Jessica fixes a wicked smile onto her lips and wipes gin off her face before grabbing Selina’s hair and yanking her up off my lap. She’s a tiny little thing, but the muscle in her arms tense and bulge with how tightly she’s gripping Selina’s hair. Poor Selina didn’t see that coming. With a shriek and widened eyes, she tries and fails to remove herself from Jessica’s hold.
I want to mock her. To tell her that this is just what she deserves. To urge Jessica to pull a little harder, maybe to slap her across that filthy mouth of hers. But I know better. And so I sit back and watch the action like it isn’t me these broads are fighting over.
Ethan’s on his feet in an instant, jumping up to grab Jessica by the waist.
“Come on, Jess,” he urges. But Jessica is having none of it.
“This tramp threw her drink in my face,” she spits.
“Jess, you’re acting crazy,” Ethan grunts. One hand on Jessica’s waist and the other around her knuckles, he does his best and fails to pry her away. My guess is that he thought with a little convincing, she’d let go. Latching onto another course of action, he yanks her backwards. But her fingers are firmly fastened around each strand that the only thing him dragging Jessica does is hurt Selina even more.
“That’s enough, Jessica,” Ethan growls, but she doesn’t seem to hear him over her own shrill screams and Selina’s shrieks of pain.
The fighting continues. One jealous broad trying to scratch the eyeballs out of the other. This is exactly what Bridgette was hinting at. She’s not wrong, of course, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about my current situation. The truth is, I would choose the both of them any day of the week over being married to Bethany. Screw the fact that she looked better in that dress than the both of them would look drowning in a bathtub of diamonds.
Ethan finally manages to pry Jessica away and keep the ladies apart long enough for Jessica to trap my gaze in hers. There’s a look of raw jealousy stamped all over her gin-soaked face.
“Go home,” I growl at her and she gasps at me, stunned by my rebuke.
“You’re choosing her over me?” she asks, tears springing to her eyes.
“I’m not choosing anybody. The both of you are fucking embarrassing.”
She looks like she’s about to talk back, but changes her mind when I take a step closer to her. Tears pool in her eyes as she turns away from me and storms out in the same fit of fury and with the same energy she entered with.
Maybe I’ll apologize tomorrow.
I haven’t decided yet.
Selina and her friends all make a beeline for the ladies room. Good for them. Good for me.
Sucking in a deep breath, I let it out on a sigh. The clock says that it’s not that late, but my annoyance says it’s late enough.
The guys are behind me chattering away, gossiping like a brood of hens.
“I’m gonna leave you lads for the night,” I say, lazily throwing the words over my shoulder.
There’s a show of protest, but I know they’re relieved to have me gone. I toss enough money on the table to cover the first and second rounds, making sure that I’m long gone before Selina has time to glue her eyelashes back on.
But just because I’ve left her behind, doesn’t mean that her words have left me. Who the hell is out there telling people that I’m going to be deported?
Dean Hamm?
Arsehole from hell. First he refuses to sponsor me or apply for my extension, then he catapults me under the bus right after suggesting that I marry the world’s least eligible spinster. Or was that my idea? I’m not sure anymore, but he was a heck of a lot more keen on the execution than I was, that’s for sure.
This is the second time for the night, I’ve thought about her. Or the third?
Why can’t I get this nuisance out of my head?
“You’re too sober, buddy,” I mumble to myself as I scan the block for another bar to head to for the night so I can finish what I started. Alone.
It doesn’t take me long to find a place that suits my mood. This is where the cool kids come to drink their brains silly and every shop owner jumped on the bandwagon, turning their establishments into some kind of drinking hole. They’re not fucked about fake IDs or underaged assholes like me. It’s all about the money to them. Some bars get a lot. Some get a little. I’m not really sure what causes a particular bar or club to rise to the hip-spot, but I can’t say I’m unhappy that it means some of the establishments are less frequented.
The place I choose is one of those.
No crowds.
No flirty females.
Just a worn-out bartender and a shit load of alcohol. All. For. Me.
I perch myself behind the counter and don’t look at the bartender as I order. She follows suit and doesn’t look at me as she plants shot after shot in front of me.
I knock the first few back in no time.
Employ a little patience on the second round.
Give it a few minutes before diving back in.
The bartender sets a glass tray filled to the brim with peanuts in front of me. “You got a bag or a can where that came from?” I ask.
She cocks her head to the side and gives me a look that could kill a dead dog. “You can get herpes from dipping your fingers into other people’s honey pots,” I say.
“No one’s touched the peanuts,” she answers. “They’re freshly poured.”
I pull my wallet from my back pocket and slap a twenty down on the counter. “You got a bag or a can where that came from?” I ask again.
She shrugs her shoulders, but complies, handing me a closed bag of peanuts. I think about nothing as I plop one after the other into my mouth. When my stomach doesn’t feel like it’s a human swimming pool, I order a few more drinks.
It only takes me ten more shots of tequila and five more shots of whiskey before I’m on my phone barking into the wrong end at the person responsible for all this mess.
“Wake up you peasant and come fetch your husband.”
“Hello? Maverick?” Through the fog of drunkenness, I can hear the sleep still clinging to her throat. Her voice is raspy, and my cock jumps, but I know better than to think it’s something other than the alcohol turning me on.
“I’m at...fuck I don’t know where I am. Come and find me.”
“Maverick?”
“Who the hell else is calling your phone at this hour? Are you being an unfain...unfail...are you cheating on me already?” I slur. “Is the poor wench shacking up with other random men?”
“Maverick… what the hell do you want??”
“You’re my wife! Is this not my newly bethroved…bethrowned…bethroth-?” From a distant part of my consciousness I cringe at the words coming out of my own mouth.
‘Pipe down mate’, sober me pleads, but as always, the loud and boisterous drunk passed down from generation to generation inside me wins. Plus, this is Beth I’m talking to, none of what I say fucking matters.
“Maverick, just…” she’s mumbling. Not at me…maybe to herself…maybe to someone else. For some ungodly reason, that thought bothers the living hell out of me.
I shake my head and feel the world spin twice as fast. “Tell me where you are and I’ll come find you,” she says. Her voice is calm now and sickeningly sweet. Like warm caramel and fucking decency.