Bunches (5 page)

“You need to get your head out of
your ass and your priorities straight,” she says. Then she turns around and
stalks out.

I watch her leave, noticing the
swish of her lips and her hair. I shake my head. I’m just not a good guy.

I go back to Nora and ask how her
and her friends’ drinks are.

She nods, but she doesn’t say
anything.

“You don’t know how your drink
is? Have you not tried it again?” I’m teasing her and I see her eyes spark a
little with amusement.

“It’s good,” she says. “I tried
it this time.”

“Good,” I say. “My feelings would
be hurt otherwise.”

“You have feelings?” she asks.

I raise my eyebrows. So she does
tease back.

“Deep down,” I say, tapping my
chest, “but really I’m very vain. I want you to like me.”

“I like you bunches,” she says,
then her face goes beet red. I manage to turn around just in time so that she
doesn’t see me laughing, as warmth spreads throughout my body.

I want to talk to her all night,
to see what else she’d give me shit about behind that shy exterior, but I have
to work. Reluctantly I walk away, but I look over my shoulder as I go.

Heat, like a million tiny
pinpricks, slams through my body. JJ just got kissed by a beautiful girl. She
must be his girlfriend. She put her hand on his chest possessively, as if she
owns him, then she talked to him and fluttered her eyes as if she wanted him to
do something. She’s petite, with luscious hair and a huge chest. Much more
attractive than I’d ever be. Of course a bartender has a hot girlfriend. I feel
my whole world constricting.

I will never admit it to Lizzy,
but I have been entertaining thoughts of the bartender since last weekend.
They’ve been very chaste thoughts, and I’ve always ruined them by thinking
about what I did to Michael and how he would be alive if I weren’t a horrible
girlfriend and person. But for a few brief moments, when I’ve been thinking
about JJ, all those notions have fallen away. For the first time in five years
I let myself think that maybe I’ve punished myself enough, and I deserve a
little happiness after all, just like other people, especially a happiness I
didn’t think I’d ever feel again. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that
the sight of another man would set me on fire in all the right places and for
all the right reasons.

I don’t want JJ to think I don’t
want him around. Seeing him is a wonderful relief that I can’t begin to
describe. But it also makes me nervous. What my body does when it sees him
terrifies me, and the way my heart speeds up terrifies me even more.

“What did you say?” I repeat
stupidly. Lizzy is gabbing away, oblivious to what just happened.

“I said,” she repeats, her words
only a little slurred, “I like that girl’s dress.” She’s talking about a girl
behind me, one I never even saw.

Aimee jumps in to agree. “It’s a
hot dress,” she says.

I can’t care less about the
dress, but I turn around and look at it anyhow, even though my chest is tight
with other concerns.

There’s a girl wearing a red
sequin dress that barely covers her ass. “Yeah,” I say. “You would look good in
that.”

“Thank you, lovely,” says Lizzy,
smiling brightly at me.

“Why do you look like you just
got punched in the stomach?” Aimee asks, leaning forward and eyeing me closely.

I shrug. “Nothing, it’s no big
deal.”

“Is it because JJ has a
girlfriend?” she asks.

So she did see. Damn.

Lizzy’s eyebrows shoot up her
forehead. Her back is to JJ, so she didn’t see what happened. I shake my head.

“No,” I lie, but of course my
friends know.

Aimee shakes her head.

“You have to talk to him,” she
says. “You just do. So what if he has a girlfriend. He looks at you like you’re
his happy place. His palace among the stars.”

“No,” I say. “And what?
Seriously? He has a girlfriend. A really hot girlfriend who is probably nice
and saves kittens for a living or something horrible like that.”

“No one is nicer to cats than you
are,” says Lizzy. “It’s my biggest fear in the world.”

“You have to talk to him,” says
Aimee again. “You aren’t going to get anywhere if you don’t.”

“He doesn’t talk to me,” I
protest, before I realize it’s not what I should say. It means I might
possibly, conceivably, be interested in a male, and that isn’t possible or
conceivable. I’m too screwed up. I’ve had too many problems in my life, and the
bottom line is that I just don’t deserve to find love, especially with a
gorgeous bartender who has every girl in the place following him with her eyes.

Now, besides everything else, I
know he has a girlfriend too.

