The unwanted greeting of yet another person from my past has my feet carrying me toward the freedom on the other side of the main doors.
Outside, I attempt to take deep breaths of the cool, night air, but it feels like there’s a noose wrapped around my neck. Leaning against the brick wall, I brace my hands against my knees, barely aware of the line full of people gawping at the girl who’s coming close to having a panic attack.
“Hey, hey, hey, mami. Tranquila. ¿Qué pasa?”
Chico’s grip on my arm gives me enough of a shot of reality that my throat decompresses slightly and I get a decent breath into myself. From there, things improve and then I feel like a fool with Chico hovering over me.
I wave him off. “Sorry,” I whisper. “I’m fine. I needed some air, that’s all.”
“Do I need to go in there and haul Scotty’s ass out here?” Chico demands, straightening up and folding his massive arms across his chest.
Glancing up, I give him a shake of my head. “No.”
“Someone else then?” That seems to piss him off even more.
My chuckle, feeble and bleak, mirrors my inner turmoil perfectly. “The only ass that needs to be kicked is mine. But it needed to be done around this time last year.”
Chico takes hold of my elbow and gently guides me to sit on his stool. “Take a load off, mami. You’re not making much sense.” He pulls a bottle of water from the podium beside us and cracks it open for me. “Drink this.”
“Thanks,” I say, taking a much appreciated sip.
“You wanna tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on. Just my past catching up with me, that’s all.”
Chico grunts, which I take to mean something like I see. “Scotty doesn’t know anything about it?”
I sigh. “He knows some. Enough, I hope.”
Looking me over with concern, he says, “You know how I know him? Well, aside from his occasional appearances around here?”
I shake my head as I tug my dress down lower on my thighs.
“Parent/teacher night. Our kids go to the same school. He seems like a stand-up guy.”
“He is,” I say sadly. “He’s way too good for me.”
“What? No, mami! The opposite. I want you to hold on to him. You were never –”
“Yo, boss! I need you over here.”
At the head of the line, one of the other bouncers is getting into it with someone. As he walks away, Chico finishes his sentence, “You were never meant for this life long-term.”
I pull in a deep, shaky breath. Chico is right. If Scott is what I want, then I need to fight for him. I wake the screen on my phone and see . . . nothing. No messages, no missed calls. Either he’s not looking for me yet or Jorgie has convinced him to throw me over.
With a heavy heart, I text him.
Ellie: I’m outside with Chico if you’re looking for me.
Scott
Fucking Jorgie.
The thought makes me laugh and I almost piss on my shoe. I should concentrate on the task at hand, but come on, how many times have I thought the phrase Fucking Jorgie in my life. A hundred? A thousand? More likely, tens of thousands. I don’t care how much he gets on my nerves, I love my best friend.
I zip up, hit the lever and then move to the sinks to wash my hands, trying not to grin at myself in the mirror like an asshole. I don’t remember the last time I had such a good night. Ellie is just . . . everything. I’d be lying if I said that her ‘popularity’ hadn’t taken me by surprise in the beginning. It’s a heady experience to realize that almost every eye in the building is on your girl, that she’s one of those charismatic people that others are naturally drawn to. The bizarreness of it all didn’t get my panties in a twist though because even if everyone was looking at her, she was only looking at me. Like I said, heady.
So why, exactly, did I leave her to fend for herself in this wolves’ den?
Fucking Jorgie.
I exit the washroom and find the man I’ve been cursing waiting for me, still looking like someone pissed in his Cornflakes. Jesus, if I have to listen to him go on about another squabble he’s having with Cindy, I’ll be forced to strangle him.
“Listen,” I say, already heading in the direction from which we came. “Can this wait? I need to get back to Opal.”
“That’s Opal?”
I stop, looking down at the hand he’s got wrapped around my arm to prevent me from leaving. I don’t like his tone.
“You do know that’s not her name, right?” he says like I’m an idiot.
I shake him off. “What’s it to you what I call my girlfriend?”
His eyes almost bug out of his head. “Your girlfriend? That girl is the last woman on the planet you should be taking up with.”
“Excuse me?”
“I know her.”
A wave of nausea hits me. “What do you mean, you know her?” I bite out as my brain flounders with something along the lines of Jorgie’s slept with Ellie?
“Well, I don’t know her like that,” he says, backtracking. Thank. Fucking. God. But he’s still talking. “But I do know of her. The whole club scene on the peninsula knows of her. She’s a professional party girl and her boyfriend is loaded. I’ve dealt to them too many times to count.”
Every undesirable emotion conceivable thrashes within me. Is he implying my Ellie is a cheater? A whore? An addict? “What’s your fucking point?”
“What’s my fucking point?” he repeats derisively. “Since when do you run around with trash like that? She and her boyfriend are into some seriously douchey stuff. Word is he’ll loan her out.”
Fury sweeps everything else away and leaves me seething. I jam my finger into his chest and he’s lucky it’s not my fist. “Why are you talking about this like it happened yesterday?”
He wasn’t expecting that and stays silent for way longer than my patience will allow. “When was the last time you saw her?” I demand, and I watch him as he tries to remember. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” My fist curls into the material of his shirt and I push him back into the wall. “This is the first and last time we will ever discuss this, Jorgie. Ellie is –”
“That’s not her name either,” he protests.
I thump him back into the wall to emphasize my point. “Piper is not a name she uses anymore, and it will never cross your lips. Do you hear me? Not with me, not with our friends, not with your ‘contacts’. Ellie is my girl now. Period. If I hear that you’ve been talking shit about her, I will make you regret it.”
For once in his life, my best friend is speechless.
“Are we clear?”
Silence, except for the dull thud of the bass. A group of girls circles around us, giggling, drawing his attention.
“Are we clear, Jorgie?”
He scowls. “Yeah, I guess. It’s your life.”
“That’s right. Don’t forget it.” I drop my hand from his chest and he smooths his shirt front.
“Goddamn bully,” he mutters irritably, but then can’t resist giving me one of his trademark smirks. “You’ve got a girlfriend? Have you lost your mind?” We start back down the long hallway. “Either we’re in an alternate dimension or hell has frozen over.”