Sweet Forty-Two (5 page)

Once we were all set up, Bo and Ember left to go grab some dinner before we went on around eight.

“You want to go get some food?” I asked CJ.

He crossed his arms around his broad chest. “Are you off your period, now?”

I had to laugh. “You’re a dick.”

He nodded. “I accept your apology. No, though, to dinner. I’m going to go sleep in your car for another hour.”

“You really are a useless pile of shit, CJ, you know that?”

“You won’t say that when all the girls are cheering,” he called over his shoulder as he snatched my keys off the bar and exited for the parking lot.

With a frustrated sigh, I turned to the bar and sat on the middle stool. The place was just starting to get busy, and I was hoping for some food before our set.

“What can I get you?” The skinny tall girl with the spiky hair from last night asked. Though, her hair wasn’t spiky tonight. Or black. Well, most of it was black, but she had bright blue highlights across the top of her head.

“Do you have food?”

She looked behind her to a set of double doors, turning back around with a smirk. “We have a kitchen.”

“Great, food’s that good, huh?” I rolled my eyes.

“Settle down, I’ll get you the boneless wings. 
Those
 are good. You like ‘em hot?”

“As hot as they make them.”

She arched her eyebrow. “We’ll see.”

“You keep saying that.” I challenged her assertion from last night that 
we
’
d see
 about Georgia.

“I keep meaning it. It’s Lissa, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“Lissa is my name.” She stuck her hand across the bar.

“Oh ... Regan. Nice to meet you.” I shook her hand.

“You were amazing last night.”

As she pulled hers away, she let her fingertip drag across my palm. Her inflection suggested way more than my playing ability. One look into her nearly black eyes told me she was trouble. The kind CJ wouldn’t mind getting into more than once.

“Thanks. It wasn’t my first time.” I couldn’t help it.

Lissa threw her head back in a light laugh that didn’t match the sharp edges of her frame. A second later she disappeared around the corner, and I rested my forehead on my fists for a minute before a provocative voice lured my eyes back up.

“What’s the matter with you? Last night’s show rocked.” Georgia dried the insides of pint glasses as she talked. She was in dark, ripped jeans and a fitted purple tank. Her hair was tied back with a black bandana.

As she set the glass down, I noticed a bruise around her wrist that nearly matched the color of her shirt.

“What happened to your wrist?”

She picked up her arm as if she were viewing the mark for the first time. “Huh, who knows? Anyway, what’s up your ass?” She and CJ seemed to share an idea of where all of the attitude in the body was held.

“I still can’t find an apartment.” Reluctantly, I continued, “You know of any?”

She looked up in thought for a moment. “No. I live in La Jolla, so I don’t know much about what’s open around here.”

“La Jolla?” I sat up.

“Don’t contain your surprise...” She rolled her eyes and picked up another rack of glasses.

“That area is ... really nice.”

“What, I can’t have nice things?” She blew a giant pink bubble, her tongue collecting the sticky gum from her lips after it popped. I studied the way her lipstick didn’t budge, even when her tongue slipped back into her mouth.

“That’s not what I meant, Georgia.”

About ten-seconds too late, Lissa came back with my order of wings.

“Here you go, good-lookin’.” She set the plate on the bar with some napkins and silverware.

“Thanks.” I looked around her to try to continue my conversation with Georgia, but she was nowhere to be seen.

“So,” Lissa filled a plastic compartment with cherries, and lemon, lime, and orange slices, “is your cousin as big of a pig as he acts?”

I snorted, which was a bad idea given how hot the wings were. “Probably worse.”

She nodded, and with a twisted grin on her face, went about her work. Thankfully I didn’t appear to be on her radar for whatever it was she did with those eyes.

Several minutes later, Georgia returned from a room in the back. Her relaxed wardrobe had been discarded, and she was wearing tight red shorts—very short—with a black tank top covered in cherries. Her right wrist, the one with the bruise, was decorated with a thick black cuff that had silver squares set through the middle. She looked like a 1940’s pinup girl with her hair tied back with the same red bandana I’d seen her wear the day before.

She stood at the tap for a minute, filling three pint glasses. She gracefully navigated through the crowd in several-inch high black high heels to a table in the back.

“See something you like over there?” Lissa took my empty plate from my hands.

