Chapter 6
Noah
I had completely forgotten how talkative Jake was. He didn’t stop chewing the fat ever since we entered his truck and headed to a local bar. I hadn’t missed that at all. I could feel the start of my headache forming in the back of my head, and I just wished he would stop talking. I needed quiet more than anything. Right now, his voice sounded like a hammer hitting against the metal, each word grating against my ears, and I actually started counting seconds until the end of this drive.
“How good are you at the dating game?” he asked me all of a sudden, parking his car at the parking lot that was near the bar.
“What do you mean?” I rubbed my temple, cursing myself for accepting to go to the bar. It was going to be loud and crowded, and it was only going to add to my anxiety.
“I mean, I guess you didn’t have an opportunity to date in the army. So, I guess you got a bit rusty after all these years.”
I frowned at him, annoyed by his question. “You can say so.”
We got out of his car, right when our friends parked their cars next to his truck.
“By the way,” Jake continued. “I’m sorry about your breakup with Emma. We didn’t have a chance to talk about it, but I knew how much you cared about her. All of us thought you two were meant to be together.”
I gritted my teeth, my nostrils flaring. I had to keep it in me. I couldn’t lash out on him just because he was picking at the scab without even knowing it.
“It’s fine. It’s all in the past.”
But it wasn’t all in the past. Not at all and not tonight. For a reason unknown to me, my brain decided to toy with me and remind me of Emma every few seconds. We entered the packed bar, and immediately, a stab of pain pierced through my skull. It was overcrowded and too loud.
We advanced through the standing crowds of people until we managed to find an empty table in the middle of the bar. According to Jake, this was one of the most popular places, and right now, I couldn’t hate it more. I felt agitated and annoyed with everything, but I was trying my best to hide it. I couldn’t make a scene just because I had changed. They didn’t have to know the new side of me.
We sat down and ordered beer, and as soon as the waitress left, Dominic faced me, sitting next to me. “A nice piece of ass, no?” he asked me, wiggling his eyebrows. He was referring to the waitress, who kept staring at me while taking our orders.
Yeah, she was hot, but at the moment, I couldn’t even bring myself to care about it, and I hated it. I hated feeling this way because I was normally a happy go with the flow kind of guy, but ever since combat I had felt an anger that I had never felt before.
I couldn’t smile as often as before, and I couldn’t stand crowded places anymore. I hoped that the beer would put an end to my vexation and blanket my negative thoughts, but I knew that it most likely wouldn’t work. Antidepressants and alcohol rarely helped me find the peace that I lost the moment I went into my first fight. And when you looked the death in the eyes, it stayed with you forever, replaying in your mind mercilessly.
“She’s fine,” I responded to Dominic.
“She’s more than fine,” Aiden, my other friend, said. He was also single like me. “I would bang that pussy if I had the chance.” I’d almost forgotten how crude Aiden could be. He was a womanizer and didn’t like to settle for one girl only.
“Why don’t you ask her for her number?” Jake asked him.
“Maybe I will later. But I think she likes our friend here more.” Aiden pointed at me, and I shrugged my shoulders.
Did I want to waste my time on her? Was it worth it?
At this point in my life, I wasn’t looking for a girlfriend. There was no chance I would allow anyone to stay by my side when I was this unpredictable and moody. That was a huge risk. So that left only one-night stands.
I caught her gaze on her way to our table, but I didn’t feel attracted to her. She was pretty but not my type.
“Here you go, guys,” the waitress said and put our drinks on our table. Then she flashed me a seductive smile. Nothing. My cock didn’t even budge. “Call me if you need anything else,” she said, looking at me all the time, and I just nodded in response, managing to send a half-smile her way.
“Oh, we’ll definitely need something else,” Aiden purred and winked at her. She smiled in response and sashayed away.
“Geez, man. I’m starting to think that you’ve really become a nun,” Jake told me, nudging my shoulder. “She’s obviously interested in you, but you don’t give a flying fuck about it.”
“Yeah, man,” Aiden added. “If you don’t want her, then I’ll jump in.”
“Be my guest,” I told him. “If she wants you, that is,” I jeered at him, unable to stop myself. The man was sometimes too cocky for his own good.
“Whoa, man,” Hunter, another friend, said, raising his arms in the air. “That was a burn!”
My lips quirked up in a smile that was far away from being sincere. I just wanted to go home. We clanked our glasses, and I took a huge gulp of my beer, telling myself to hold myself together and endure this night a little bit longer.