Bar Crawl (10 page)

“That’s the story of my life, CJ,” I whispered as I kissed his shoulder, neck, and then his jaw. “The good girl,” I continued, pressing him back against the cool satin of my comforter, “always in step and doing it perfectly. No veering. No mistakes.”

A flame seemed to ignite behind CJ’s eyes. “Yeah? And what is it that you
want
?”

The words were out of my mouth before I could filter them. “I want to be bad.”

Since the first night I’d noticed CJ in Finnegan’s a few months ago, I’d wanted him. On a deep, primal and biological level, I saw him and my body begged,
please
. That had been the exact reason I’d avoided him. I knew if a perfectly practical woman like myself found herself struggling to keep her panties on around him, then it was no wonder he was never low on options for the evening. I hadn’t wanted to give him what he’d clearly come to expect, all the while depriving myself of what I so desperately wanted from him. The exact thing he could give me.

Evidently, though, my words were misplaced, or poorly timed, or simply completely wrong. I’d barely had time to take a breath after finishing my sentence before CJ had sat up, his large hands wrapped firmly around my shoulders.

“I can’t do this,” he panted, squeezing his eyes shut.

“What?” I was as breathless as he was, and my heart hadn’t found a normal rhythm since he’d kissed me on the sidewalk several hours prior.

CJ edged his way off the bed and began redressing. I sat in stunned silence, not knowing what the hell had just happened.

“What are you doing?” I asked, instinctively bringing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs. It was, perhaps, an unnecessarily protective stance, but I was emotionally overexposed. My worst fear was playing out in front of me: a man was leaving in the middle of fooling around.
What the fucking hell?

“I’m sorry,” CJ blurted out as he roughly tugged his t-shirt over his head and jammed his feet into his shoes. “We want different things from each other, clearly.”

“Clearly?” I questioned, standing and redressing myself.

He held out his hands as if he were exasperated. “I’ve spent the last several days telling you shit about me that no one else knows…telling you I feel different with you.”

“I feel different with you, too, CJ.” I pulled my shirt on and rested my hands on my hips, swallowing back some rejection-flavored tears.

“That’s just it,” he snapped. “We want to be different with each other, and it makes us still different
from
each other. And,” he pointed at me, seeming flustered and aggravated, “you said the reason you avoided me for so long was that you didn’t want to be just
another
girl in my bed
. But, here, that’s exactly what you want. Only we’re in your bed.”

My jaw swung loose as I watched him walk through my bedroom door. I followed him down the stairs. “So you’re mad at me for being attracted to you? What the
fuck
?”

He reached the bottom of the stairs and paced to the living room, where he stuffed his laptop in his bag. Returning to the front door, he placed his hand on the knob. “I thought you were different, but you just want the same thing from me everyone else expects. I’m sorry,” his tone finally mellowed, “I’ve gotta go.”

As he moved to shut the door behind him, I caught it and called after him, “And I thought
you
were different!” Through the window carved into the door, I watched his shoulders twitch as the slam echoed down the driveway.

T
wo weeks had passed without sight of or call from CJ. Granted, we’d never actually exchanged phone numbers, and I hadn’t gone out in the two weekends following our…incident…but I still found myself thinking about him far too often.

I told Bradley about the details of that night, sparing no adjectives, and he seemed rather Switzerland-like on the issue as we made dinner in my kitchen on a Wednesday evening.

“I don’t know…” Bradley hesitated. “Don’t you think he kind of had a point?”

I turned slowly from the counter and faced Bradley. “I know
I
have a point. On the end of this knife.” I arched my eyebrow and mockingly stabbed the air before returning to slicing vegetables.

“That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?” He sighed and dug through my refrigerator for a bottle of wine. He didn’t have to dig far.

“Me, dramatic? Coming from the guy who once took out an
ad
on Facebook apologizing to his boyfriend?” I tossed the sliced vegetables with olive oil then sprinkled them with salt and pepper before sliding them into the oven.

Bradley’s face remained startlingly unapologetic. “It was a grand gesture. Besides, we were already in a relationship. I was trying to get him
back
.”

I took the glass Bradley had poured for himself, causing him to chuckle and reach for another glass as I spoke. “So what does CJ have a point about…according to you?”

With a deep sigh, and a glass full of white wine, Bradley eased onto the stool next to me. “I’m not saying either one of you were right in what you did or said, but, at least on his end, he pointed it out. I mean…you’ve spent all this time judging him for activities that you then encouraged him to engage in the first night he was at your house.”

“That’s
different
,” I insisted. “We’d been talking all day. We’d already kissed a few times. And he didn’t pick me up at the bar.”

“Didn’t he?” Bradley grinned with a mouth full of my favorite Riesling.

