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“I just—I feel like I should’ve known that he would do something like this. All Halloween he was making these cheesy jokes but I was… desperate.”
“We all have moments of desperation. I ran away to the damn army without telling anyone, seriously, I’m the fucking king of making desperate decisions.”
Billie laughed again, and I grinned, glad that I could help her lighten up. “Here we are.”
Billie frowned as she looked out the window. “I thought you said we were going back to your place? This is Jones’ garage.”
“Yeah, it is, I live above it.” I got out of the car and opened the door for her, giving her a hand to help her up. “Jones’ brother used to live up there, there’s a small apartment.”
“It is pretty small,” Billie noted as we went up the back stairs and I let myself in. “You comfortable here?”
“Well, for now, yeah, and the commute is short.” I winked at her and Billie grinned at my joke. “What do you want? Beer? Whiskey?”
“Whiskey. I’m not really a… connoisseur or whatever.”
I faked a gasp. “But you’re a bartender!”
Billie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I am. I’m a bartender in a tavern where oil field workers and other blue-collar guys come in to get drunk on beer and watch sports. Or college students come in to get drunk for cheap. I’m not mixing cocktails or shots or dealing at a whiskey bar or pouring wine at a fancy restaurant. I’m just pouring the basic beers that everyone wants. And sometimes making a Cosmopolitan or pouring a vodka shot if someone wants to get hammered really fast or is trying to be fancy.”
“Fair enough. I thought you would’ve picked something off Morgan, though.” Morgan had always been a snob about liquor. Did you know there were over two thousand types of shots, and over two thousand cocktail recipes? I knew that, thanks to Morgan. Morgan knew all the recipes by heart. He knew the differences between not just scotch, bourbon, rye, and whiskey, but could tell by taste if it came from Canada, or Scotland, or Japan. Same with wine, gin, or vodka. He had all the damn beer companies memorized. One time at a college kegger, we’d tested him by blindfolding him and had him try all the different beers we could get our hands on. He’d guessed right every fucking time, and he’d been hammered.
Billie laughed, watching as I poured out two shots of whiskey, one for each of us. “Or Michelle. She is huge into types of alcohol and all of that, in college she was always the girl who played amateur bartender, making shots for everyone to down.”
“Didn’t Michelle have a crush on Morgan?” I asked.
“Still does, but she’ll never admit it. I think they’d be really good for each other, actually, but I’ve never known how to bring it up with Morgan. And… I mean we barely talk nowadays, so…”
“It’s crazy how two people who are good for each other don’t realize it,” I agreed, before I caught up with the rest of the sentence. “Wait. You and Morgan were always close, what happened?”
Billie made a face and then took the shot, downing it in one go. “He knew about you and me, and he wasn’t happy about it. I told him that it wasn’t any of his business and I could make my own choices. He didn’t like that. I didn’t like that he was being overprotective to the point of—of taking away my own agency.” She shrugged. “I can’t imagine that he’ll be pleased to know that I went out with another one of his friends.”
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up, all right? Carter’s not worth the tears.” I downed my own shot.
“I’m not upset with Carter, honestly.” Billie rubbed at her eyes and tugged my jacket closer to her. That warmed my heart in a way I couldn’t even begin to properly articulate. “I’m upset with myself. I was going about it for the wrong reasons. I wasn’t going out with him because I wanted to actually be with him, I was going out with him because I wanted to get over you.”
I stared at her. “You—you were trying to get over me?”
Billie shrugged and spread her hands out as if to say ta-da.
“But that would mean…” That she had feelings for me. That there was something she felt between us that she wanted to get over.
I moved towards her before I could stop myself, taking her hand. “Billie. Fuck. I don’t want you to get over me. I’m not over you. I never have been.”
She stared at me, her eyes wide. “I didn’t want to believe you,” she whispered. “I was scared. But I also—I hated whenever I saw you with someone else, I don’t want you to be with anyone else, so I thought that if I could be with someone else, I could get over you and start looking for someone else—I wanted you but I hated that I wanted you—”
