The subtext was clear. She was angry. She wants him punished. And I’m only too happy to oblige.
Beside Kai, a boy wearing a neon-yellow bucket hat over his shaggy, shoulder-length hair is attempting to line up a shot while Kai pounds his shoulder in encouragement.
“Sink it! Sink it, you beautiful bastard!”
The ball arcs through the air. Lands in a cup with a splash. The crowd erupts, Kai’s voice the loudest of all.
“Yeah, bitch!”
Kai throws his arms around his friend, lifting the shorter boy off his feet in a bear hug that borders on aggressive. Match won, Kai and his friends spend the next hour slamming shots. He throws back Jägermeister like it’s water, chasing it with enough tequila to make even his hardened frat bros wince.
It’s almost too easy.
I order another beer as they start up a new game. Patience is a predator’s greatest asset—the willingness to wait until the prey exhausts itself.
Or, in this case, drink himself into a stupor.
Kai gets progressively more wasted as the night continues.
I watch him lose another game of beer pong—badly this time. Watch him get into a brief shoving match with a guy who apparently looked at him wrong.
Watch him check his phone again. And again. And again.
Each time, his jaw tightens. Each time, he shoves it back in his pocket with more force.
She’s not engaging with him.
Good girl.
After another round of Jägers, Kai’s bucket-hat friend turns toward him, saying something in his ear. Kai nods enthusiastically, drains his cup, and follows his friend to the back of the building.
Toward the restrooms.
It’s not the first time he’s sauntered off in that direction…but it’s the first time he’s tagged a buddy.
My first—myveryfirst—thought be that Kai’s about to get a hand job in the bathroom. I don’t welcome the unexpected flash of jealousy any more than I do the sudden urge to gouge out his friend’s eyes with my thumbs.
There’ll be time to unpack that later.
I give them a ten-second head start.
The hallway is narrow and dim, reeking of fryer grease and a dirty mop someone abandoned in the corner. Two doors on the left—men’s and women’s. A fire exit at the end, its metal door propped open with a brick to let in the frosty night air.
A guy exits the men’s room door as I round the corner. It’s not Kai or his friend, which means they’re still inside.
I catch the door before it can swing shut.
Inside, the fluorescent lights buzz. Two urinals, two stalls, a sink with a wide, grimy mirror. The Hollow Point bravely graffitied the walls with gang-style tags, but most of it’s flaking or has been gouged out in favor of crudely drawn genitals and slurs.
There’s someone at the urinal—again, neither Kai nor his friend. One stall is occupied, and I already know who’s inside.
But as I’m about to go into the adjacent stall, the person in the other one retches violently.
I duck down to check under the door. Someone’s on their knees, but from the sound—and smell—they’re not giving or receiving head. They’re emptying their fucking guts alone in thestall, because this is the kind of place Kai comes to nurse his bruised ego.
If the guy at the urinal thinks it’s strange that I just came to check who was in the bathroom, it doesn’t show in his glazed eyes or on his slack face when we make eye contact in the mirror.
Kai would have had to pass me if he’d gone back to the main bar.