“Why does she do that?”

“Who do what?” Lissa looked around behind me.

“Georgia. Dress like that.” I looked away as Georgia bent over to give a beer to someone across their table.

Lissa frowned slightly, almost sardonically. “Surely you’ve been in a bar or two in your day.” She stepped back, holding her arms out and turning once.

I could see she wasn’t dressed much differently than Georgia. Lissa was wearing an electric blue skirt that matched the highlights in her hair, and a black tank top without straps. I think my sister had called that a tube top. She was right. At nearly every bar I’d been in, the female bartenders played up their assets. That’s just part of the culture. But as I chewed my lip and stared into my empty pint glass, I wished it wasn’t.

The familiar clip-clop of Georgia’s dangerously high heels signaled her return. Peeking up slightly, I caught Lissa staring at me for a few seconds before she returned to the other end of the bar.

“Regan,” Georgia set the empty tray down in front of me, “I wanted to run something by you.”

“Shoot.” I wished she were still wearing those old jeans and that purple tank top. Purple did killer things for her eyes.

“Well,” she said as she leaned forward the way I’d seen her do all last night. I didn’t want her thinking I expected that from her. “The apartment across from mine is open. It’s 
right
 on the water. Like, leave door, cross street, fall off small cliff into the ocean. I know it seems far from here, but it’s only about a twenty-five minu—”

“Yes!” My tongue and my lips produced the answer before my brain caught up. “But, why the hell didn’t you mention this earlier?”

She shrugged, her cheeks seeming to blush a little. “I didn’t know if you’d be interested. From what CJ told me last night, you were intent on live down here in South Park.”

“It seems like an awesome neighborhood, but I just can’t find a place...” I ran a hand through my hair, then tied it back.

“You could always stay with me,” Lissa piped in. “Where’d you tell him there was an opening, G?”

Georgia shooed Lissa away with a wave of her hand. “Mind your own damn business for once.”

“Fine,” Lissa exaggerated a sigh, “guess I’ll just have to go flirt with CJ.”

I looked behind me and found him reentering the bar, stretching his arms overhead.

“Don’t worry.” I laughed a little. “You won’t have to do that much work. He’s kind of a sure thing.”

“Funny,” Lissa looked between Georgia and me, “that’s what she said last night. You two share a brain or something?”

Georgia shook her head. “No, we just know CJ. So,” she turned back to me, “want to come look at the place tomorrow? I’ll get the key and show you around.”

“That’d be great.” Relieved and overwhelmed at the turn my housing search had taken, I smiled and slapped the edge of the bar.

“Georgia! Order up!” A stern male voice hollered from the back.

She curled her lip, flaring the nostril that held that tiny stud. A look that would have told the guy to shut the hell up, had he been able to see it. “All right, off again. Good luck tonight.”

Georgia darted back to the kitchen, returning with a full tray of food and hurried off to three different tables.

“What was that about?” CJ asked as he sat down.

“I think I just found a place to live.”

“With Georgia? Lucky...”

“No, hormone central, the place across from hers.”

CJ ordered a beer from a very attentive Lissa. “That’s going to be one hell of an adventure.”

I looked over to the corner of the bar at those tiny red shorts, wondering what I’d done in my moment of housing desperation.

“I’m sure it will, Ceej.”

“Here ya go, Jake.”

Jake winked at me as I set his beer down, leaning back in his chair just far enough to study the length of my shorts from behind.

“Thanks, sugar.” He licked his lips.

I smacked the back of his head. “You know I hate that nickname.”

“Aw, come on. It’s sweet, just like we were.”

His friends whistled in mock-reverence at his apparent accomplishment of getting me in bed.

“Sweet? We?” I tapped the pad of my index finger on my bottom lip as I looked up at the lights. “Ah, yes, as sweet as five minutes can be.” I strode away from the table as the whistles turned into jeers and teasing.

That boy didn’t have a goddamn clue. It was a shame, too, given what a Ken Doll he was. I’d left the bar with Jake six weeks ago, and, bless his heart, he returned every single Saturday and Sunday since, asking for “another chance.”

“Last night that good?” Lissa bumped her bony hip into mine once I got back behind the bar.

“What?”

“That smile?”

