Chapter 14
Daniel
"Hey man - I'm gonna have to cut you off."
I tear my eyes away from the screen of my phone and glare up at the Friday night bartender. "Why?” I mutter, reaching blindly across the counter for my fifth – or is it my sixth? – beer. “I'm not causing any trouble."
He arches a bushy brow. "You've been sitting there for the past two hours, watching cooking videos and grumbling under your breath, looking like you're about to go on a killing spree. You're scaring away my other customers. And I need my tips tonight."
I’m not too drunk to realize how pathetic I am right now but – gosh – can a fellow just wallow in peace?
I don’t need this guy on my back. I’ve got clients bothering me, my partners at the firm are bothering me, my own brain is bothering me. Reminding me of the softness of Grace’s body when she slammed right into me at the hospital that day, of the tenderness in her voice as I watched her put Sebastian to sleep the other night. These thoughts run on loop in my mind, plaguing me.
Even the fucking internet is harassing me. For the past week, YouTube has been recommending that I watch Grace's videos. It seems that she's started a cooking channel where she prances around my kitchen looking cute and licking wooden spatulas and making my favorite foods. Watching this is a cruel and unusual form of torture.
Fuck me.
My girl is pretty. And her ass looks round and sweet at the back of that frilly white apron. An adorable little laugh spills out of her mouth when she drops a spoon into her mixing bowl, causing a cloud of flour to rise into the air before settling on her cheek. The melody of her giggles makes my chest tighten. I keep re-watching that clip.
Don’t worry. I didn’t jerk off to the videos.
Jerking off to the sexy amateur videos of our lovemaking is one thing. Jerking off to cooking videos is completely different. It’s weird. Even I have my limits.
Anyway, I tried making her microwave frittata recipe because I was starving and it looked damn delicious. But I just ended up with a bowl full of dried-out vegetables stuck under a glob of runny egg…So I ate a can of tuna instead.
As I said, fuck me.
A strange brand of guilt singed my bones as I sat in my lonely apartment and watched her videos. I found myself silently asking if maybe our relationship had been holding her back all these years. I mean – while we were together, she took care of the house and the baby and she claimed that that was fulfilling for her. But then, we break up and next thing you know, she has a successful cooking channel and she looks happy.
When we'd fight about our marriage and its disintegration, she'd blame it on my working too much but it always felt like there was something more, some other little piece of the story she wasn't sharing with me. I feel like, as her husband, I should have made it my mission to understand her, to figure out what was going on inside her pretty, little head. I failed to do that and look at me now.
Anyway, I was driving myself crazy, sitting alone in that damp room wondering what exactly caused my wife to push me away. After a while, I knew I had to get out of that shoebox apartment because I couldn't breathe. And the guy next door seemed determined to fuck his girlfriend right through the thin wall partitioning off our apartments.
Yay, Viagra!
Now I'm here at Flynn and Murray's Irish Pub, drinking and longing for the good old days – before the baby, before the wedding, before the all-consuming law career – when Friday night meant protesting as Grace chose a Lifetime movie before crawling into bed in nothing but my t-shirt. Inevitably, I'd be inside of her twenty minutes later and she'd be moaning my name, making faces and sounds that pushed me over the edge. She’s a homebody, always preferred to stay home than spend a night on the town, and with a pussy like hers, I usually didn’t complain.
God, I miss my girl.
My body is powerfully aware of the fact that I haven’t fucked her since our son was born. Thirteen long months. It’s strange, but Sebastian popped into the world and all the intimacy in my marriage dissipated like that flour cloud. I don’t resent my son. This isn’t his fault. It was up to me and Grace to keep our family together and we failed so hard.
The barman is still watching me. I don’t have the stomach to go back to my studio apartment just yet so I stick my phone into my pocket and throw up my hands appeasingly. “You happy now?”
He holds my gaze for a long moment like he still doesn’t trust me to behave. Finally, a customer at the other end of the bar calls out for his attention. He jabs his pointer and middle fingers at his eyes before aiming those same fingers in my direction. “I’ve got my eyes on you.”
“I’m cool,” I insist before he finally walks away with reluctance in his movements.
I’m stilling here, minding my own business, trying to figure out how the hell my family fell apart on my watch when a slim blonde shimmies onto the bar stool next to me. I don’t pay her any mind because I’m wallowing, dammit. Besides, I’d probably be pretty shitty at flirting, anyway. It’s been years since I’ve flirted with a woman at a bar.
But then, she says my name. “Daniel? Daniel Trotten?”
Rotating my head in her direction requires entirely too much energy.
She takes in my uninterested expression and giggles. The sound is high-pitched and forced. She’s trying to come across as coy but there’s nothing innocent about her. My gaze floats over her tawny face. I can’t figure out if her complexion is the result of a botched encounter with a bottle of spray tan or if it’s the remnants of childhood jaundice rearing its ugly head.
“You don’t remember me, do you?” she asks.
I just hike a brow in response.
She snaps her wrist and her fingers flit across her cleavage. “It’s me – Brittany. Brittany Delaney.”
I mentally thumb through the rolodex in my sluggish brain. So many names, so many faces in there. From old clients to people I’ve battled against in court to girls I fucked in high sch—
Wait…
“Brittany Delaney?”
She titters again. “I was starting to worry that you’d forgotten me, sweetie.”
Yeah – this chick.
She was a sexual pioneer at Reyfield High, generously distributing paper copies of her nude selfies by hand long before mobile data on cellphones even hit the mass market. A pioneer, I tell you.
Fucking Brittany Delaney was almost a rite of passage in senior year. I may have hooked up with her once – twice, max – but it must not have been noteworthy because right now, I can’t even come up with a visual to jog my memory.
That was how many years ago?
She’s acting like it all happened just yesterday as she leans in my direction, causing the stiff silicone balloons on her chest to struggle against the neckline of her shirt. “So, how you been, Danny?”
“Good,” I say flatly. I’m not about to have a deep existential conversation with this woman. I’m not in the mood to stroll down memory lane – or any other lane for that matter – with her.
She doesn’t take the hint. “Well, I’ve been good, too. Been in Hollywood. You may have heard. I’m an actor now.” She says it like I’m supposed to be impressed.
I grunt, taking another swallow of my beer.
She keeps on blabbering. “Yes, I’ll be in town for a few more weeks. I have a role in this production that’s filming down on the Wilkinson farm, down by the river. I’m sure you’ve seen it. It’s called A Maiden Fond of Mischief. It’s got this Pride and Prejudice vibe to it. Pretty popular on Netflix.”
Sighing heavily, I angle my body away from her. “Good for you.”
She’s dead-set on keeping the conversation going.
"I just heard you and your wife are getting divorced. So sad." She fake-pouts those inflated lips and bats her lash extensions. "Are you dating anyone?" She grates her nails along the inside of my wrist.
A tingle runs across my skin and I blink a few times, trying to keep my good sense. How many beers have I had? This isn't what I want. She isn't what I want but it feels good to have a woman's hands on me.
When I don't answer, she brings her stool nearer. She smells like an array of chemicals – cigarette smoke, hairspray and perfume with a note of window cleaner. Still when she leans close and whispers, "You look like you could use a woman’s touch", I hear myself saying, "Yes."
She licks her lips. “Listen – I’m gonna be blunt with you. Do you want some pussy? Do you wanna fuck tonight, Daniel?”
The room starts to spin and reckless words tumble out of my mouth. “Yeah, I wanna fuck.”