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Payback’s a Bitch, Fucker

Charlie

“Move it, asshole!”

Closing my eyes, I breathe through my nose and count to ten. I’m not a violent person, but right now, my patience is wearing thin.

I’m in the same boat as everyone else—drunk as a skunk and clenching my ass cheeks in the hope that I don’t piss myself.

It sucks. It’s torture. But you don’t see me shoving people and swearing like a sailor because of it.

The bar I’m currently at exceeded its occupancy limit several hours ago, and now we’re all paying the price. Or at least the men are.

“How do they do it?”

Peering over my shoulder, a beefy man glowers at the women’s restroom, where the line is nonexistent. The door swings open and shut repeatedly, the women happy as clams that the shoe is finally on the other foot.

I shrug. “Beats me.”

The fifteen men standing in front of me finally decide they’ve had enough of waiting and walk out.

“Think they’re gonna pee in the alley?” Beefy Man asks.

I don’t stick around to answer him because there’s no longer anyone standing in the way of me and the door to heaven. I barrel into the restroom, excited as can be, only to come to a screeching halt when my eyes adjust to the dim lighting.

Every urinal is out of order, and all the stalls except the handicapped one are cordoned off with caution tape.

“Motherfucker!” I hiss.

No wonder I’ve been doing a jig in the hallway for the past fifteen minutes. One would’ve thought that there’d be a sign taped to the door. Even a heads-up from one of the bartenders would’ve been nice.

But then again, this is a dive bar. I shouldn’t expect anything less.

Heaving a heavy sigh, I step into the stall, lock the door, unzip my pants, and let my body do its work.

Thanks to the amount of beer I’ve consumed, it’s a never-ending stream. I pass the time whistling a pop song that’s been stuck in my head for the past week and checking out the litany of messy scrawls on the stall walls.

Stuff like For a good time, call Jenny and Nick + Norah 4ever . One even says, I fucked your mom , with a helpful arrow pointing down to an incredibly well-done drawing in black marker.

As I’m shaking it twice, something catches my eye.

A hole in the partition, about waist-high.

Bending over, I study the anomaly with fascination.

It takes my brain more seconds than I care to admit due to my inebriated state to make sense of what I’m seeing.

When I finally get there, I laugh out loud because, seriously, who’d want to put a glory hole here?

I stick my finger through the hole and wiggle it around. It appears to be freshly drilled, which means no one’s put it to good use…yet, at least.

Patting the hole goodbye, I stand up, tuck my dick back in my pants and wash my hands before heading back out into the madhouse of sweaty, drunken bodies.

Bartenders in tight black T-shirts frantically mix drinks. Bass-heavy music shakes the floor, reverberating through my boots and traveling up my six-foot-three frame until my head bops along to the beat. Multicolored lights flash and spin, turning the grimy dive bar into a fever dream.

My friends and I have been coming here every New Year’s Eve since we enrolled at Ashford University. I don’t remember how we found the place—it’s not on any of the tourist maps—but we did, and we instantly fell in love. The fact that they don’t care about our fake IDs doesn’t hurt matters.

My best friend, Daniel Hollingsworth, waves at me from the high-top table shoved against an exposed brick wall, coated with layers of band stickers and scrawled initials. He’s leaning casually in his seat, one muscular arm slung over the back of one of the other chairs.

I plop myself down across from him and match his shit-eating grin with one of my own.

“Dude, I thought you fell in,” he laughs, grabbing an unopened beer bottle from the cluster in the center of the table and holding it out to me.

I snatch it and pop it open with relative ease. “I almost did, from shock. You should see the state of that restroom. It’s a war zone in there.”

Placing the bottle to my lips, I tip my head back and relish how the cold lager soothes my parched throat on its way down to my beer-filled stomach.

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Olivia walking over to us with an enormous plate of nachos in her hands.

I lick my lips at the sight of the yummy food, not at her.

She’s my best friend’s girlfriend, and I’m not that kind of guy.

Olivia Rose is one of those classic Audrey Hepburn types—slender and graceful, with her shiny black hair pulled back in a high ponytail. Tonight, she’s dressed as if she belongs in an upscale cocktail lounge, sipping Cosmopolitans with her girlfriends, not with Daniel and me in this shithole.

Daniel pulls her against him and presses a sloppy kiss to her temple. She rolls her eyes at the PDA but kisses him back. I also roll my eyes, but my lips touch nothing but my lovely beer bottle .

