Bar Crawl(27)

He reached the bottom of the stairs and paced to the living room, where he stuffed his laptop in his bag. Returning to the front door, he placed his hand on the knob. “I thought you were different, but you just want the same thing from me everyone else expects. I’m sorry,” his tone finally mellowed, “I’ve gotta go.”

As he moved to shut the door behind him, I caught it and called after him, “And I thought you were different!” Through the window carved into the door, I watched his shoulders twitch as the slam echoed down the driveway.





Frankie





Two weeks had passed without sight of or call from CJ. Granted, we’d never actually exchanged phone numbers, and I hadn’t gone out in the two weekends following our…incident…but I still found myself thinking about him far too often.

I told Bradley about the details of that night, sparing no adjectives, and he seemed rather Switzerland-like on the issue as we made dinner in my kitchen on a Wednesday evening.

“I don’t know…” Bradley hesitated. “Don’t you think he kind of had a point?”

I turned slowly from the counter and faced Bradley. “I know I have a point. On the end of this knife.” I arched my eyebrow and mockingly stabbed the air before returning to slicing vegetables.

“That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?” He sighed and dug through my refrigerator for a bottle of wine. He didn’t have to dig far.

“Me, dramatic? Coming from the guy who once took out an ad on Facebook apologizing to his boyfriend?” I tossed the sliced vegetables with olive oil then sprinkled them with salt and pepper before sliding them into the oven.

Bradley’s face remained startlingly unapologetic. “It was a grand gesture. Besides, we were already in a relationship. I was trying to get him back.”

I took the glass Bradley had poured for himself, causing him to chuckle and reach for another glass as I spoke. “So what does CJ have a point about…according to you?”

With a deep sigh, and a glass full of white wine, Bradley eased onto the stool next to me. “I’m not saying either one of you were right in what you did or said, but, at least on his end, he pointed it out. I mean…you’ve spent all this time judging him for activities that you then encouraged him to engage in the first night he was at your house.”

“That’s different,” I insisted. “We’d been talking all day. We’d already kissed a few times. And he didn’t pick me up at the bar.”

“Didn’t he?” Bradley grinned with a mouth full of my favorite Riesling.

“What?”

Bradley set his glass down and folded his arms on the countertop, leaning forward. “You may not have walked out of a bar hand-in-hand, heading straight for the bedroom, but, I’d say he certainly picked you up there. Even if it was only the start of the pick up.”

“You’re mental,” I spit out.

“Keep in mind, I said neither of you were totally right. He also f*cked up. He gave you a view of himself that, while apparently honest and true, wasn’t one he was ready to embrace fully. I think he’s confused, Frankie. I know he wanted you, but then he—”

Before Bradley could finish his sentence, my doorbell rang.

“Hold that thought.” I slid off my stool and walked to the door.

Upon opening it, I was greeted with a bizarre sense of déjà vu. In front of me stood a woman who looked about my age—maybe a couple of years younger, if that. She was much shorter than I was, but was able to look me almost in the eye thanks to a pair of nosebleed platform high heels. They were cherry red. She wore a black, A-line dress that was cut to her knee. It had a cherry pattern and looked as though it had come from a ‘50s clothing catalogue. She was turned slightly to the side, as if checking for signs of life from my house, and that allowed me to see the menagerie of tattoos on her shoulders, neck, and back. The rocking horse fly on her shoulder held my attention the longest before I got to her deep chocolate brown hair—the kind of color I’d have to pay for—that was twisted up in a vintage style. If she wasn’t from the ‘50s, then she certainly made her living as a pin-up model.

I’d never seen her before, but I was certain I knew her somehow. She turned her face to me and revealed a bright smile and a thin silver hoop nose ring that cuffed her nostril perfectly. She was stunning, but I immediately sensed that she didn’t care about it.

“Hi, ah you Frankie?” Her effortless dismissal of the letter “r” in the word “are” allowed me to originate her in the eastern part of the state, though I still had no clue how I knew her. Or, more importantly, how she knew me.

“I am…” I trailed off, hoping to signal to her that I didn’t have a clue as to who she was, though she seemed to know that.

Her smile brightened, creasing the edges of her eyes as she stuck out her hand. “Thank God you’re real. I’m Georgia.”

“G—” I started as I shook her hand, stopping myself as it all came tumbling together. “Oh…Georgia,” I emphasized, recalling the only person I’d ever heard of in “real life” with that name. CJ’s friend. The alleged girl that had been his best friend since high school. In the flesh. At my house. Unannounced. “It’s, uh, nice to… meet you.” I checked over her shoulder, where her car was parked next to mine in the driveway, but it seemed she had no passenger.