I hate it here already,I think, scowling at the bar top, missing the life I had before everything happened.
Grant checks his phone, brows furrowing before clicking it off with rapt speed and I brush off his comment. “Wanna tell me what’s going on?”
I trace the lines of the cartoonishly illustrated bar top with my index finger, trying to follow it to a conclusion. I consider spilling everything right now: telling him about Elliot, about Mom contacting me and telling me she’s sick but sober, about the twelve sticks I peed on before calling Clemmie, about leaving my art program without notice, about how if our parents find out any of this they’ll probably, finally, cut off my allowance and then I’ll be directionlessandpoor.
Instead, I say: “Nope. Bartender?” The wide, bulky man who crafted my drink earlier flicks his brows up at us. “Can we get?—”
“She’ll have water,” my brother interrupts. “Thanks.” He checks his phone again, and I decide not to get into it with him so he doesn’t keep prying.
I squint my eyes, studying him for a long moment. His gaze flits around the bar, like he’s fighting the urge to check his phone again, and it’s so unlike him. The only other time I’ve ever seen him this distracted was in the tenth grade, with that one girl…
“This is crazy,” I finally say, my smile bleeding true contentment.
“What?” he asks, oblivious.
“You have a crush,” I tell him softly. “Is she supposed to be meetin’ you?” I imagine my brother, open-hearted in a way he rarely is and smile a little deeper.
He shakes his head, scoffing. “I don’t have a crush. And no one—she’s not meetin’ me.”
“So there is a she?” I challenge him. “And if you don’t have a crush, why are you checkin’ your phone?” I pause when I notice how unsettled he looks. “Oh my god…does she have a boyfriend?” I gasp, pretending to be scandalized.
The look he gives me is full of disgust, and I have the urge to preach at him about judgement. He’s so full of it that I sometimes wonder how we’rethisrelated.
“No, Sloane. She’s just…unavailable.” He glances away, clearly irritated by my probing. He’s so occupied by thoughts of her, so lost in thought about this mystery woman, that he doesn’t notice when I slide his phone off the counter and unlock it.
The only girl name in his entire text log is a “Gen,” and it feels right. I tap a message into his phone, hiding it under the table when his seat swivels toward me, but it swivels back.
“What’s her name, at least?” I ask innocently.
“Gen,” he admits gruffly, and I hum like it’s the most interesting thing I’ve ever heard. Unfortunately, my brother hears his phone buzz beneath the bar, and I’m found out. “Sloane,” he groans, swiping his hand down his face.
“You needed a push! You were being kind of pathetic. Look.” I pull his phone out and show him the “I need to see you” message I sent. “She answered! See?” I show him herwhere are you?response, but he’s not nearly as pleased as I thought he would be.
“Did you consider that maybe Idon’tneed to see her?” he says, annoyance lacing the anticipation I’m tracking in his posture.
“Trouble in paradise?” I reply cheekily, typing outPub 24before hitting send.
“You’re here for thirty minutes…” Grant muses, and I feel his disappointment in me drop like a rock in my gut. The quick reply from Gen does little to make me feel better.
“Well…you’re welcome. I’m gonna go to the restroom,” I lie, desperate for the kind of disillusionment I usually find in places like this.
I spot the billiards table behind the thick haze of cigarette smoke and feel oddly at home when a buzzy Budweiser sign comes into focus, the blue glow like a homing beacon. I run my hand along the smooth velvet that runs parallel to the wood of the table, shutting my eyes for the briefest second. I think about my flight earlier, and the stale pretzels they offered; I think about the last night in my apartment, already emptied into a storage unit; I think about breathing Elliot in, curled up against his side on the oversized bean bag chair in the loft over the top of the studio.
I let the smoke curling through the air from the couple in the corner cleanse me, and I open my eyes to find Andy, a curious smirk tugging on his lips, approaching me.
“Sloane, was it?” He says my name slowly, like he’s memorizing the feel of it and for a second I’m surprised he knows it until I remember where I am and how quickly news spreads here.
“I see you’ve been asking around about me, Andrew?” I mock, walking past him to grab a pool stick from the rack, fighting the way my lips want to pull upward.
“I could say the same to you,” he nods, a cocky grin on his face as he rests against the wall near the rack so that he’s facing me. “Everyone calls me Andy, by the way.”
He’s distracting to look at, with this sadness in his heavy-lidded gaze, a sea of story raging behind them, the messy tousle of his hair, the ease with which he carries himself, all broad shoulders and leaned out strength, and it’shot. Unfortunately.
I assemble the balls in the triangle, rolling it back and forthuntil it’s right. Out of the corner of my eye, Andrew preps a pool stick with a blue cube of chalk.
“How do you know my brother?” I ask, hoping I’m setting an obvious boundary.
The last thing I want is Grant’s disapproval or irritation, when what I desperately need is his support—for Connie’s sake. All she wants is to make amends with her son, to heal all the hurt she caused for however long she has left, and I told her I could do it. I would get him to talk to her…eventually.
