Page 47 of Tap Left
The shutters come down over his face, and his eyes drift over towards the bar. It shouldn’t satisfy me to see how easily he’s caving, but it does. It also hurts, because it means I’m right. It means that Daire is never going to change and I’m an idiot.
My phone buzzes from the table, and I pick it up. By the time I reply to a text, Daire is at the bar. He returns with a drink and sets it on the table. His eyes meet mine, and there’s an unspoken question lingering between us. He’s waiting for my permission, or possibly my continued encouragement. I don’t know why when he never needed it before.
“Good news.” My voice grates my own nerves when I wiggle the phone in his direction. “Julian is in town. He’s coming down to meet us now.”
Daire’s entire body turns to stone as he reads the message and then looks to me. “He doesn’t need to know about us.”
His statement punches me right in the stomach. I nod stiffly and repeat the sentiment.
“He doesn’t need to know.”
17
Daire
Julian arrivesbefore I can even attempt to salvage this clusterfuck of a situation. He gives Lola a kiss on the cheek and lingers with a hug too long to be considered friendly. I want to knock his teeth out when he slaps me on the back in greeting.
He’s one of my oldest friends, but he’s always had a hard-on for Lola. Out of respect for Ryan, he never acted on it. But who’s to say he won’t change his mind the same way I did. I’m already regretting what I told her about keeping it under wraps. When I catch him eye fucking her across the dim bar, I want him to know everything.
I want him to know that she rides my dick when I tell her to. I want him to know that I’ve been inside of her in almost every imaginable way and that she fulfills every filthy request I make of her. But Lola is giving me the cold shoulder now and laughing with him like they are the best of fucking friends and I’m so goddamned irritable this isn’t going to end well.
“How have you been, man?” Julian asks. He’s eyeing the drink in front of me, the one I still haven’t touched, and Lola is too. They want me to fail. They both expect me to give in, and worst of all is that Julian is hovering too close to her, sending out the wrong body language. He thinks he needs to protect her from me, and what a load of horseshit that is.
My fingers trace the rim of the glass, and they both watch, judging me like the hypocrites they are while they imbibe their own poisons. What point would it serve to prove them wrong when they’ve already made up their minds?
I bring the glass to my lips, and it hovers there while I meet Lola’s eyes. Fuck Julian and whatever he thinks. It’s Lola that matters. It’s Lola that wants me to prove I’m still the same prick she’s always known me to be. I haven’t even taken a sip yet, and she’s already written me off. In her head, she’s tarred me as the addict and the loser.
It occurs to me that it doesn’t matter what I do or say. In her eyes, I will only ever be that Daire.
The liquid burns my lips but doesn’t pass over my tongue. It isn’t necessary because Lola dragged her attention back to Julian the second I actually contemplated draining the glass. Maybe it’s a setback, or maybe she’s right. This is who I am, and there’s no point trying to change it.
It’s been a year without a drink, but what’s a year in a lifetime of fuckups? If I throw it all away now, then that year has been for nothing. Neither of them want to acknowledge me, but it doesn’t matter. Any addict worth his salt would say you can’t get sober for anyone else but yourself.
I pour the contents of my glass into an empty bottle on the table beside us, and the rest of the night continues in a spectacularly fucked up fashion. I brought Lola here to do karaoke with me, but instead, I’m sitting at the table alone while she’s up on stage with Julian.
She hasn’t spared me a glance since she thinks I took a drink. And yet she can’t stop laughing at everything Julian says or declaring how much she misses him and wishes he’d move back to Chicago. I want to lay the fucker out, and I’ve never hated my friend as much as I do right now. When he attempts to inject Ryan into the conversation, it’s where I draw the line.
“He would have loved this, being here with the three of us.”
“He would,” Lola agrees.
I want to rain all over their parade, and I do. “He would have hated it. Let’s be fucking honest about it, at least. We don’t need to kid ourselves. Ryan would have been passed out in the bathroom.”
Lola glares at me. “Well, you would know. Neither one of you could ever control yourselves.”
“Still can’t, apparently,” I reply.
She stands up and smooths out her dress. “I’m going to the ladies room.”
When she leaves, Julian quirks a brow in my direction. “Want to tell me what’s going on here?”
“Sure,” I agree. “I just have to take a piss first.”
I leave him there alone while I follow Lola to the bathrooms. She tries the door on the ladies room first and then moves to the unisex. When the handle turns in her palm, I give her a little shove from behind and lock us both in the bathroom together.
“What the hell, Daire?” She’s scowling at me, and my dick is so hard I can’t be nice to her right now.
“I want to fuck your pretty face.”
