Chapter 27
Steven
I was seething. Fuck them both for continuing to lie to me. Fuck them for screwing me around like I was some sort of plaything for them to use for their own entertainment.
I was sitting in my car outside my house. Already, I had called Andrew three times, and he hadn’t picked up. I called him again and waited, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the steering wheel.
Finally, Andrew answered. “Hey bro, relax with the phone calls, will you? I’m busy over here. You’ve had the time to call me four times in the last twenty minutes. That better mean you had the time to call poor Allie back, you wimp.”
“Screw you, Andrew,” I snarled. “You know, it’s pretty fucked up that you were talking to my girl.”
“What?”
“You heard me. I heard her talking to you on the phone an hour ago.”
“Dude,” Andrew said, anger coloring his voice. “Let’s get a couple things straight, here. First off, Allie is not ‘your girl.’ Want to know why? Because she’s single. She’s single because you’re a pussy who has his head buried so far up his ass you can’t even tell which way is North anymore. Second, I’m allowed to talk to Allie. She called me because she was worried about you. She’s been calling you for days, and you haven’t had the decency to call her back. Then, you have the nerve to call her your girl? For fuck sake, man. Stop being such an ass.”
All the rage burning inside me suddenly deflated like an old balloon. “Hang on, you guys weren’t—”
“We weren’t doing whatever it is you think we were doing. We’re friends. That’s it. She loves you, Steven. And you know what? For the life of me, I can’t quite figure out why. You’re treating her like dirt. Sure, she lied about something that was a big deal. But you know what, it’s not your place to determine whether that was the right call or not. It was her call to make. You better find her and apologize, or she’s going to realize she’s better off without you.”
Andrew hung up.
I was left sitting in my car feeling like a complete moron. Why did I consistently overreact? Why was I so incapable of controlling myself when it came to anything Allie related?
I knew what I had to do: tell her I was sorry. I had to beg for forgiveness. Putting the car in drive, I raced to her house, hoping I would catch her as she got home from work.
When I pulled up in front of her place, I noticed immediately that her car wasn’t there. I still parked and rushed up the steps to buzz her apartment. There was no answer. I slapped the brick wall and let out a frustrated shout.
Then, feeling like the weight of the world was on my shoulders, I went back to my car. Pulling away, I sped to the only place I could drown my sorrows.
Dante’s.
I spotted Chance’s car in the parking lot behind the bar. Good. I needed the company tonight. Making my way inside, I ignored the flirty smiles from the coat check girl and a couple of the waitresses. I headed straight to the bar where I knew I would find my friend.
When I saw Chance, I noted that he was talking to a girl. I didn’t want to ruin his chances with her, so I hung back for a minute. The bartender saw me and recognized me, then mouthed the word “beer.” I nodded and watched as he poured me what was on tap. He passed me the iced glass, and I sipped the foam from the top, waiting for something to happen with Chance and this new stranger.
As I watched, I realized she looked familiar. Her hair was long and dark and pulled back in a voluminous curly ponytail. She had a narrow waist and curvy hips that looked even curvier as she sat perched on the bar stool.
Then I recognized the boots she was wearing and the hoop earrings that were dangling from her ears.
I slammed my beer on the bar and marched over.
Chance spotted me coming. His face lit up in a smile. “Hey buddy,” he called. “Fancy seeing you here!”
I ignored him and planted myself beside Allie. She had been sipping on a drink of some sort; it was pink and filled with berries and bubbles. She looked up at me with her lips still sealed over the straw. Her eyes widened.
“So you’re fucking Chance now, too?” I growled.
“Whoa, dude,” Chance said, getting to his feet and holding his hands up. “This is Allie and me you’re talking about. We were just catching up—”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” I snapped, not looking at him.
I kept my gaze on Allie. I watched the way she registered what I was saying. Her wide eyes narrowed. She swallowed the mouthful of her drink. Then she slid off her stool, took a step toward me, and surprised me by jabbing her finger into my chest.
“How dare you,” she spat. “I haven’t done anything wrong. Chance is your best friend. Do you really think he would do something like that to you? And you believe that I would? That’s fucked up, Steven. That’s really fucked up. No, correction, you’re really fucked up.”
“You know what’s fucked up, Allie? You hiding such a big secret from me for ten God damn years. Ten years! All through high school, and college, and starting our careers. We went through everything together. And the whole time you were keeping it under wraps that you fucked my brother. That’s what’s fucked up.”
Suddenly, another girl arrived. She slid in between Allie and me and took Allie’s arm. It took me a moment to recognize Melissa. It had been a while since I had seen her, and her hair was shorter now. She looked back and forth between her sister and me. “What’s going on, you guys?” Melissa asked, her eyebrows drawn together with concern.
“Oh, big sister Melissa here to save the day,” I said under my breath.
“Shut up, Steven,” Allie said before turning to her sister. “I’m sorry, we need to leave.”
“What? We just got here. This is my one night of freedom,” Melissa complained.
“I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t know Steven was going to be here and be so angry,” she said as if I wasn’t standing right in front of them.
“I’m right here,” I said, crossing my arms.
“I don’t care,” Allie said, grabbing her sister by the wrist. “Have a nice night Chance. Sorry about whatever the hell this was.” She gestured at me.
“Oh, please,” I said as the two girls turned and left. They didn’t look back, but I stared after them as they went. Then I sank onto the barstool Allie had just vacated. The bartender passed me the beer that I had left at the other end of the bar. I raised it in the air in a toast as a way of thanking him, then pressed the glass to my lips and finished it in four gulps.
“What the hell, Steven?” Chance asked.
I rolled my shoulders and ordered another beer. “What?”
“You really think I would do that to you? You think I would hit on Allie?”
“I don’t know what I think anymore,” I said.
“Well, you’d better figure it out. How you treated Allie and her sister—that was fucked up. That was really fucked up.” Chance tossed a twenty-dollar bill down on the bar then looked me over. “Don’t stay here too long. You should go home.”
“Yeah, whatever,” I said, waving him away.
Chance shook his head and left.
I was alone at the bar. The bartender was shitty company and was too busy to keep me distracted from my wandering thoughts of Allie. I couldn’t stop thinking of the way she had looked at me when I accused her of fucking Chance. That wasn’t the look someone gave you when you found them out. That was how someone looked at you when you hurt them.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and squeezed my eyes closed. I couldn’t get a handle on all this pent-up anger. I had nowhere to put it. Everything made me angry. Every time I saw Allie, I thought of her and Andrew. Then I couldn’t stop thinking about her with other guys. Guys like Chance.
I was a fool.
Chance would never do anything like that to me. He was a stand-up guy. Not to mention, he and Allie had been friends for a long time. If anything were going to happen between them, it would have happened a long time ago.
I ordered another beer and two shots of tequila.