“What?”

Bradley set his glass down and folded his arms on the countertop, leaning forward. “You may not have walked out of a bar hand-in-hand, heading straight for the bedroom, but, I’d say he certainly picked you up there. Even if it was only the start of the pick up.”

“You’re mental,” I spit out.

“Keep in mind, I said neither of you were totally right. He also fucked up. He gave you a view of himself that, while apparently honest and true, wasn’t one he was ready to embrace fully. I think he’s confused, Frankie. I know he wanted you, but then he—”

Before Bradley could finish his sentence, my doorbell rang.

“Hold that thought.” I slid off my stool and walked to the door.

Upon opening it, I was greeted with a bizarre sense of déjà vu. In front of me stood a woman who looked about my age—maybe a couple of years younger, if that. She was much shorter than I was, but was able to look me almost in the eye thanks to a pair of nosebleed platform high heels. They were cherry red. She wore a black, A-line dress that was cut to her knee. It had a cherry pattern and looked as though it had come from a ‘50s clothing catalogue. She was turned slightly to the side, as if checking for signs of life from my house, and that allowed me to see the menagerie of tattoos on her shoulders, neck, and back. The rocking horse fly on her shoulder held my attention the longest before I got to her deep chocolate brown hair—the kind of color I’d have to pay for—that was twisted up in a vintage style. If she wasn’t from the ‘50s, then she certainly made her living as a pin-up model.

I’d never seen her before, but I was certain I knew her somehow. She turned her face to me and revealed a bright smile and a thin silver hoop nose ring that cuffed her nostril perfectly. She was stunning, but I immediately sensed that she didn’t care about it.

“Hi, ah you Frankie?” Her effortless dismissal of the letter “r” in the word “are” allowed me to originate her in the eastern part of the state, though I still had no clue how I knew her. Or, more importantly, how she knew me.

“I am…” I trailed off, hoping to signal to her that I didn’t have a clue as to who she was, though she seemed to know that.

Her smile brightened, creasing the edges of her eyes as she stuck out her hand. “Thank
God
you’re real. I’m Georgia.”

“G—” I started as I shook her hand, stopping myself as it all came tumbling together. “Oh…
Georgia
,” I emphasized, recalling the only person I’d ever heard of in “real life” with that name. CJ’s friend. The alleged girl that had been his
best
friend since high school. In the flesh. At my house. Unannounced. “It’s, uh, nice to… meet you.” I checked over her shoulder, where her car was parked next to mine in the driveway, but it seemed she had no passenger.

“He’s not here,” Georgia answered my unasked question. “Mind if I come in?”

“I… sure.” I stepped aside, holding the door open as Bradley walked down the hallway.

“Everything okay, Frank—” He stopped when he spotted my unintended house guest. “Well, look at you,” he said to Georgia. “You’re
fantastic.”
His eyes lit up like I’d only seen in designer clothing stores as he took Georgia’s hand and led her into my entryway. She indulged him by spinning in a circle.

After her Bradley-led twirl, Georgia ran her hands down the front of her dress. “You’re pretty incredible yourself.”

“Bradley,” I interrupted, “this is Georgia, CJ’s best friend. Georgia, this is Bradley, my best friend.”

After a second of awkward silence, which was a millennia longer than I could ever handle, I got ahold of myself. “So…we’re having some wine. Want some?” I had no idea why she was in my house, but I figured wine would be the best way to put both of us at ease. Or, me at ease, since Georgia seemed more comfortable in her curvy skin than I’d ever dreamed of being in mine.

“Sure.” Georgia replied as she followed me, her heels knocking loudly against the floor. “It smells great in here, by the way. I’m so used to the smell of butter and sugar, I sometimes forget how inviting savory things can smell.”

“Oh, that’s right, you own a bakery…right?” Somewhere along the way, CJ did give me that tiny piece of information about his best friend, though other details about her—besides her impending marriage—were largely left out of our conversations.

“Thank you,” Georgia replied when I handed her a glass of wine. “Yes, I own
Sweet Forty-Two
in La Jolla, California. It’s been open for a couple of years.”

“That’s so exciting. CJ also told me that you’re marrying his cousin?”

From behind Georgia, Bradley stood, mouthing, “Why is she here?” I gave the tiniest shrug I could without calling Georgia’s attention to it.

Georgia smiled. “Yes, Regan is his name. Our wedding is on Saturday, which brings me to why I’m here.”

“Oh?” I lifted my eyebrows and swallowed some wine. A little more than intended, but I figured that was better than less than intended.