“I’m not talking to a guy with a
girlfriend,” I say stubbornly, sitting back on the bar chair and crossing my
arms over my chest. Lizzy rolls her eyes. “Why would I want him to get out of a
relationship that is probably perfectly healthy to take up with someone as
messed up as I am?”

I wrap my fingers around my rum
and coke. Lizzy stares at me.

“The next time he comes over, you
have to say something,” she explains to me as if I’m slow. “And stop saying
that guys deserve better than you. There’s no such thing.”

“Nope,” I say. “I told you. I
can’t have a boyfriend.”

“Yes you CAN,” Lizzy nearly
shouts, so that the people sitting to her right give her strange looks.

“Even if it isn’t the bartender,”
says Aimee. “You have to get out there. It’s been five years. I mean, I know I
just met you, but I would kill to have what you had, even for a minute, and you
had it for four years.”

My heart aches at the thought.

“Okay, we barely know each
other,” Aimee continues, “but sometimes those are the best people to give you
advice, and mine is: go get the bartender.”

As if by magic, JJ appears, right
on cue. Apparently his girlfriend has left.

“Can I get you another?” he asks,
looking at Lizzy, whose beer is almost gone.

“Yes,” she says, sliding her
glass toward him. “Keep ‘em coming. We aren’t going anywhere.” She grins at
him.

He smiles back and nods, takes
the glass, and walks away.

“See?” I say, taking that as
confirmation. “It’s too loud in here to talk. He doesn’t want to talk to me. He
wants to talk to his girlfriend.”

“Say girlfriend one more time. .
. ” says Lizzy with as much threat as she can muster in her booze-addled state.
But she can’t even complete the thought, so she just grins at me.

“He gave you free drinks,” Aimee
says. “He definitely wants to talk to you.”

I take another big sip of rum and
coke. “No, he doesn’t.” A secret little bit of me had thought he might, but
that was before I knew he had a girlfriend. Now that I’ve caught a glimpse of
her, and also seen that I would never live up to what she looks like - that
perfect body, those pert lips - there’s just no point.

He doesn’t want a mess like me.
No one does. I accepted that years ago, and my friends are just being mean by
trying to get me to think otherwise.

I take a deep breath, and then
another, but they’re coming harder now.

I put my hand to my chest. My heart
is rocking in my ribcage and shoving out everything else.

Thud, thud, thud. I can do this.
It’s almost better that he has a girlfriend, because I don’t want anything with
him anyway. Talking is the first step for me. By the time I get to the dating
step I’ll probably be on the fourth guy.

A little voice inside my heart
tells me that’s wrong, because he’s the only guy I’ve seen in months that I’ve
felt a spark with, but I ignore my voice of reason. The next time JJ comes
around I’m ready, but he beats me to it.

“How’s that drink?” he says. “Do
you actually plan to drink it?” His eyes are bright and there’s a little smile
playing across his lips. I can tell he’s being sarcastic.

If I weren’t so painfully
nervous, I might laugh.

I stare at my rum and coke. I’ve
only taken a couple of sips.

“I’m biding my time,” I say after
a pause.

He grins. “Sure, well, if you
need another one, just flag me down.”

I nod, and he disappears. Lizzy
grabs my arm and squeezes in glee. “See, that was good. See how he is with the
other girls? He totally ignores them, but you appear, and” - Lizzy snaps her
fingers - “he comes right over.”

I exhale. “That was a sentence,”
I say, feeling discouraged. “I’m such a baby. And don’t be ridiculous. He isn’t
treating me any differently.”

But secretly I hope that Lizzy is
right.

Nowhere in the history of
flirting does it say that one simple sentence, answering a question, gets any
sort of point across to a guy. But, you know, since I can barely manage to
speak properly to attractive men, my standards are low.

Aimee pats my other arm
comfortingly. “You did good. It’s not like you have a big scar across your face
that tells people that you’re having a hard time. They don’t know. It’s hard to
talk to gorgeous at the best of times.”

“Because the worst scars you
can’t see with the naked eye,” says Lizzy sagely.

“I don’t want him to see my
scars,” I protest. “And he doesn’t want to see them either. He has a
girlfriend!”

Lizzy smacks my shoulder. In
response to my glare she says, “Well, I told you that if you said ‘girlfriend’
one more time, . . .”

