The Pact(16)

But I guess I’ve been lying to myself for too long because I’m kind of bleeding inside, right in front of James’s face, and trying hard not to show the blood.

He’s watching me, closely, as if he’s suspected something all along. Then he leans back, apparently satisfied and says, “Now I suppose the real mystery is why you’re still single.”

I laugh, nearly spilling my wine. “It’s not a mystery, James. You of all people should know this.”

Something flickers in his eyes. “I liked being with you.”

“That’s not what I meant, not exactly,” I correct him. “I just mean with the both of us being small business owners now. I remember how hard you worked to own the Lion. You didn’t really have a lot of time for Linden or I or anyone else. It’s kind of the same with me. I just don’t have the time.”

“True. But before that, you still didn’t seem to…be with anyone. Not in a serious way. Other than that Owen douche.”

I don’t bother correcting him on that one. Owen had turned out to be a giant douche – and a cheater – and not at all the dependable rock I wished he was. “And you,” I point out.

He smiles and for a moment I’m transported back to when we had first met. James was cleaning pint glasses and I swear there was a spotlight from the small stage inside the Lion that was shining right on him. He was everything I had always wanted post-high school but couldn’t really find, or didn’t have the guts to approach: Tall, slim build with tight muscles, long black hair with a slight wave to it. To top it off, he had gauges in his ears, a septum ring and black, drastic tattoos. He screamed bad boy and a bad boy was a dream come true for this quiet Petaluma girl.

James, being a couple of years older than me, was the acting manager of the bar at the time. I handed in my resume to him and stood there awkwardly while he looked it over. I remembered Linden coming by to get someone a drink and I almost did a double take at his muscles, the intense look on his brow, his ultra-masculine swagger and dead sexy Scottish accent. I couldn’t believe my luck that two hot guys were working there.

I was sure by that fact alone, I wouldn’t be getting the job. No girl is that lucky.

But James just looked up at me and smiled and I was a goner. His smile is almost too wide for his face and it does something to his brown eyes, makes them almost sparkle. I would later find out that it hides the indignity he has deep inside.

He said, “Looks good. When can you start?”

And that was that. My first shift was the next night and a week later, James and I were dating.

He really was everything I was looking for in a boyfriend at the time. Aside from his edgy looks, which I showed off like a badge of honor, he was a musician and the band he was in with Linden was pretty good, even if they mainly played at the Lion and did covers.

He was smart and funny in this quiet way. He was also very good at keeping me on my toes. He was temperamental and would fly off the rail easily and usually over nothing. Some days if a guy just looked at me wrong, he would accuse me of liking him. Later those accusations would become more grandiose and it seemed like, to him, I was having an affair with half the city.

In the end, James was just too needy and too possessive. I mean, I like a guy who gets jealous, don’t get me wrong. But he was that way with my girlfriends too. The only person I was really allowed to be friends with was Linden, but that’s because Linden was always around the two of us and under James’s watchful eye.

So I broke it off with James. He had some issues with his childhood he needed to take care of – he had a drunk and abusive dad who abandoned him – and I couldn’t be the girl on the leash. I wanted my own life and to be myself without stepping on eggshells all the time. Being with James had tired me. And yes, the sex was good – he has a cock piercing that seemed to hit the right spot every time – but sex wasn’t enough to save us.

He was hurt. I know he was. And because of that, I was so certain I was going to be fired. I thought I wouldn’t even fight it because I felt so terrible over it all. But to James’s credit, he didn’t fire me. He acted like the break-up had been mutual. Maybe in some ways, it had been – we had been struggling, fighting, for some time.

I kept my job. It was an awkward couple of months but during that time Linden really stepped up as a buffer between us. I finally got to know him a bit better, though we didn’t start hanging out together until James seemed to be over us. Until then it was a lot of texts and funny Facebook messages.

Time heals all wounds, or at least it causes them to scab. James was able to move on and, slowly but surely, the three of us were back to being the three musketeers. There were some growing pains, of course. I made a conscious effort not to talk about other guys and James seemed to do the same with regards to whatever women he dated (and there weren’t many). But in time, everything found its groove.