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Eventually though, as always, I just had to get out of the house. I’d caught up on everything I wanted to see on Netflix, Amazon, Apple, and all the other channels I was currently addicted to. Right now, I just needed to escape. I needed some fresh air to clear my head.
I debated grabbing some fast food, but ended up driving by all my favorites without ordering anything. Pulling into these places was a bad habit, and I was intent upon breaking it. Instead, I drove aimlessly through town for a while, just checking things out. My mind finally drifted away from work, but my thoughts kept returning intrusively back to Adrian, and Jax, and even Preston.
There were so many feelings to unpack, I didn’t know where to begin.
Adrian and I had exchanged texts and even spoken a few times since we’d hooked up, but we hadn’t really talked about anything. The conversations had been fun and flirty, and somewhat productive. The only problem was, he’d been called out of town for the next week or more. Something about a last-minute shoot in Australia.
I was half-jealous he was going someplace so warm and exotic, and totally broken-hearted that I wouldn’t be seeing Brayden. The little guy was staying with his mother, and I knew I’d miss him terribly. His father too, but for much different reasons.
That left me on Emma duty, in Jax’s apartment. Depending upon his ever-changing schedule, of course.
Jax…
It was almost easy to forget Jax, because his work schedule was so wonky. There was a time he was slated to go to medical school, but then his father got into a bad way. Things went from awful to even worse when the old man sold practically everything their family owned to support a terrible drug habit, including any money set aside for Jax’s schooling. Without a cosigner, loans fell through. Jax became an EMT — and ultimately even a paramedic — hoping the hands-on experience would one day help him. But in the end, like so many other dreams in the face of adulthood, his were pushed to the side.
And then there was Preston, who was stuck like a thorn in the forefront my mind. I’d come so achingly close to being with him again, and I was shocked by how much I’d actually wanted it to happen. Preston got me. Of all the people in my life right now, he might just be the most relatable. After exchanging numbers — real numbers, this time — we’d text messaged dozens of times, and actually bounced a few things off of each other. In a perfect world, the two of us would be hanging out. We could be doing real things. Fun things. Things like cosplay and Comic-Con and catching the Hylian Loach while playing Legend of Zelda, the Ocarina of Time.
And, admittedly, there were other things I wanted to do with him, too.
Preston had found four different coding errors for me so far, and had even re-written one of my most frequently-used function calls. His code was sharp and concise enough to shave a few milliseconds off the reaction return time for most of my data. And as everyone in our circles already knew, those milliseconds added up.
At the moment, I didn’t need work. I didn’t need men. I needed a drink, and a stiff one, too.
And that’s how I ended up at the Ragged Monkey.
The place sat at the end of town, tucked out of the way between one of the commercial districts and the river. I took a stool, ordered a beer, and drank it slowly, all while observing the handful of somber patrons throwing down alcohol alongside me. And most of them looked, well… ragged.
In here, it was easy to battle the urge to think about everything else. I’d been born inherently nosy, and had a knack for silently butting into people’s business and overhearing everyone else’s conversations. There was a truck driver chatting up a local waitress. Three friends stood in the corner, playing darts, discussing their upcoming trip to Toronto. Over the low din of the NHL game on the TV behind the bar, I could barely make out the words of a young couple in the middle of a bad fight. She was looking to break up with him. He was making his sales pitch to keep her around. Eventually she stood up, ready to leave, and I turned left so my eyes could follow her out the door…
“Well, well,” said a familiar voice. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
I was totally dumbfounded to find Jax sitting right next to me. He was still in his work uniform, his dark hair tousled, his normally-trimmed goatee exploding into a full-blown five-o’clock shadow. The pint of beer he had clutched in his hand was already three-quarters empty.
“I had no idea this place was turning into a nerd bar,” he spat, disappointedly. “There goes the neighborhood.”
“What the fuck?” I swore. “How the hell did you—”
“Been here five full minutes,” he headed me off, with an annoying chuckle. “Seems like you noticed everyone in the bar but me.”
I wrinkled my nose in disgust. “Have you considered maybe you’re not worth noticing?”
“Yeah,” he replied, draining his beer. “Once or twice.”
He called the bartender by name and ordered two more pints, which irritated me even further. The last thing I wanted was him buying me drinks.
“So did you stalk me all the way here?” I asked politely. “Or did you just happen to see my car in the parking lot, and decide to—”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Jax sneered. “I’m here two or three times a week.”
He shifted some more, and that’s when I noticed his face. Jax had fresh bruising under one eye, and a minor cut above his eyebrow. There were scratches over the whole left side of his cheek, too.
“Finally someone punched you in the face, huh?” I quipped.
He received his beer, slid the other one my way, and slowly nodded. “A woman.”
I laughed. “Really? I’m jealous.”
“You are?”