I mean, I’m not that kind of
girl. Obviously. I don’t go after guys at all, let alone guys with girlfriends.

“Dude, you’re just talking to
him,” says Aimee. “He works at a bar. He talks to girls all the time.”

“I mean, I have a boyfriend and I
talk to guys all the time,” says Lizzy, giving me her typical wicked grin.

I roll my eyes.

“Yeah, they loll after you like
pathetic puppies wondering why you won’t go home with them,” says Aimee,
giggling. “Little do they know.”

Lizzy picks her chin up. “I’m
just saying, Nora, you can talk to guys and you can talk to guys with
girlfriends. Being happy and making friends, that’s what people do. There’s
nothing wrong with it.”

What people do. I don’t do what
people do, because I’m too hurt and too afraid of hurting more, if that’s
possible, but I promised Lizzy I’d work on the bucket list (I must have been
more drunk at the time than I thought), and that’s never going to happen if I
don’t at least talk to someone.

I know she’s right, and I know
I’m being silly, but I can’t help it. Not that it matters, because in another
second I’ll have to talk to some guys, because three of them are walking right
up to Lizzy and Aimee.

“Hey,” says the big and burly
one. Well, there are a couple of big and burly ones, but this is the one with
the close-cropped hair. He looks like a football player, which would make
sense. There are several colleges around here that probably have a lot of local
guys playing for them.

“Wow,” says Lizzy, batting her
eyelashes. “How do you get muscles like that?”

The guy grins, obviously pleased
by the compliment. He takes her friendliness as an invitation to keep being
friendly himself.

His two friends are both just as
big and burly. I shift. I feel nothing for any of them.

“We have a bet going,” he
explains. “How many of you girls want to dance?”

“Oh, me!” says Aimee, smiling.
She loves to dance and is a big fan of clubs. I’ve never been to a club, but
thankfully Lizzy didn’t think to put that on the list. All the touching and
dancing and expectation would probably slay me.

The guy that grabs Aimee and
spins her over to the tiny place open for dancing has dark hair and shoulders
broader than a house. He must also be a football player. She appears delighted.
Lizzy waves off the first guy.

“I’m too tired to dance,” she
says, giving him a mock shrug.

He takes Aimee’s seat while the
third guy tries to flag down JJ for another round of drinks.

JJ comes over in a way that I
think might be a little reluctant, but maybe it’s just my imagination. He gives
the guy a long look.

“Another round,” says the guy. He
isn’t rude about it, but he’s not really paying attention to JJ either. JJ
glances at Lizzy and me. I shrug. “Mine’s full.” I don’t know if this is done
or not, but I put my hand over the top of the glass and feel my palm sink down
a little. I hold my hand steady and meet his eyes.

The football player gives me a
confused look. “No, no,” he says. “You have to have another one. How can we be
gentlemanly if you don’t let us buy you drinks?”

He has to lean over to be heard
and Lizzy leans into him. Sometimes I wonder why she even bothers still dating
Steven, but I know he’s a security blanket for her. She feels comfortable
flirting, because she doesn’t mean anything by it.

“I’m fine,” I say again.

“No, no,” says the guy. “You have
to let me buy you a drink. At least one more.”

“She says she’s fine,” JJ cuts
in. He’s being protective. He must see what a baby I am and how I don’t belong
in a place like this. I have no idea what I’m doing, while he’s used to all of
it.

JJ’s obviously gotten good at
reading lips, because it’s really loud in here. He hasn’t taken his eyes off
the football player, even though the guy probably has two or three inches and a
hundred pounds on him.

The football player really
focuses on JJ for the first time. He waits a beat, then he shrugs. He obviously
doesn’t want to start a fight, at least not tonight.

“Rounds for whoever wants them
then,” he says.

“I’ll have another,” says Lizzy,
pushing her empty beer glass toward JJ. He takes it and disappears. I watch his
shoulders lift and shrug. I watch the way his neck turns as he keeps an eye on
everything going on. I feel my chest tighten as I remember how his girlfriend
put her hand possessively on his chest and stood on her tiptoes to lean over
the bar and kiss him.

The third guy, who is smaller and
has a ponytail of brown hair, is trying to talk to me, but I don’t have much
interest in him. Somehow it’s easy to talk to a guy I don’t care about, because
the periods of silence don’t bother me and I feel no need to help make
conversation.