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“I’m here, aren’t I?” Danny, lead guitarist of The Untouchables and reliable source of good music, said.
I drew Aurnia into my side, one arm over her shoulder. “Now all we need is someone to tear that sign down.”
A pair of hands reached up to yank down the sign. I extended my hand to Rachel, who took it reluctantly.
In a loud voice, I said, “Hello everyone, thank you for coming to this wonderful party arranged by Aurnia here.”
A couple cheers went up, Conor’s the loudest of them.
“Rachel and I are so happy to see you all, as you could probably tell by our tears and big, big smiles.”
Some laughter.
“We’re really looking forward to celebrating with you all our big ol’ wonderful, life-changing, fantastic, best-thing-that-will-ever-happen-to-us…divorce!”
This declaration was met, perhaps unsurprisingly, with a resounding awkward silence. Everyone looked from neighbour to neighbour. It was clear that some thought it was a joke. They were waiting for the punchline. Well, me fucking too!
Just when the silence was getting too much to bear, Rachel stepped forward and said, “So who’s getting me a shot?”
An arm extended from the semicircle of friends with an open bottle of Jameson. Rachel took it, turned, and lifted it up as she smiled at me.
“To our divorce, baby.”
Everyone watched, still stunned and confused, as Rachel tipped the bottle back, guzzled it, and then wiped her hand across her shimmering mouth. Her eyes sparked as she glared across the parlour at me. She dared me to challenge her. Dared me to say something.
I gritted my teeth and lifted my arms.
“Fuck yeah,” I said, staring Rachel down. “Let’s get this party started.”
It didn’t take long for the night to devolve into a drunken mess. Or at least for Rachel and me. We circled the small crowd gathered at Dublin Ink like lions stalking a herd of zebras on the Sahara. Our eyes meeting through the maze of people. Our bellies hungry.
Alcohol seemed to be the answer to our frustrations. A glance meant a shot. Caught in the middle of a lingering gaze? Well, that meant a full pint. Thrown back in one go like a fucking nineteen-year-old. The music was loud enough to shatter the windows, but I always heard her voice. There were enough people packed in as the night went on to get lost in, but I never lost her. I wanted to escape her in the chaos. I wanted to escape the chaos and have only her.
The awkwardness of everyone around us was soon gone. Or maybe I just got too locked to see it anymore. There were cheers for divorce. People shook my hand. “Happy Divorce! Happy Divorce!” I’m pretty sure there were ballads to divorce. Poems to divorce. Drinking songs to the beauty and grace and inevitability of divorce.
At one point, Aurnia was locked enough to lean against Conor and dreamily sigh with her beer bottle at her lips, “I hope we get divorced one day.”
There was yelling and dancing and singing and neon lights spinning and I’m not sure which of us kissed someone else first. Whether she saw the smear of red lipstick on my lips first and went to retaliate. Or whether I sought out that juicy red apple because I’d seen someone else’s fingers carding through her hair. It was all a blur at that point. Time and space and the fragility of hearts all fucking relative.
All I know is that I devoured that girl’s mouth. The sweet little thing with cherry lips and needy hands. I remember hoisting her up on the tattoo chair. Tilting her chin up. Seeking out Rachel’s eyes in the crowd before pressing my lips to the girl’s pulsing throat. All I know is that I fucking loved it. All I know is that I never would have kissed her if Rachel hadn’t been watching.
Watching like she’d been when that asshole rutted his hips against her on the makeshift dance floor. Her eyes fixed on mine despite everyone moving between us. Her lips curled cruelly at me as he slid his hands down to her ass. Watching me like she did to make sure I saw when she pulled the asshole’s face to hers.
Rachel and I didn’t say more than two words to each other the entire night. We didn’t dance together. We didn’t drink together. We didn’t even find a quiet moment in the line for the bathroom to curse each other out. To taunt each other.
And yet, for her and for me, there was no one else. Everything I did was for her. To her. Because of her. And it was the same for her. She moved one direction because I was coming from the same way. She took a drink because I’d caught her looking. She trapped me, made me believe she hadn’t noticed I was looking, so that I would reach for the bottle myself. I performed for her. She performed for me.
The red lips were a prop. That man’s hand on her ass was exactly the same as a lacy black bra, a brush of a finger along the thigh, a whisper in the ear. It was meant for me. It had nothing to do with that ass. Nothing at fucking all. It was all for me. Me.
Because she wanted me.
And I wanted her.
Or at least that’s what I told myself before passing out in my bed sometime in the early morning. Alone. Not even having the wherewithal to take off my shoes.
