Page 23 of Shattered Veil

“Yeah, that’s not convincing,” Zoey noted, amused.

Claire chastised her, “If he doesn’t want to talk about it, he doesn’t have to.”

“So, which club did ya go to?” Liam asked.

Claire’s red head snapped to the seat across from her. “Liam!”

I sighed heavily, looking down to the empty chair on my left that Cassie would soon be sitting in. Certain that she wouldn’t care for the mentioning of her work when she was attempting to keep it private, I divulged as quickly and succinctly as possible:

“Gas Lamp.”

“Nice,” Zoey replied. “Y’know, they do a glow-in-the-dark night.”

I exhaled heavily. “I’m well aware.”

“Was it?” she pressed.

“Cosmic night,” I returned. “Uh huh.”

Zoey beamed. “And? How was it?”

“Dark.”

Liam joked, “Glow-in-the-dark,” and threw his head back in laughter at his terrible pun.

Zoey pressed her lips together tightly, patting his forearm as she muttered sarcastically, “Good one, Sweets.”

“Dark,” I repeated, “and depressing.” Zoey looked at me with eager, questioning eyes, and I insisted, “There’s no story there.”

Shawn piped up, “We were only there for one drink. It was…not fun? And we, uh, left.”

I grumbled, “Brooks, you’re making it sound weird.”

Shawn nervously remarked, “Remember how you said you’d get me a drink?”

Claire murmured, “Oh, I’ll flag down Garrett,” and hovered out of her seat to wave to the man tending the bar.

The conversation naturally steered away from my weekend’s activities, turning to the group speaking with Shawn—Claire, Zoey, and Liam with general niceties, and Luke silently questioning whether Shawn appeared to be worth the time of day. Knowing Luke’s penchant for holding a grudge and his first impression of Shawn being a poor one, I gently kicked to my left to reach his legs.

He looked at me, perturbed, and I mouthed a silent, ‘Be nice.’

Luke let out a quick exhale through his nose, looked back to Shawn, and plastered the tiniest of fake smiles on his face.

Claire, speaking to Shawn, lovingly brushed Luke’s chest as she told him, “We met when Zoey and I moved here a little over a year ago—he hired me to work here, actually.”

My brother’s façade of a smile morphed into a real one as he looked down at Claire, watching her speak of their first introductions.

Garrett spoke from my left the moment he reached us, “Jay—usual?”

He was young. Tall. Blonde. Thin. Nice, though we hadn’t spoken much, and truthfully, I was taken aback that he remembered what I typically ordered.

“Oh…yeah, thanks,” I told him. I tapped Shawn on his arm. “What do you want?”

Without taking his focus off of Claire, who was still rambling on, he asked, “Stout?”

I looked up to Garrett, and he nodded. “Got it. Be back.”

I glanced toward the door, expecting—hoping—to see Cassie. She wasn’t there, though, and the voices around me turned to a dull murmur as I got lost in my anxious, anticipatory thoughts. Cassie would arrive, eventually. I would tell her hello. She would probably take my drink. I’d ask her—quietly so the rest of the group wouldn’t hear, maybe whilst the remainder of them were distracted with conversation—if we could chat somewhere private. She’d roll her eyes, I’d shoot her a telling glance that would explain my need to revisit our encounter from Friday, and she would agree. She’d have to agree. We’d…I dunno…inconspicuously go to the bathroom one after the other, I’d meet her in the women’s or she’d meet me in the men’s, I’d thoroughly apologize for being an asshole, and she’d accept. It may take some work, but she’d accept. Without the guilt lingering over my head and knowing that she didn’t think of me with hatred, the tension that I had built up in my mind between us would eventually melt away, and I could continue on with my life as I had intended.

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