“Yeah, I like that song.”
“Me too,” she says excitedly, like it means we’re similar. Katie truly believes the best of people. Thinks they’re inherently good. Of course, in my case, she couldn’t be more wrong. All I want is for her to disappear forever and never look at me again with those hopeful eyes. But Xavier’s grinning at me over Katie’s head, so I do what they both want. I kiss her.
When I pull back, she grabs my biceps and leans into me, part shy and part turned on. It should be sweet, endearing, hot—something—but it just makes me wish I were somewhere else. I turn to Rawlins, an annoying regular who always finds his way over to X and me, and take the whiskey out of his hand. He deserves it for always being such a dork. He doesn’t complain and I slam the whiskey, Katie still clinging to me.
“Sooo,” she says, running a provocative hand up my arm to my chest, “you wanna…?” She nods toward the door. I can tell she’s pretty sure I’ll say yes tonight. I’m already drunk; I could go with her and pretend to pass out, but then I’d be stuck at her place. I could say I have to work early tomorrow and beg off, but the thought of going home to my empty house sets my heart beating even faster.
“Colin?” Katie sounds concerned and I realize I’ve been staring at the wall behind her. Fuck, I don’t want her to touch me, but I don’t want to be alone. I pinch the bridge of my nose and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to buy a minute to think of an excuse that the guys won’t laugh out of the bar.
“Not tonight, sugar.” I immediately hate myself as her eyes dim and she sets her jaw, taking it like a champ.
“Sure,” she says. “Sure, some other time.”
I give her a weak smile and run my hand over my buzzed hair, feeling sick. Then I pat her on the shoulder and split.
I MEANT to take the long way home, change my clothes, and go for a run so I could sleep.
At first. But then, yeah, all right, even with my jaw still throbbing from last night’s encounter, I kind of knew I’d end up here again. The Cellar.
It started when my youngest brother, Daniel, moved away last month. I don’t remember where I heard about it. Okay, maybe I looked it up online. While Daniel lived in Philly, there was no way I could go to… that kind of place. There was always the chance, no matter how slim, that he might be there. But once he was gone, I couldn’t stay away. It was like there was a light blinking in my periphery that I had to go turn off. Of course, when I flipped the switch, the light just burned brighter, hotter. Impossible to ignore.
Inside, it’s so dark that all I can see is the curve of a chin, the bulk of a rounded shoulder, a gesturing hand as it catches the light. For a second, my eyes land on an uncommonly tall guy at the end of the bar who’s staring at me. In the whirlwind of seeking bodies, he’s noticeably still. I lose track of him fast as I scan the crowd for a likely target. When a built blond guy settles on the stool next to me and orders a beer, I lean toward him and grin. I nod toward the tip I’ve put on the bar and slide his bottle on top.
“Betcha I can get that dollar out without touching the bottle.”
He just raises an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed, eyes icy and face hard. His remoteness suits me fine. He doesn’t snatch his beer back, so I do the trick, rolling the bill with my fingers on either side so it nudges the beer onto the bar top. It’s usually enough for at least a smile, but he just picks up the beer and drains it. Then he nods at me and tips his chin toward the alley, and the tightness in my chest loosens a little even as my stomach clenches. The room tilts when I slide off the stool, but I steady myself and follow him.
It happens so fast that it takes me a moment to understand that what’s going on isn’t what I planned for. I was distracted, one hand at my fly. The second man must’ve been behind me and I didn’t notice. He’s squat and heavily muscled, but I could definitely take him one-on-one. Could probably take either of them one-on-one, but the hits are coming too fast, and when a hard shove sends my face into the greasy brick and then me to the ground, I can’t quite get my feet under me again. And maybe I don’t try that hard. When they start kicking me, I close my eyes because the alley is spinning and focus on each distinct point of impact, each throbbing, stinging locus of hurt.
Like a sick meditation, I can lose myself inside the pain, make it bigger than I am, pull it around me like a blanket.
Then someone rips the blanket away and my eyes jerk open. There’s a third guy, and for a moment I panic. But he’s pulled the other two off me and is—Jesus, he’s systematically taking them apart. He fights dirty, but every motion is perfectly controlled, as if he were making a science of hitting exactly as hard as is necessary to take these guys down and not one bit harder. I’ve been in a lot of fights and seen even more, but I’ve rarely seen anything like this level of control. His face is expressionless and he’s totally silent. He shoves the men down the alley and they scamper off like rats. I close my eyes and try to sink back down into my body, hoping that when I open my eyes, the alley will be empty just like all the other times.