Chapter 10
Liv
“Ilove this band,” I said, sipping at my drink, but Brooke wasn’t listening. She was looking over her shoulder, scanning the crowd of people, completely ignoring me.
Boozer’s was packed, as it always had been. The house band, Mad World, was playing—the lead singer Shane Maxton, grinding up against the microphone, making all the girls in the bar scream and chant his name. I hadn’t been there in years, probably since my twenty-first birthday, when I gottheShane Maxton to sign my boobs, and got to know Brayden the bass player in a bathroom stallalmostbiblically. Both of us were too drunk to work his zipper, but I still kept in touch with him on social media. He and the guys were a ton of fun.Too much fun, honestly.
Brooke tilted her head back and gulped down her drink. She wiped the back of her hand across her lips and slid the drink over the bar top and waved for another one.
“You want to talk about whatever’s going on?” I asked, leaning closer to her. The music was loud, but back by the bar it wasn’t so bad that you couldn’t hold a decent conversation. Brooke and I had some pretty intense conversations here throughout the years whenever I visited back home.
“What’s going on?” she asked, giving me a tight smile.
“Yeah girl, that’s what I’m asking you. What’s going on?” I said, folding my arms across my chest. Something was up—I had two sips of my drink—she was on her third full glass. Plus, her eyes were all over the place—searching for something.
“Nothing. I’m good,” she smiled and held up her glass, clinking it against mine. “I’m glad you’re here.” It could have been a trick of the lights, but it looked like her eyes were glazed over with tears.
“Seriously. What’s going on? Come on, talk to me,” I said, taking the drink from her hands and pushing it away from her. “I know this is about the guy you were seeing. What happened?”
Her shoulders slumped down, and she leaned against the countertop of the bar. “He just didn’t turn out to be the person I thought he was.” She reached across me and grabbed her drink back. “The problem is that I really liked him, and I don’t want to believe that he’s an asshole. I keep saying it’ll get better, and it’s not going to. It won’t.” Her words trailed off into whispers.
“What won’t get better?” I asked, sipping more at my drink.
She continued to whisper to herself and shake her head. “And the whole thing with the cadets missing. I was close to the one kid, you know?” She tapped her fingers against her glass. “He was fighting with his girlfriend. I even took him out for a burger to talk about it the other night. He was confused, but…I just hope he didn’t do something stupid.” She glanced down at her watch and sighed. “I just need to relax and forget about work…and asshole men who I work with that don’t know crap about relationships.”
“So you work with him? The guy you were seeing?” I asked, surprised.
Brooke’s entire body straightened and the corners of her mouth dipped into a frown, but she wasn’t reacting to me, or anything I said. Her eyes were locked on something in the crowd.
“Are you okay?” I asked, shifting in my chair to try and figure out what she was seeing. It was just an enormous crowd of people dancing to a slow bullshit rock ballad about never ending love.
“Yeah, I’m good. Really, I am,” she said, her shoulders relaxing a bit. “So,” she said through another sip of her drink, “What’s with you and my brother cooking you dinner? What was that?”
“Nothing,” I said, choking down my drink. I coughed it down, spurting a few drips out as I gasped for breath.
“You okay?” she smiled, patting my back. “I can’t believe you’re still crushing on Dean.”
“I’m not still…I never really…He’s got a lot of anger issues,” I stammered.
“Look Liv,” she said, finishing off another drink in one long swallow. “He’s not in a good place right now and—”
“Brooke stop,” I interrupted, “You don’t need to warn me away from him.”
“I just know you used to have a crush on him when we were younger.”
“You knew?” I asked, stunned.
“Everybody did; you were quite obvious,” she smiled.
I laughed and waved my hands at her like it was nothing. “Yeah well, I’m not fifteen anymore, and I’m not going to be staying here for much longer. My mother doesn’t want me here. I’m just cleaning the house and making sure I do the right thing, so I don’t drown in all this guilt.”
“Liv, I’m not saying I think you should stay away from him. I always thought you two would hook up someday.” She shrugged her shoulders, and slid her drink closer to the edge of the bar to get it refilledagain. “I’m just saying that right now, he’s grieving, and I don’t think he’s been seeing things clearly.”
“That’s understandable; he just lost his best friend.”
“Yeah, and it’s not making him see straight. He’s not seeingyouclearly.”
“He doesn’t have to see me clearly,” I replied.
