I'm not more than three feet in the door when I spot him.
There's a guy standing in the back corner. He's wearing a black T-shirt and a pair of low cut jeans that emphasize the curve of his ass. His arms are covered in tattoos and his hair is black and spiky, gelled up enough that I know he cares but not enough that I think he wasted time slaving over it. This is the kind of guy I like. I know that before he turns around and sees me staring at him. His dark eyes and suggestive smirk tell me that this is the kind of guy that cheats on you when your back is turned and that spouts a lie with every other word he says.
Unfortunately, this is the kind of guy that I want. At least temporarily. I'm never looking for something long-term, usually just a few weeks or even a few hours. Thanks to my red dress, I don't have to think up anything to say. The guy walks right across the room and pauses next to me. Lacey is already gone, hitting on some chicks near the pool tables.
“Hi, I'm Ty,” he says and his voice oozes over me and fills all the little cracks in my psyche. If Rick were to do that, if he could ever even think to do that, maybe he could glue me back together, keep me in one piece? This Ty, this person with wicked sexy lips and arms that curve with gentle swells of muscle, fills my cracks with foam that expands and breaks me into a million pieces.
“I'm Never,” I say and do my usual explaining thing that people need when they hear my name. “Never is my first name. I don't give out my last name to strangers.” Ty smiles and I can't help but feel this surge of heat in my lower belly. The woman in me wants the man in him. She doesn't care why or how or if he'll even be there later. I hate her for that. I hate myself and my hormones, and I hate men. I hate everybody.
Ty reaches out and takes a strand of my hair between his fingers. His nails are rough and cracked like maybe he does hard labor or something.
“Do you want to dance, Never?” he asks me, and I look around him at the empty expanse of floor between us and the bathrooms.
“This is a bar, not a club,” I say to him as I reach inside my coat and find a piece of gum. I like to chew gum when I'm around other people. That way, if I run out of things to say then I can always blow a bubble or something, pretend that I'm busy even though I'm not. “You can buy me a drink though.”
“Are you sure you're legal?” Ty says, and I don't like his attitude. He didn't like that I turned him down for a dance. I bet that's his best pickup line. Girls probably think it's cute. I bet he scores a lot by using it. I don't need pickup lines to score, so if Ty doesn't want to play then I'll find somebody else. I shouldn't be thinking like that. I don't need to fuck somebody, but at least if I do, then there'll be one, tiny, little second where I feel like somebody cares about me, even if it isn't true. Plus, seeing Ty has made me horny and I can feel my thighs clenching in anticipation. They want him almost as much as I do.
“Cute,” I say as I shrug my jacket off and let him see my shoulders. I have nice shoulders, smooth and covered with a dusting of pale freckles. Guys go nuts for them. Ty sees them alright, and his eyes travel down to my chest, searing me with heat. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Maybe you're right?” he says, as he drops my hair and takes a step back. “Are you jealous?”
“Hardly,” I say as I try to move forward. Ty blocks my path.
“Want to go somewhere else, somewhere we can dance?” I stare at him, wondering if he's really serious. He's cute, but he can't function without his pickup line. That's a bad sign. Still, maybe he'd be interested if I asked him outside.
“We can go somewhere else,” I say to him, closing the distance between us and standing on my toes. I let my heels rise off of the dirty floor as I press my lips to the smooth line of Ty's jaw and put a smoldering kiss there. “But I don't want to dance.” Ty looks down at me and smiles. When he does this, he gets dimples in his cheeks that make my heart palpate painfully. Something about other tortured souls calls to me, makes me want them. When I look into Ty's eyes, I can see that we're exactly the same. He's as wounded as I am, and we're both bleeding all over one another. It's a recipe for disaster.
“No,” Ty says and although I can see in his eyes that he still finds me attractive, a light goes off somewhere in there. He isn't interested anymore. I've failed some kind of weird, little test that he likes to give to girls. “But that's alright. Enjoy your night, okay?” I watch him turn away, dismissing me just like that. It turns on this faucet of rage inside of me, and I just want to throw myself at him, tear at his pretty hair and the earrings in his nose and I want to rip them out and smash them with my heels, grind them into dust beneath my feet.