“Do you think you could make it through one night without flirting with one of my friends?”
Was this guy fucking serious? She just put another check in the cons column when it came to the inner “should I/should I not break up with him?” debate that was going on in her head.
“Sorry, I was just trying to be nice.” Hailey wasn’t sure why she was apologizing. He glared at her before they both turned back to the conversation.
“Way too many Mets fans come down for those games and they’re so obnoxious,” said Gage’s friend Lee, thinking about the Phillies’s biggest rival.
Hailey stifled a laugh thinking about the last time she was at a game with Lee. He got drunk and booed at just about everything, including a girl in the row in front of us that rejected him. And he wanted to talk about obnoxious?
The guys continued to discuss the rivalry but Hailey kept to herself. She learned the hard way that it was just easier to keep quiet sometimes.
The conversation moved onto older players and Hailey continued to just listen until she could find a place to safely add to the conversation.
“Okay, best shortstop of all time. Go,” Isaac chimed in.
“Gotta be Ozzie Smith,” offered Gage.
“No way! It’s totally Jeter,” said Lee.
“What about Cal Ripken Jr.?” said Hailey.
Lee at least respected Hailey’s baseball knowledge, adding, “Yeah, he was pretty consistent. What did he play in? Like 2,300 games straight?”
“It was 2,632! No one else will ever touch that record,” said Hailey, with a big smile on her face.
For a moment all the guys at the table just stared at her.
“How do you know that?” Gage asked despite knowing her love for baseball.
She started to get nervous. “He’s my favorite player of all time, so I’m going to remember something big like that. My dad grew up in Baltimore so I grew up visiting there all the time. It’s practically in the school curriculum there.”
“Gage, you sure your girlfriend’s not a dyke?” Isaac asked with unfortunate sincerity. Hailey’s jaw dropped. Isaac’s date actually giggled, and the guys laughed along with Isaac.
“No, Isaac, I’m not a dyke. It’s totally possible for a straight woman to know things about sports without being gay.” Hailey was about to correct his offensive use of the word before Gage piped in.
“Yeah, man, if she was a dyke I could have had a threesome by now.”
Hailey muttered mostly to herself since everyone else was busy laughing, “That’s not how that works.”
She lost track of the conversation for a bit after that. What was the point in adding to the conversation with these assholes? Instead, she ordered another drink from their server, sticking with the Dirty Shirleys she loved so much. Although, sometimes the bartenders really skimped on the grenadine.
Hailey needed her vice and reached into her wristlet to grab her chapstick, cursing to herself when it was nowhere to be found.
“What’s wrong?” Gage asked, shocking Hailey that he noticed anything was wrong.
“Just could have sworn I had a chapstick in here, but I apparently don’t.”
He scoffed. “What else is new?”
Well, that comment sure wasn’t new. She always had trouble keeping track of her chapsticks, but she had also caught Gage moving it before to mess with her. As if she didn’t already have enough trouble functioning.
A bit later when Hailey had finished her second drink and was beginning to feel a pleasant buzz, the music in the bar changed to one of her favorites.
“Yes! This is my jam!” She said before singing along to a Lady Gaga tune.
She turned to Gage while singing some lines from “Bad Romance,” which she thought was a bit ironic.
Gage was turned in his chair so only Hailey could see him raise his hand flat in front of his chest and brought it up and down to give her a “calm down” gesture.
