Chapter Seven
2008
Chase
“If you don’t go up to talk to her, I will,” Greg yelled at me over the loud music in the bar.
“Then go for it,” I shouted back, nursing the Coke I had in my hand. Jack had thought it was a good idea to come out to a bar on a school night and here we were. Jack and Greg were twins, though you would never guess it by looking at them. Jack was built with muscle, with a beard starting to form and shaggy hair. He had already started forming a sleeve of tattoos on his right arm too. Greg, on the other hand, was lean and clean in all aspects, with a full buzz cut. The only way you could even tell they were related was by the undeniable jaw line they shared. I had met the twins in my Intro to Literature class here at GSU and Max, our other best friend, who was standing next to me, worked on the school paper with me. Max was the odd one out for our little group. He grew up in New York and was new to the state, but even though he wore slacks with a dress shirt every day, he was still one of the guys and down to get dirty whenever we wanted to. While Max was on the newspaper with me as a writer, I was editor in chief, heading into my junior year, and the youngest one in the school’s history.
It was my proudest moment. I knew my team loved me, especially since I wasn’t such a dictator like our last editors. The school paper had become something that almost every student on campus read because it was filled with things they wanted to know about. Events, local or on campus. News that affected them. Movie reviews, book reviews. Whatever they wanted, I made sure they had it.
“Why are you being such a puss tonight, Chase?” Jack slapped me on my back and I knew what he was talking about. Normally when they mocked me I just went with the flow and talked to whatever girl it was they were trying to set me up with and then, when I got bored, walked away and said it just didn’t feel right.
“I’m just not feeling it.”
“I want to be feeling that right now.” Jack pointed to the girl perched on the barstool, who was hanging over the counter, trying to get the attention of Holden, the bartender who had just started there. We tried to come here at least once a weekend. Jack and Greg were just nineteen and Max barely eighteen, but I was fast approaching that twenty-one and I knew it was going to be a night to celebrate, but I wasn’t thinking of that right now.
Right now I was trying to focus on how to get out of this situation that I knew I was going to be pushed toward.
“Then go ask her if you can feel it,” I shot back with a smirk on my face and took a sip of my soda.
“Damn it, man, just go talk to her.” Jack shoved me toward where the girl sat. She had long blond hair that reached to where the top of her jeans sat snuggling on her waist and was wearing flats. Still, where she sat in the stool, she towered, showing her height without having to stand.
I reached the stool that opened up next to her and sat down.
I turned just as she turned toward me, trying to give me an inviting smile.
It wasn’t working.
“What can I get you?” Holden asked me. We had chatted it up a few days ago about me and the guys being regulars, so he knew exactly who I was and that I was a local.
“Just a water.”
“What about for me?” the girl next to me spoke up and jutted out her chest toward me. She had to at least be a freshman if not younger. It didn’t matter if she was tall, all that came off of her was youth and innocence. And the fact I could tell that her glass was filled with soda and not alcohol.
“Water for her too.” I pointed to the girl once Holden came back with my cup.
I removed myself from the seat and walked back toward where Max was standing, but Greg and Jack weren’t in sight.
“Ugh.” I heard the girl scoff loudly over the music, enough to make heads around us turn to her. I paid no attention and came up next to Max, just as Greg and Jack zoned in. It was like they knew I had failed, but to me it wasn’t a failure. It wasn’t something I even wanted to succeed in.
“What the hell happened?” Greg asked.
“Yeah, she looks pissed.” Jack added in.
“Wasn’t my type.” I shrugged my shoulders.
“No one is your type.” Jack poked back at me.
“She’s young.”
“Excuses.”
“I’m not looking.”
“You’re never looking!” Jack was the one screaming this time and turning heads. “Sorry, man, I just want you to find someone at least, but I’ve never even seen you so much as look at a girl.”
And he was right, because I hadn’t.
