But first, I need a small escape, somewhere quiet and cool and dark. Somewhere I can lick my wounds and assemble a new plan.
“Taylor,” I say, hating the catch in my voice.
“Yeah?” He looks up from petting the geriatric golden retriever.
“When the last person leaves, we’re going to Ed’s.”
And this is when I know Taylor is my ride-or-die. Because he doesn’t ask questions or give me an excuse why he can’t go to a dive bar in the middle of the day.
Instead, he gives me an intent once-over, purses his lips, and says, “I’ll drive.”
Two hours later,I’m working on my third martini. Taylor’s on a barstool on one side of me, and Archie is curled up asleep on the wood floor on my other side. Now, you wouldn’t think that Ed would know how to make a good martini. But damn, he does. Unfortunately, my past party-girl ways mean I’m nowhere near as drunk as I’d like to be.
“I’ve wasted all this time,” I say to Taylor. “I thought the idiot might care for me. But I was wrong.”
I heard Ryder that night in the hospital. He was praying. For me. He said he’d do anything if I would just get better. There was anguish in his voice. And what sounded like love. Love for me. And it’s that memory I kept holding onto.
The idea of being loved was so seductive that I clung to the past far longer than was healthy.
But it’s finally time to let that go. I realize now that he probably was just worried. Maybe he cared, but not in the same way I did. And that wasn’t going to change.
“Why did I have to fall for my brother’s best friend, who just so happens to be a rock star?” I whine, taking a deeper drink.
And maybe because the martinis are catching up with me, I indulge in the time-honored tradition of repeating my heartbreak in tipsy, tedious detail to my patient friend. I spill the many and myriad ways that I’ve been in love with Ryder over the years. The hopefulness of it all. The hopelessness of it all.
“And that’s why a girl should always guard her heart,” I conclude into my drink after my stream-of-consciousness word vomit ends.
Then, smart man that he is, Taylor orders us a round of waters, and I excuse myself to the bathroom to freshen my lipstick. Because I have a theory that a girl should never look bad when she feels bad. It makes everything that much worse.
When I come back, Taylor is staring at his phone. He looks up with a concerned gaze. “Um. Shit. I have to tell you something. You need to promise not to freak out.”
“I’m not promising anything.” Nerves run through me. “Nothing good ever starts with that phrase.”
“You haven’t checked your phone lately, have you? Social media?”
“No. I hate social media.”
“Well, Ryder’s performance—and yours—is on the internet.”
“What performance?”
“Karaoke with Ryder. At Ed’s. You two were filmed singing. When you were in the bathroom just now, I was scrolling social media. And I saw this,” he says, holding up his phone. A video is frozen on the screen. He presses play.
“Oh my God.” I stare at the phone and, sure enough, that’s Ryder and me on Ed’s makeshift stage.
“A friend just reposted this,” Taylor explains. “Someone must have recorded it. You look hot together. The man on that stage does not look indifferent to you.”
Even in my shock, I can see what Taylor is talking about. The way Ryder looks at me while he’s singing causes my skin to heat and my breath to speed up.
“He’s just an emotive singer,” I dismiss. I trail a finger over the screen. “I can’t believe someone recorded us.” I give a bemused smile. “At least we sound good.”
“Honey, you are both on fire. I wonder how far this video has spread,” Taylor says.
I put a hand on his phone. “No. I don’t have the emotional energy to worry about this. One crisis at a time, please. Andright now, I’m dealing with being dissed by the former love of my life. I just need to move forward. So we’re starting a new project. Operation Make Ryder Fall in Love is done. Dead.Finis. Operation Fall out of Love starts now. Stop your scrolling, and let’s have some fun,” I order.
Taylor slips his phone into his pocket, and I turn to Ed, who’s dealing with a giggling group of college girls seated near us at the bar. Several of them are staring at me, and I wonder if I have something on my face. I recognize one of the girls. I talked to her during one of my earlier bathroom breaks. We were both putting lipstick on in front of the mirror and we started chatting.
Catching the old barman’s eye, I call, “Ed, when you have a second, another martini, please. Four olives this time. I’m taking a walk on the wild side.”
