Monday came and went, and Shannon and Evan with it. The early morning was filled with banging and stomping, with Shannon yelling for her hairbrush, her orange flip-flops, her bronzer... I hadn’t been able to sleep, so I went out to help them get ready for the road - making them coffee and bagels and assuring Shannon that I’d make sure the apartment would be taken care of while they were gone.
When the door finally closed, leaving me alone in the apartment, I exhaled. It was eerily quiet, now, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of foreboding at being alone.
I didn’t dwell on it, though. I plopped down on the couch, idly wondering if Iain was still sound asleep. It was barely six, the sun not even peeking over the buildings yet. The darkness of dawn.
I turned on the TV, flipping channels, stopping at the early morning news. My eyes glazed over watching the endless stories of politics and crime, my brain still bone-tired from waking up so early, my memories from the weekend washing over me, especially Friday night.
With our schedules barely lining up, we hadn’t seen each other since. He had been working on his case, I had to work at the bar all weekend, and with Shannon leaving for two weeks, I hadn’t wanted to be away at night. But we talked on the phone, and texted a little, even though texting wasn’t super easy on my flip phone.
I worked tonight, but I was off tomorrow. The prospect of spending all day alone in this apartment made me blanch, even though I’d been alone tons of times before; Shannon worked in an office downtown, and Evan was always off doing his thing with art. I told myself it wasn’t much different now - they just weren’t coming home at night.
With a sigh, I lay back against the couch, turning the volume on low, shutting my eyes. I could still see the flicker of light from the TV behind my lids, but I dozed off that way, anyway.
I pretended that light was the sun, and the flickering its rays, peeking through passing clouds.
xxx
At work that night, business was steady, and I was constantly moving, going back and forth filling drinks and picking up dirty glasses. The other bartender, Nat, was helping, her cherry-red lips dark and glossy under the dim yellow lights.
Clint was back, and not alone. He brought a woman, a rail-thin blonde with a lip job and a kind smile. She was in a short denim skirt and I assumed she wasn’t his wife. He bought her whiskey sours and kept his own usual order of Bud Light, and every time I looked over at him, he was smiling.
I remembered his statement, which felt like so long ago: Love doesn’t exist. And oh, how I’d agreed with him. Everything I knew about love had been a lie: the look on Brandon’s face, the way he’d said I do, the house he had given me, the promises he’d made and broken, over and over again. Everything had been a story constructed to reel me in with a promise of a happily ever after, only to find out that he had been the Big Bad Wolf instead.
But now?
Iain’s face, his lips, his hands, his eyes… it all overshadowed Brandon now. I was absolutely certain that I’d never felt this way about a man before, not even Brandon himself before things went bad. I’d thought that Brandon ruined all other men for me, back when I was 22 and naive, but now I knew better. I knew that there was more out there than him.
“Hey, Lila!”
At the sound of my fake name, I whipped my head around to see Jacob leaning over the bar, bronze forearms flexing against the wood. He wasn’t working tonight, Anderson was, so I was momentarily confused as to why he’d be here on his day off.
“Jacob, what’s up?”
“Just stopping in for a drink. I’ll take a High Life.”
I nodded, never understanding why anyone would want to come to the bar they worked at to drink for fun, but I went to the cooler, pulling out an ice cold bottle and popping the cap off. I slid it across the bar and he caught it, grinning.
“Thanks, babe.”
I cringed, trying to keep it subtle, but knowing that it was highly visible on my face. I remembered our conversation from weeks ago - the first night Iain had come into Catfish - when Jacob had been working on taking me out, and I had flat-out told him no. Things hadn’t been too awkward since, but every now and then I caught him looking at me with an odd expression on his face, as if he was biting back words.
“Where’s your boyfriend?” he asked, taking a hearty swig from his bottle.
“Boyfriend?”
“Yeah. You know, the guy with the beard, and the hair.” He gestured toward his own short black hair, eying me. I didn’t like the look on his face but decided to ignore it.
“He’s working.”
“He’s not your boyfriend, then?” he pressed.
“Uh, I didn’t say that.” I grabbed a dirty glass left at an empty seat at the bar.
“Right.” Jacob scowled, his demeanor shifting from something like arrogance to irritation, and he turned his head away. “I meant to tell you earlier - someone was looking for you on Friday.”
I’d been about to head to the sink to wash the dirty glass in my hands, but I stopped in my tracks. “Who?”
“Dunno. Said he was a customer of yours. Said he was supposed to give you something.”
“Give me what?”
He shrugged, not at all invested in this conversation. “Didn’t say.”
I was frustrated by his vagueness. “What did he look like?”
“I don’t know? He was an older dude, brown hair, brown eyes. He said he was a regular.”
“A regular you didn’t recognize?” I asked, dread pitting in my stomach. He could be describing anyone - Clint fit that description, and so did several others.
But he could be describing Brandon, too.
“I don’t know the regulars like you do. I just sit at the damn door.”
Gritting my teeth, I scanned the bar, taking care to look at every single person. I half expected to see Brandon in any shadow, sitting at any table. But, of course, he wasn’t.
“Lila, need some help over here,” Nat called. Several people had stacked up on her end of the bar, and with one last uncertain glance at Jacob, I left him there with his High Life.
xxx
The rest of the night went as usual. Jacob left shortly after our conversation; one moment he had been there, his eyes dark and brooding, and the next, he was gone. I cleaned his bottle up and pushed him out of my thoughts, spending the rest of my shift in a daze.
What Jacob had said disturbed me. Not just the implications, but the casual way in which he’d said it, the way he hadn’t seemed to care that I wanted, no, needed to know more. Not that he would have understood that - the guy didn’t seem to pick up on social cues. But I was hoping for a little more than what he gave me.
How could you sit at the door for months and not learn the faces that came through? Was he that clueless, or was he just an asshole?
After the bar was closed and everything was cleaned up, Nat and I locked up. On the street, I looked up, but I couldn’t find one single star in the sky, such a contrast to what I was used to in Indiana.
“Well, I’ll see you later this week,” Nat said, pulling her hat down to cover her forehead more. The wind was biting and bitter, and I nodded.
“Thanks for your help tonight.”
We took off in different directions, and I sped the two blocks, wanting both to be out of the cold and off the streets. Something about being out this late at night made me feel so vulnerable and exposed. Ripe for the picking. I huddled into my coat, telling myself not to worry about what Jacob had said.
Whoever it was probably was a regular, and when I found out who it was, I would laugh with relief.
When I finally got to the apartment building, I tore my gloves off and pressed the call button for the elevator. Digging for my phone, I shot a quick text to Iain, just to see if he was up.
Being in the building made me feel better. I forced myself to breathe, telling myself that there was nothing to worry about. I remembered what Iain had said about his apartment - It can be your safe spot, if you want. But running to him in the middle of the night when there was no proof that there was anything wrong at all felt stupid and childish.
It was just my paranoia, getting the best of me again.
After the elevator came and took me up, I unlocked the door to the apartment and removed my coat, hat and scarf, throwing them over the back of the couch. I took a quick shower, raising the heat as hot as I could stand, until I could see nothing in front of me but steam. When I was finished, I brushed my hair and my teeth, pulled my pajamas on, and fell into bed.
I didn’t even bother to check my phone to see if Iain had messaged me back. I fell into a restless sleep, full of dreams of snow, brown eyes, and empty houses collecting dust.