I smirk. “Cute.”
She lifts a brow. “No, I can keep going. Clinginess. Over-indulgence. Not being able to take a fucking hint.”
“Yeah?” I lean forward, resting my forearms on the table, voice low. “I got one. Girls that get blasted out of their minds andcan’t remember the shit they do the night before. Or maybe they can remember and are acting. Never know.”
Frankie doesn’t blink.
“Maybe you just ain’t as memorable as you think you are.”
My eyes squint. “You can be real condescending, you know, Frankie.”
?“Ouuu,condescending,”she drags. “That’s a big word for Elmo.”
I push back from the table, standing. “I’m going toilet.”
Anything to get away before I say something I can’t take back.
As I walk off, jaw clenched, I can feel her eyes burning the back of my neck.
Why does this woman insist on getting on my last nerve?
Why does she get under my skin like this?
Why does last night feel like a secret we’re both lying about?
And why…
Why do I still want her?
God help me.
I come backfrom the restroom and the table is empty. Chairs tucked in. Glasses half-full. No sign of them.
Did they actually ditch me?
“Bari!”
Zaza’s voice cuts through the noise.
I turn.
She’s halfway across the pub, peeking through a set of double doors, waving both arms like she’s guiding a plane. Just like Mum.
“We’re over here!”
I head over, push the doors open and walk straight into another universe.
The front was a pub: low chatter and football on the screens.
But this? This is chaos.
Lights flash purple, blue, red. Bass rattles the floorboards. The air smells like stale beer and cheap perfume. A mirrorball spins lazily overhead with a cracked neon sign that buzzes on one wall with half the letters dead so it just reads:
W T SP NS
Brilliant.
“Really?” I say. “We’re partying in a Spoons now? That’s what we’ve become?”
