Hannegan shook his head and took a sip. “She’s damaged goods, man. Take her back and exchange her for store credit.” He turned his head around to look at the dance floor. There was a woman on the edge of the crowd, trying to pretend she wasn’t looking right at Zack. “Maybe get something in blond instead.”
Zack kept facing the bar, eyes down, unaware of anything around him. I could see the look, like he was in his own head, trying to root things out. “I just … I mean, she’s in training right now, okay? For M-Squad, and I think—”
“Man,” Kurt said, turning back to him. “There is a cougar out there on the dance floor who is hot for you.”
“What?” Zack said, blinking, staring at Hannegan in confusion. “I’m talking about Sienna here, okay? Try not to distract me.”
“Right,” Kurt said. “You’re talking about the girlfriend you can’t touch.” He cast another look back to the dance floor. “I thought you were just with her because of Old Man Winter’s orders?”
Zack froze, his mouth slightly open. “You know about that?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kurt said, turning back. “You told me yourself, before you went down to South America to retrieve M-Squad a couple months ago.” He set his beer back down on the bar. “Not surprised you don’t remember; you were pretty drunk when you told me. All emotional and guilty.” He took a deep sniff and turned back to the bar. “I honestly felt bad for you. Being told you have to date a girl to keep your job … it’s kinda like if your boss was holding it over your head to take a girl to prom because she’s his daughter. But for you … even worse. Not only is your girl a broken piece of a human being—I mean, locked in a tin can in the basement by her mother after being imprisoned for a decade with no one to talk to but a mommy who doesn’t love her?” Kurt snorted. “She’s a special kind of damaged. But to have to pretend to be her boyfriend AND know that you’re never going to get laid because it’ll kill you?” He let out a bellowing laugh. “It’s like icing on a crap cake. Poop frosting.” He leaned closer to Zack. “Tell me it doesn’t weigh on you.”
Zack seemed a little flushed; I could see that the alcohol was taking effect, even as he took another long pull from his beer. “Yeah. I mean, yeah, hell yeah, it does.” He tossed a look back to the dance floor and locked eyes with the cougar; she was blond, and hot, willowy where I wasn’t, wearing tons of makeup and doing a pretty great job of hiding her age, at least in the darkness of the bar.
Kurt leaned in closer to him and nodded to the blond in the distance. “You know … I bet you could have her.” He slapped a meaty paw on Zack’s shoulder. The blond gave Zack a come-hither sign with her finger that was about as subtle as a kick to the groin. Which I would have delivered to him myself had I really been there at that moment. “A real girl. You could touch her and everything—”
“I know what I can do,” Zack said, turning away, back to the bar, and taking a long drink from his beer.
“That’s the spirit, kid,” Kurt said, “liquid courage.”
“Yeah,” Zack said, and he stood. “It’s not like … I mean, it’s not like I’m cheating on Sienna, is it?”
Kurt blew the air out through his lips in utter disbelief. “Aren’t you getting paid to go out with her?”
Zack’s eyes darted up, as though he were thinking about it. “Technically, yes, but—”
“Then it’s not cheating because she’s not your real girlfriend.” Kurt’s voice of authority sent ripples of outrage through me. I was stuck, though, frozen here in the dream state, watching this all unfold. “Have a good night, champ. You’ve earned it.”
“Yeah,” Zack said quietly as he stood, straightening his suit coat and checking the first button on his shirt; it was down just a little, the way I liked it. He took a slow, ambling walk toward the dance floor and the blond that waited for him.
It was like being stuck watching a TV that you desperately wished you could turn the channel or look away from. I couldn’t, though, couldn’t even close my eyes. I watched, watched as they danced, hands fumbling in all the wrong places, drunken, watched her kiss him, then again, and again, as the music turned slow. I wanted to scream but there was no sound as time moved on and I was forced to follow them back to his apartment, making out in the back of a cab all the while, and then the stumbling walk up his stairs—