Georgia nodded as she sipped from her glass, leaving blood-red lip prints across the rim. “As I’m sure you can imagine, I know about what happened here two weeks ago. Before you get all snatchy,” Georgia pointed at me, correctly reading my impatient look, “let me direct your attention to your gay boyfriend, over here, who has the same unsurprised look I do.” She stuck her thumb behind her where Bradley let out a huge laugh.

“Okay,” I sat across from her at the island, “can I ask where CJ is?”

Georgia rolled her eyes. “Getting his head surgically removed from his ass by Regan as we speak. We got off the plane this afternoon, and one look at his sorry face told me something major happened.”

“He didn’t tell you until today?” I don’t know what I’d expected from him, but given how fondly he spoke of Georgia and their relationship, I guess I’d expected more transparency.

For the next few minutes, Georgia caught me up on what CJ had told her. Surprisingly, it was very accurate in detail. Georgia didn’t seem to pour any of her assumptions or opinions into the retelling of the story—if she had any.

“He opened up to you, Frankie.
Way
up. It took him two years to tell me about the book he’d written in high school. That aside, he was ready to be a grown up with you. Then…he panicked.”

“That’s what I was going to say!” Bradley cut in. “Before you showed up at the door.”

Georgia held out her hand, and Bradley high-fived it. “He said some shit he shouldn’t have. What you were doing here two weeks ago, I tried to explain to him, wasn’t
treating him
like all the other ones do. You were opening up to him just as much as he was opening up to you. Maybe more.”

Bradley slapped his hand on the granite. “Yes! Maybe more!”

“Calm down,” I shot dryly. “That doesn’t explain away his inability to contact me for the last two weeks. And what he said hurt.”

Georgia nodded. “He told you he would screw up. Now, he didn’t imagine it would be, like, an hour after he said it…but he did say it.”

I leaned back, crossing my arms. “So he sent you to do his dirty work? Is he thirteen?”

Georgia ran her tongue across the front of her teeth with her mouth closed. “Are you kidding me? He doesn’t know I’m here. “

“Then how did you know where I live?” I challenged.

She shrugged. “Internet.”

“Jesus,” I huffed, “are you two like Bonnie and Clyde or something?”

Georgia threw her head back and let out the most ridiculous laugh I’d ever heard. It didn’t match her at all, with its high pitch and piercing crack. “Oh my God,” she said as she caught her breath. “It’s been
years
since someone’s called us that. Please come to our wedding on Saturday. If you don’t want to come to the ceremony, just come to the reception.”

Bradley, who’d been quietly entranced by Georgia’s presence for the last several minutes, finally spoke up. “Why should she go if he’s not man enough to come talk to her? I’m not taking right or wrong sides here, but shit…”

“I know, I know. The fact is, though, this
grown up
thing is new for CJ. We’ve all had over twenty years to mature into adults. He’s trying to grow up all at once, and there aren’t enough
E
at
M
e
biscuits in the world to make it happen fast enough.”

I scrunched my eyebrows at her bizarrely placed
Alice in Wonderland
reference, deciding against questioning her on it since the evening was weird enough as it was.

“Look,” Georgia cut into my thoughts, “you don’t have to have some dramatic, romantic make-up with him. The least you two can do for each other is give each other closure, if that’s what it needs to be. He’ll need it, Frankie, if he’s going to have a chance of growing up at all.”

“And you want this all to happen at your wedding?” I questioned skeptically.

“It’s not like I’m going to step aside and give you the altar. Get a grip.” Georgia waved her hand, and then pointed to my oven. “Whatever’s in there is about to burn if you don’t take it out.”

Looking over my shoulder, I noted the timer. “It’s got five minutes left, according to the recipe.”

With a sigh, Georgia left her stool, reached into a drawer she’d never been into, and pulled out a pot holder. Hinging at the waist, she reached into the oven and pulled out perfectly roasted vegetables. “The nose
knows
,” she said, almost to herself, as she set the pan on the stovetop and turned off the oven.

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

“Anyway,” Georgia turned around and met my gaze, “consider Saturday. Please. It’s on the Vineyard. Here are the details.” Georgia reached into her clutch, which she’d left on the island, and produced a formal wedding invitation.

Taking it in my hand, I shot a look to Bradley, who shrugged. Looking back to Georgia, I took a deep breath before I spoke. “Do you always carry around an unaddressed wedding invitation?”

She took her clutch under her arm, shrugged, and, with an endearing smile, said, “You never know who you’re going to meet along the way.”

Georgia turned on her heels and, with knocking steps, showed herself out, driving away before I could even close my mouth.

“What the hell was that?” I addressed Bradley with the wedding invitation still clasped in my hand.

He grinned broadly. “Looks like you’re going to a wedding on Saturday. Come. Let’s start planning your wardrobe.”