“Oh, ha, no...” Out of the corner of my eye I caught CJ and Regan turn their heads in our direction. “Six weeks ago was
that good
for Jake.”

Lissa looked over my shoulder. “Oh for the love of ... is he still following you around like a puppy? Can’t he take a hint?”

Without asking, I slid two beers in front of Regan and CJ. Looking at them, still talking to Lissa, I continued. “Hints don’t matter if you know what you want. You just go until you get it.”

CJ grinned and nodded. Always on my wavelength. Regan, though, looked down and shifted in his seat. He didn’t particularly strike me as a prude, and I’m certain CJ would have warned me if anyone in his gene pool behaved in such a manner, but he always looked uncomfortable when I was around.

“When’d you dye your hair?” CJ cocked his head and looked at me like he was working through an algebra equation.

“Wow, it’s only taken you twenty-four hours to realize my hair is a different color than the last time you saw me?”

“What color is it supposed to be?” Regan piped up.

I lifted an eyebrow as my eyes slowly shifted to him. “It’s
supposed
to be any color I want it to be.”

He rolled his eyes. I didn’t much care for his “I’m too good for this scene” attitude.

“Black.” CJ blurted out, sounding annoyed if my ears interpreted things correctly.

“What the hell’s your problem?” I felt like I’d been asking people that all night.

CJ shrugged, staring at me rather incredulously. “That guy, G? Really? He looks like a massive douchebag.”

Regan and I laughed at the same time. “CJ,” I caught my breath, “I’ve been picking up guys like that for as long as you’ve taught me how they operate.”

“Did you just call me a douchebag?” His eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas.

“I did.” I set my hands on my hips.

“Well, none of us deserve you.” He winked. I’d never seen him wink to any girl he was taking home, so I’m not sure exactly what the hell he ever meant by it.

“As long as you know that, I’d say we’re all set here.” Just then, the door opened, escorting in those annoyingly beautiful people. I nodded to the door. “Your band is here.”

Holding hands as they walked, they made my stomach churn.

“What’s that look on your face?” Regan’s rich voice sent chills down my back. Where he couldn’t see.

“Do they ever stop smiling? Are they always that happy?” I nodded to the prom king and queen.

Regan’s eyes seemed to dull for a minute. “Which do you want me to answer first?” He tried to chuckle, but it wasn’t sincere.

“Neither, my food order is up.” Before the syrup that was Bo and Ember could ooze over the bar and onto me, I made a break for the kitchen.

Standing next to the stainless steel counter, waiting for the rest of my order, I ran through as many busy thoughts as I could to keep my mind away from last night.

Lissa saddled up next to me, snapping her fingers at the line cook before speaking to me. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

No.

“I saw you leave with Dex last night.”

“You did.” I nodded, bile rising through my body.

“Aw, shit,” she groaned, “is he bad? He looks like he’d be amazing in bed.”

My shoulders twitched a little. “He was ... okay.”

“That blows. Will he be in tonight, you think? You know, part of the puppy brigade with Jake.”

“God, who knows.” As I reached for an oversized bowl of soup, my hand slipped, dumping steaming hot liquid down my right arm and the front of my shirt. “
Shit!
”

Lissa tossed me a rag as I silently cursed the asshole who would order soup in a place that rarely dipped below seventy degrees.

“Shit, are you okay?” Lissa shrieked.

“Ugh, I need to change my shirt, and take this fucking cuff off, now that it’s probably ruined. Can you take the food to my table?”

“You got it.” Her voice faded as I pushed through the double doors and walked to the back room.

I cursed again when I crossed the threshold and tore off my cuff, casting it onto the tattered couch.

“G?” CJ rapped on the doorframe, causing me to jump. “I heard you yell from the stage. Thought I’d come check...” He trailed off, his words plunging somewhere into our past. One we never talked about.

“I’m fine. Fuckin’ soup.” I peeled off my soaked tank top and pulled on an
E
’
s Tavern
T-shirt, rolling up the sleeves and tying the back into a tight knot with a hair elastic, right above my lower back.

CJ didn’t even flinch when I was just in my bra a few feet from him. We’d spent so much time together smoking pot in the back room of
Dunes
back in Provincetown, I’m sure he’d caught more than a glimpse of me in my bra a time or two.