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Yes. Yes, it was.
—
Staying sober the night before with Sophie had been fucking amazing. But by the time I waved to my captain and got off the boat in dock the next day, I was craving booze like nobody’s business. Like an addict. I had the tremor in my hand and while I was pulling up traps with the hydraulic lift I was grateful I wasn’t emptying them. It would have been hell to get the damn bands on them. It was a longer day than I expected but the traps were hot so we stayed out hauling them all in.
Now I was off the boat and headed straight to the bar. Do not pass go. Go directly to jail. The one I had created for myself.
My stool at the Thirsty Moose.
I sank onto it with a sigh and raised my hand to Darryl. He must have just come on duty. It was only five o’clock and it wasn’t busy. Too early for the tourist dinner crowd, too early for drinking.
Unless you were me.
“Rough day?” my cousin asked, pushing a glass over to me.
I sighed, already feeling better just seeing that amber liquid. “No, not really. Just a long one. And I haven’t been getting much sleep.”
His eyebrows rose. “You weren’t in here last night. So it’s not late nights at the bar robbing your sleep. Is it a certain tourist girl?”
For a second I considered denying it. I didn’t want to share Sophie. She was mine. All mine. A sexy little seductive escape from the fucked-up catastrophe of my life. But my cousin had seen me with Sophie. So had Brian. There was no point in denying it. But I didn’t want to share any details. So I just nodded.
“You being nice to her?”
I threw back my whiskey. I was already on edge and his question pissed me off. “No. I’m treating her like shit because she’s one of those girls who likes an asshole.” I was a lot of things. Unreliable. Emotionally detached. Quick to anger. But I was honest with women, and I wasn’t charming, and I didn’t make any promises I couldn’t keep. I had been decent with Sophie. I was pretty damn sure of that.
“You’re a mess,” was Darryl’s opinion.
“Whatever. I make more money than you.” It was a childish thing to say, but probably the truth.
He scoffed. “Dick.” Then he moved down the bar.
I got to thinking about why I was a dick. And I got to thinking about how I had told Sophie about Camp. Shared some of my feelings. She had given me the best possible response. She had been outraged on my behalf but she hadn’t appeared to feel sorry for me. Nothing worse than pity. But she also hadn’t insisted on asking stupid questions like “how did that make you feel?” like one girl had. Like what the fuck? How did it make me feel? Like shit. Like fucking rotten-ass shit baking in the sun in August. Festering, nasty, gruesome, oozing shit.
When I gave her that answer she had gotten scared and had left my bed and my house and I had never heard from her again. What was her name? Nicki? Sammy? I shoved my empty glass to the end of the bar. It didn’t matter. She was one of them. The many girls I had taken home who had all been the same. Bouncy and smiling and confident and a little bit naïve.
So there was them.
And then there was Sophie.
She had her own category.
Just her. She was the only one who hadn’t made me angry or uncomfortable and filled with regret or impatient to be alone again. Some girls got on my nerves so damn bad it took everything I had not to toss them out of my house so I could sit in the dark in silence. Sophie was the opposite. I didn’t want her to leave. I’d let her go reluctantly the night before, after fucking her yet again, and had done the very boyfriend thing of insisting she text me when she got home.
Today I had spent the majority of the day thinking about her. Sure, I was thinking about her tits, her ass, her pussy, that funny little look she got when something sexual was new and unexpected to her. But I was also thinking about her smile and her solemn blinking and her straightforward, no-bullshit honesty.
Far too much time spent thinking about her.
“Where’s my fucking drink?” I called out to Darryl. He wasn’t doing anything. He was just standing there watching the Red Sox on TV.
For a second I thought he was going to ignore me. Then I thought he was going to throw the rag he used to wipe the countertop down with at me. But what he actually did was worse than either of those.
“Get out,” Darryl said, striding toward me, his expression fierce, his finger pointing toward the door.
For a second I just stared at him, shocked. “What?”
“Get out. You’re done here today.”
“You’re throwing me out? What the fuck did I do?” I had been there five minutes, had one drink. Asked for a second. “Is this because of that money crack? I’m just messing with you because I don’t want to talk about Sophie.”
