“Hoooolyfuckingshit! Was that…”
“Uh-huh,” I mumble, sipping the head off my beer with my full concentration.
“Oh, my God.Whydid you pick this bar?”
Is he serious?
“Because you fucking told me to pull over!” I remind him in as harsh a whisper as I can, still silently freaking out.
“What did he say? Wait. What didyousay?”
Jamie isn’t exactly quiet, but I doubt Chris can hear him over the noise of the TVs, the patrons, and the music. I tell myself that’s why I glance back over at the bar.
I catch him looking back at me, half-turned in his stool. His expression is equal parts curious and perturbed. Did I say something to piss him off?
Pulling my gaze away, I shake my head. “Nothing. I…I don’t know.”
Jamie groans, putting his face in his hands. “Ah, fuck. He’s already scrambled your brain again.”
“What?”
“Dude, do you remember what a Chris addict you were? You think I didn’t know each time you were expecting a visit from him? You’d get all quiet, start super cleaning the duplex, and peeking out the window or pretending you had to ‘study’ in your room. And thenaftergraduation…you were this hollow, lost version of my friend, like a lamp without a lightbulb.”
I glare at him. “That is a terrible simile. And I cleaned because one of us had to. You weren’t the hygienic roommate you thought you were.”
“Okay,” he chortles. “Whatever. You know I’m right.”
“You’re not,” I mutter petulantly, sneaking another glance at the bar only to find I’m still the center of someone’s attention.
Why is he looking at me? And why do I not want him to stop?
“Fine. Then why are you acting weird? What was this ‘nothing’ you talked about for a whole ten minutes?”
I snort because ten minutes is a complete exaggeration. I have to tell himsomething, though, or I won’t hear the end of this for weeks. “I just…” Crap. I’m going to have to tell him. “I saw him last week. He came into the center to get therapy.”
“What? And you’re just telling menow?”
“Would you keep your voice down?”
If it wasn’t apparent to Chris that I’m either talking about him or that I still have him on the brain, it most certainly is now as I glance back at the bar and meet his eye again. It’s like being interrogated while you’re naked. Shielding my eyes with my hand, I block him out so I can get through the details that Jamie thinks he needs to know.
“I didn’t know it was him at first.” I go on to elaborate about how I figured it out, hyping up how I waited in the hallway to avoid him as though I intended not to engage him. And then I explain the weirdness that came after when he saw me. The way he looked stunned and then just up and left like some damaged, closed-off version of the guy I used to know.
“So, when I saw it was him just now, I was trying to be nice and said hello,” I explain, sneaking a glance at the bar.
The view I’m treated to this time is a full frontal of Chris’ beefy thighs, spread open with his feet resting on the rungs of his stool. He’s turned all the way around, openly watching me now as though he’s trying to decipher something. I can’t decide if I feel like the luckiest prey he’s ever laid eyes on or the target of a soon-to-be murder.
“Why do you keep looking over there?” Jamie scolds.
“I’m not!”
Iam. I’m literally still looking right at him.
“You are too! You’re practically eye-fucking him.”
That has me sitting upright on my stool to face my accuser. “What? I am not. He just keeps looking over here. It’s…distracting.”
At that, Jamie cranes his head around and catches the view that’s making my stomach squirm. He groans dramatically, turning back around and rubbing his eyes.
