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I found Dom looking down at me.
“I don’t know what she was doing here. What the hell was she doing here?” I rubbed my hands on my arms, even though it was a balmy evening. Echo even affected my ability to regulate my body temperature.
“I thought that was her. You haven’t seen each other since New Englands, right?”
I nodded.
It had been almost ten years and then there she had been, right next to my squad, warming up on the mat. She’d made them all come over and wish my team good luck, but there was such an edge of sarcasm in it that I wanted to drag her off the mat by her gorgeous hair. I’d barely been able to focus on getting my kids ready, and Dom had to give me a pep talk in the hallway.
When Echo’s team had won, it was like smiling while simultaneously being stabbed. I clapped and pretended I was fine losing to her, and that winning didn’t matter. Sure, I wanted it for my squad, but I also wanted to beat her, bad. Fuck sportsmanship. She and her squad were going down in a month if I had to put on a uniform and get on the mat myself.
Dom put his hands on my shoulders and I grounded myself in his eyes.
“I’m good,” I said, “I promise.” I shrugged him off and went back into the gym to talk to a few people before making the squad put the mats away. I heard plans about parties and hoped they were going to be responsible. Megan and the photographer said goodbye and that the story would be out on Wednesday and my stomach turned a little.
My plan had been to head home and grind myself into the ground with work, but Dom shoved me toward his car.
“Get in. We’re having a drink.”
We picked up Heath from his and Dom’s house, and called a few other friends to head down to our favorite grungy bar, The Trap, that happened to be owned by a pair of motorcycle lesbians that had adopted us as part of their family.
“Hey, Lou,” I said, when I walked in and saw who was behind the bar. Lou had gray hair shaved close to her scalp and always wore a leather vest with lots of pins all over it.
“Get over here,” she said, coming around the bar and pulling me into a rib-cracking hug. She hugged Dom and Heath and Penny and Katie and Jason and Tom. Yes, all of my friends had paired off. I was the seventh wheel, but what were you going to do? I had six people on the lookout for a future wife for me.
“Susie in the kitchen?” I asked Lou. Her wife had once worked as a sous chef for a Michelin star chef, but had fallen in love with Lou and had moved to Corsica so they could open a bar together. True romance right there.
“Yup. Special is lobster bisque, garlic Caesar chicken sandwich, and our salad is summer vegetables,” Lou said, wiping the bar down with lemon-scented cleaner.
Sure, you might not think you should get gourmet food in a dive bar with grimy mirrors and an actual vintage spittoon in the corner, but you would be wrong. You could get all that and more at The Trap. There were even homemade pies every day.
We grabbed a table in the corner near the taxidermied bear called Brutus. Several of us hung our bags on his arms.
“I swear, his eyes are following me,” Katie said, glaring up at Brutus.
“You say that every time,” Penny said with a sigh. “If he was going to kill you, he would have done it one of the other times we’ve been here.”
Katie’s eyes narrowed “Maybe he’s just waiting for the right time.”
Penny ignored her wife and looked at me. “So, how’s it going?”
“Good. Um, I had an encounter.” No use hiding it with this group.
Jason braced his elbows on the table and put his chin in his hands. “Oh, this sounds like it’s going to be good.”
“Hold on, I think I need a drink first,” I said, sitting back and looking toward the bar.
“I got you,” Dom said, taking everyone’s drink orders. I was starving, but not even Susie’s food could tempt me with my stomach full of knots about Echo.
Dom came back with a vodka soda with lime for me, and drinks for everyone else. We passed out menus, and I could feel all the anticipation as we all put in our food orders.
I took a sip from my drink to prepare.
“Spill,” Katie said, pointing to me.
“Okay, so you will never guess who showed up to the exhibition today.”
There were a few wild suggestions before someone got the right answer.
