got even more awkward for her, didn’t it? Are you an ex, a present boyfriend, or a future prospect?”
Violet ran her hand through her hair, making it even wilder. I grunted into my beer as I watched her, and then smiled. “Definitely the first one.”
“Unsure about the next two, huh?”
Violet’s date spilled his drink and jumped up, clumsily patting the table with a single napkin while speaking loudly enough for me to hear at the bar. “Goodness. I’m just so nervous about this game, I guess. Do you have any interests like that?”
Violet’s answer was appropriately quiet, but I found myself straining to hear it.
“What’d you say?” Her date was making a shocking amount of suspicious noises while trying to mop up his mess. “I can’t hear you.”
I leaned my chin on my fist as I watched Violet touch her ears and shoot a look at me before saying something else that I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t stop grinning as I watched the date crash and burn.
“What?”
“Dicks!” Violet’s shout drew every single eye in the bar to her. She sank lower in her seat and pressed her fist to her forehead. “I sculpt candles shaped like… penises. For women. I sculpt dick candles for women.”
I’d be a liar if I said hearing the word dick slip past Violet’s ruby red lips didn’t affect me. It was that tingle down my spine that had me standing and walking over to the still-wet table. I smiled politely at her date. “I’m going to steal your date now, bud. The lady and I have some things to discuss.”
He looked at his watch and shrugged. “I need to get going anyway. Um… Can you pick up the tab, Viola?”
I huffed out a laugh and took Violet by the elbow. “I can. It’s the least I can do after stealing your date. Come on,Viola.”
Violet had a death grip on her beer bottle as I pulled her to her feet and away from the terrible date. When I eased her towards a table in a corner of the bar, away from the few people who were there, she willingly sat down and dropped her purse onto the chair next to her. “I don’t know if I should die of embarrassment that you caught me in a lie or kiss your feet for getting me out of that.”
I sat across from her and rested my elbows on the table to be closer. Seeing her face so close, I couldn’t help staring. I’d once known every line and mark on her face. It was the same, but different, and I wanted to study each part of her expression to understand those differences.
In the end, I kept coming back to her eyes. Brilliantly green, like sea glass in the sun, they were still large and surrounded by thick, dark lashes. They held the same curiosity and eagerness, but there was something deeper there that I didn’t recognize. A closedness and a sadness that had never been there when I’d known her.
“What?” She rubbed her hands over her cheeks, and I noticed they were shaking. “Is there something on my face?”
“No, nothing. I was just looking. It’s been a decade, Violet. I’m just curious about how you’ve changed.”
Her mouth quirked up on one side. “Don’t you meanViola?”