As they keep kissing, I keep drinking. Soon, everything takes on this soft, hazy quality that should be a sign for me to switch to water. But it’s New Year’s Eve, a night when bad decisions and fuzzy memories reign supreme.

“What are you two talking about?” Olivia asks when she’s finally able to pull herself away from Daniel’s mouth.

“How the men’s room sucks.” I sing that last word—terribly—and pop a chip into my mouth.

Olivia rolls her eyes. “You men are so dramatic. You should see the ladies’ room.”

“I know you’re not talking about this one, Liv.” I gesture to the hallway with a jerk of my thumb. “Somehow, you all have a special system worked out in there. Care to share with the class?”

She shakes her head, smirking. “Feminine secrets. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“Death by Olivia Rose,” Daniel muses. “There are worse ways to go, my friend.” He tips his beer bottle at me before taking a long swig.

I choke out a laugh as Olivia shoots him a withering glare. It disappears the instant he kisses her again.

For all their ups and downs, of which they’ve had many, I know they both genuinely care about each other. Sometimes, I find myself envious of what they have, even if they make it appear exhausting as hell.

As the night progresses, we settle into our usual dynamic of trading barbs, rehashing the dumb shit we did over the semester, and speculating on who’s going to make the most embarrassing drunken spectacle of themselves tonight.

Me.

I’m reaching for another chip when Olivia slams her hand down on the table and scares the ever-loving shit out of Daniel and me.

“I have an idea,” she cries out.

I instantly groan. Olivia’s ideas range from the inspired to the utterly insane, with very little in between.

And more times than not, they’re at my expense.

Like the time she dared me to eat a ghost pepper or when she convinced me to audition for the university’s production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show— as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, no less.

I don’t mind being Olivia’s go-to guinea pig, but sometimes, I think Daniel gets off too easily.

Except for that one time when she made him wear booty shorts to practice. The shocked expression on Coach’s face was priceless.

I grin when I notice her eyes dart back and forth between me and him. Could it be? Is his luck finally about to run out? Please, dear God, say yes.

She reaches into her bag and, with a flourish, pulls out a small, nondescript package and slides it over to me.

I stop it with my hand, then pick it up, eyeing it warily.

“Open it,” she commands.

With trembling fingers, I tear open the package to find something pink and stretchy inside. Two somethings, actually.

I hold them up, and the flimsy material dangles from my fingertips. My eyes nearly pop out of their sockets when I realize what it is I’m holding.

Mankinis. Fucking mankinis.

I wince at the thought of squeezing my decidedly not small frame into one of them.

“No way.” I shake my head vehemently. “Absolutely not. No fucking way.”

Olivia’s bottom lip juts out. “Oh, come on, Charlie. Don’t be such a stick-in-the-mud. You always do my dares.”

“Exactly. And for once, I’m saying, ‘no.’”

I toss the offending garments back onto the table, where they land in a sad, crumpled heap, mocking me with their mere existence.

“Charlie! Where’s your sense of adventure, man?” Daniel claps me on the shoulder, his shit-eating grin also mocking me .

I glower and fight the urge to smack it off his face. My hand’s pretty big—I’m sure my slap would hurt like hell.

“I don’t know why you’re looking so smug. There are two .”

It’s comical how quickly all the blood rushes from his face when he comes to the same conclusion I did. His mouth falls open into a perfect “O” of horror.

“Oh, hell no!” He holds up his hands as if he can ward off the idea. “No way in hell. Not happening. Ever.”

I clap Daniel on the shoulder and lean in to whisper in his ear, “Where’s your sense of adventure, Danny Boy?”

His head turns slowly. His eyes are narrowed slits, and his lips are pursed.

Grinning, I mouth, “Payback’s a bitch, fucker.”

“Fuck you, McManus.”

Eventually, I take pity on my best friend. “Look, I’ll make you a deal. If you walk the streets of New York in that ridiculous mankini with me, I’ll do your laundry…for a week.”

Daniel tilts his head, considering my offer. He counteroffers with, “A month.”

It could be worse. He could have said two. Extending a hand, I say, “Fine. One month on laundry duty it is.”

Olivia claps her hands in delight as we shake on it. “Yes! This is perfect!”

Daniel scrubs a hand down his face and mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like, “I’m going to regret this in the morning.”

“That’s the spirit, Danny Boy! Embrace the mankini.”

He flips me off, but there’s a reluctant smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I hate you both so much right now.”

“Aww,” Olivia says before kissing him for the umpteenth time tonight.

But now, I get in on the fun, pressing my lips to his cheek, much to his chagrin and my delight.