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Mom: No, we.
Me: Yeah, ok.
Mom: Are you planning to come visit anytime soon?
Me: You know that works both ways mom, right?
Me: You can come see me.
Mom: We want you to come home.
Me: Mom, I’m not going back there. You and I both know he doesn’t want me around.
Me: Can you really tell me differently? Can you really tell me he no longer cares that I don’t want his life?
I watch as the dots appear on my screen, but they stop abruptly. Taking a breath, I watch the dots pop back up, but again they disappear. I wait, and wait, tapping my toe on the concrete floor, but the text never comes, so I slip the phone back into my pocket and shake my head in disappointment.
She gets like this after every holiday, every year. She has a few drinks, the guilt that she pushed me away sinks in, and she begs me to come visit. The first few times I caved, hoping my father may have had a change of heart; but the coldness exuding from him when I showed up filled every inch of the house each time, and he made absolutely sure that I felt it. Even when he wasn’t present in the room, it was frigid all around me and it was all so unwelcoming.
“Hey there my man!”
A couple sits down at the end of the bar and the man waves me over. As I stride the length of the bar to take their order, the entrance doors open and in walks Riot West. I try to avert my eyes, I really do, but he’s magnetic. Watching him from my peripheral, I take the couple’s order, open their tab, and pour their whiskey and cokes, but I never stop watching him.
With a bated breath, I make my way down to where Riot is pulling up a stool next to Spencer.
“Hey, Cole. Can I just get a beer? Whatever’s on tap,” he smiles.
He smiles.
Something inside of me flutters, making my heart rate increase just a little. Okay not a little, a lot. Enough that I feel the blood rushing through the chambers of my heart too rapidly, and it makes me slightly dizzy. Dizzy in the absolute best way.
“Sure,” I smile back.
“Hold on, Travis is calling me. I gotta take this, be right back,” Spencer says, excusing herself as she slides off the barstool.
Flipping the pint glass over in my hand, I pull the tap and fill it to the rim. I keep my smile in place, resolving not to let the interaction with my mom get to me tonight, but deep down I’m one small inconvenience away from crying into an entire glass of vodka.
Setting the drink down on the bar, I move to slide it forward at the same moment that Riot wraps his hands around the glass. Our fingers touch, I mean just barely graze, but it’s enough to send electrical impulses barreling throughout every cell of my body. Goosebumps spread across my flesh, and my stomach somersaults again.
When I pull my hand away, I immediately miss the warmth of his skin against mine. Flicking my eyes up, I’m met with the brightest baby blue eyes I’ve ever seen. Tonight they look brighter than ever, but there’s also some sort of sadness in them, kind of like the sky after a storm. The winds raged, the rain poured, maybe it hailed, but no matter how much damage that storm caused, the sky is so bright in the aftermath of it all.
“So you two are just getting drunk here tonight?” I ask, leaning forward and resting my forearms on the bar.
“Yeah, she tried to drag me to Oasis, but I keep it strictly business when it comes to that place. And honestly because Hannah runs it like a well-oiled machine, I don’t even usually have to deal with the business,” he shrugs as he sips on his beer.
“Don’t like dancing?” I tease.
Crossing his arms, he folds himself over, leaning across the bar far enough that he’s entering my space and suddenly the impulses are leaping between my neurons, creating an electrical current in my brain. Despite the fact that it’s nearly freezing temperatures in Havok Hills, it’s suddenly sweltering inside this bar, and breathing is no longer a basic instinct, but a skill that needs to be refined, and I am simply a novice.
“Can’t dance,” he winks, before grabbing the glass and bringing it to his lips.
Mindlessly, I drag my teeth across my bottom lip as his throat expands and he swallows the amber liquid in one smooth gulp.
“Nonsense, everyone can dance.”
“Not me,” he laughs as he sets his glass back down. I find myself homing in on every slight movement of his body, completely entranced by the way he runs his thumb across his bottom lip between drinks. “I look like I’m having a seizure on the dance floor.”
“He really does,” Spencer’s voice shakes me from the hypnotic state that Riot West had me trapped in. “He looks like a beached seal or something. For someone who actually likes house and EDM, he has no rhythm whatsoever.”