Mike’s hands smack against his thighs in a bongo beat that matches the “dy-na-na-na” being sung over the Jeep’s speakers.
“It’s not that. I just… I don’t know. I guess I’m tired of hating him.”
“Then don’t.”
I slow down and make a right turn. The place is packed and there are no spaces available to park out front, so I pull the Jeep around the back of Mickey’s to the designated employee parking spaces that have been coned off.
“Good business. Pops will be happy. Hold up.”
Mike hops out of the vehicle and moves two of the reflective orange cones, so I can park. He waves me in like an aircraft marshaller, and I blind him with my brights for the hell of it.
“Thanks, jackass,” he says when I get out of the Jeep.
“Think our food is ready?”
We stink of sweat from the basketball game we just left. We met up with a few of our old high school buddies for a game of three-on-three, something we try to do at least once a month. Mike called in a take-out order as soon as we headed out, so I hope the food is boxed, bagged, and ready to go. I’m starving, and I want a shower, in that order.
Mike jingles the key that will unlock the back service door. “Should be unless they got behind on orders.”
My phone rings, and I see that it’s Harper. I wave at Mike to go on ahead.
“S’up, sis?”
She and Douglass were supposed to have some sort of girl’s night out tonight.
“Where are you?” Harper asks, but it’s difficult to hear over the background noise filling the phone.
“Just picking up dinner at Mickey’s. Why?”
“You’rehere?”
I put my finger to my ear to help me hear her better. “What?”
“You’re at Mickey’s?” she says louder over what sounds like applause. Applause that echoes past the service door I’m standing in front of.
“Wait,you’rehere at Mickey’s?”
“Yes. With Douglass,” she shouts into the phone.
My night is looking up. I take a quick glance at my stiff sports tee and basketball shorts that are crusted with dried sweat. My hair is damp and uncomfortable under my ball cap. Whatever. I’ve looked worse. I can pop in for a quick hello, which is bullshit because what I really want to do is lay eyes on Douglass.
“I had to pee. I was only gone for a few minutes. I don’t know what to do.” She sounds agitated.
No clue why she needs to call me about her bathroom habits. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Amelia’s here. At the bar. With Douglass. It doesn’t look good. Should I intervene? Beat her up? What do I do?”
Shit.
“I’m coming to you. Stay put.”
My past and my future are about to collide. It was inevitable. I just wasn’t expecting it to happen tonight.
It takes me less than ten seconds to find Harper at the end of the hallway. The band has just started playing, so she points in the direction of the bar. As we get closer, my eyes rake over the last woman on earth I ever wanted to see again.
Amelia is dressed in black skinny jeans that are plastered to her long, stick-thin legs, and a red halter that rides up and exposes her midriff. I can literally see the outline of her lower rib cage from twenty feet away in a dimly lit bar. Her long strawberry-blonde hair is loose and hanging down past her shoulders. I once thought that Amelia was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. My gaze flicks to Douglass, whose back is to me, the dark red in her hair reflecting the lights overhead. I was a damn fool.
Douglass picks up a bottle of water that Sampson, Mickey’s friend who comes in to help man the bar on the weekends, hands her. Amelia yanks it out of her hand and says something I can’t hear over the band playing. However, I do hear Douglass’s reply over the crooning lyrics of “Amazed.”
