“Nice to meet you, Tom.” I try my best to hide the annoyance in my voice. Tom’s attention still hasn’t moved from the girl at the table next to us. Rolling my eyes, I look around the bar in the hope of catching the attention of a nearby waitress.
Bar hounds are all the same. They always prey on the easy and vulnerable, and unfortunately, there are many conquests readily available to such a sorry excuse of a man. Not my Gwen, though. She’s the kind that’s in the wrong place at the wrong time on a very bad day.
Gwen leans in close to me and whispers, “I met him here last night. He bought me a drink, and you know how I can’t say no to free drinks.”
Holding up her nearly empty beer bottle, I smile sadly. Oh, I know.
After her sister’s death, Gwen has gone on a downward spiral. She has some days, weeks, and months that are good, although some, she drowns herself in substance abuse. I could never hold it against her. I have no idea what I would succumb to if I ever lost a member of my family, and I never want to find out. I’d probably lose my damn mind.
My best friend studies her bottle for a minute, and then chugs the rest of its contents at a lightning-fast rate. This is obviously a bad day. Time to put up a guard for the both of us since there is no way she will be thinking clearly.
A waitress finally appears and asks the table if we wish to order anything more. Her attitude and annoyance are evident as I try to raise my voice loud enough for her to hear me. I order a Tom Collins, my go-to drink whenever I need something on the strong side. As I place my order, the man-whore Tom waves his hand in the sense that he can’t be bothered, still unwilling to take his eyes off the barely legal girl to the right of us. The waitress and I both roll our eyes in a silent acknowledgment of disgust. She leaves, and Tom finally turns his attention back to our table. As he meets my eyes for the first time, I can’t help but think it’s only due to the fact that the young bar slut he had been trying to flirt with got up and left the bar.
“So, what’s your friend’s name,” he asks Gwen without ever taking his eyes off me.
“This is Eva, but we all call her Ev,” she replies. Her attention is now on her cell phone. She’s checking social media, or texting someone, no doubt. Gwen loves her phone. It barely leaves her hand and hardly ever leaves her side.
Tom continues staring at me. He licks his lips and his eyes graze over every inch of my body. The pit of my stomach begins to revolt at the idea of what must be going through his mind. His stare is enough to make even the vilest of women uncomfortable, and I have to stop myself from getting up and leaving the table.
I’m definitely not in the mood for nasty barmen who think every girl that walks into their life is theirs for the taking. Swallowing hard, I tell myself I’m here for Gwen, and from the looks of it, she definitely needs me right now.
“Ev, huh,” Tom says slowly. He begins looking me up and down again like he is picking out a steak he’s going to devour later. There’s nothing I hate more than being sized up, especially by stereotypical bar assholes. Exhibit A: the guy standing right in front of me.
“I got me a friend, too,” Tom says, cocking his head to the side and scratching his chin, his gaze rests a little too long south of my face.
“Hey, Bud! Bud over here!” he shouts.
Bud? Is his friend’s name actually Bud or is he calling his buddy? The stupidity of it all has me chuckling. Wingman buddy, no doubt.
Before I have a chance to think about looking towards where Tom has just gestured, the breath of another person on the back of my neck makes my skin crawl. Stale, grotesque, I instantly feel hostile and nauseous.
“Well aren’t you a pretty little thing,” Bud slurs. His breath smells of whiskey. I don’t even bother to look up at him. I keep my eyes trained straight ahead at Gwen whose gaze still hasn't left her phone.
“Gwen,” I plead.
Maybe I can talk her into leaving and getting out of here.
But my severely intoxicated friend only glances up from her phone and gives me a drunken stare. “What?” she mumbles, obviously annoyed, then looks back down again.
An escape is definitely not in the cards.
Turning around, I meet the eyes of our new guest for the first time. He’s about five-eight or nine, cleanly shaven, muscles bulge out of his shirt, which happen to be two sizes too small for him. The sorry excuse for a shirt is labeled with a surf brand. I have to stifle a laugh because I know this man has probably never surfed a day in his life.
Tight jeans, impeccably clean shoes, he has a few tribal band tattoos on each bicep. He’s also wearing so much cologne that it almost overpowers the smell of whiskey seeping from his breath. Not entirely, but almost.
“I’m not your pretty little thing if that’s what you’re insinuating,” I sneer, just as the waitress returns with our drinks. I grab my drink and take a long sip, hoping maybe he will get the hint and leave me alone. I try to emphasize this by swiveling in my chair so my back now faces him, but my plan fails.
Bud holds his glass up to the waitress, signifying he obviously wants another, to which the waitress just rolls her eyes and walks away. Great, Bud is also an ill-mannered jerk. Not that I am surprised. They tend to run in packs. He then rounds my side and walks right in front of me.
Bracing his arms on the table behind me, he leans in close and whispers, “Why don’t we just wait and see where the night takes us,” then drunkenly teeters back after he takes it upon himself to cheers his glass against my own. Like a toast is all that’s needed to seal the deal and change my mind.
Do men actually think women fall for this?
“How about we don’t,” I shoot back, swiveling my chair again in the other direction.
“Hey, come on now. A sexy siren like yourself has to be used to all sorts of attention.”
He tries to touch me by moving my hair off to one side and leaning in closer from behind. I shrug his hands off.
