Page 53 of Lost Love on 6th Street

Except now the woman wraps her arm around his waist and looks at him with sparkling eyes and he doesn’t push her away. He locks his arm around her neck.

I press my hands against the table. I need to get out of here. I need to go home and bury my head in the sand.

A drink thumps in front of me, the heavy bottom glass thumping loudly. The hand around it is not Luke’s hand. Thicker, callused fingers. I follow the hand to a forearm covered in dark hair, to a shoulder, up to a face half covered by a formidable beard.

The man in front of me smiles. There’s a drunkenness about his eyes. I’ve never seen him before in my life.

“You alone?” he asks in a deep voice.

“No, my friend is getting me a drink,” I say.

“Well, she can join us when she comes back,” he says, pulling out the other chair and sitting down. “The more the merrier.”

Every muscle in my body locks up.

“What’s your name?” he slurs.

“What’s yours?”

He laughs and runs a hand through his beard. “Fair, fair. I’m Dave.”

I blink.

“Your turn.”

I glance over at the bar again, trying to see if I can flag Luke’s attention. The woman who was hanging on him is gone, but now he’s engaged with the bartender. Another woman. Looks vaguely familiar. Purple hair. She’s leaning toward him with bedroom eyes. Or maybe I’m making it up. If he was looking at me, I might indulge the guy at least a little bit. Play the jealousy game.

But it’s not worth it.

“Eleanor,” I say. Fuck me, I should have come up with a fake name. For all I know, the guy is harmless, but it’s always safer to assume the worst.

“Like Eleanor Roosevelt?” he asks with a finger gun in my direction.

“Sure. That works,” I say.

Dave laughs at his own—I hesitate to call it a joke, but joke. He swigs the rest of the liquid in his glass back, leaving only ice. Then, he slams it back down in front of me. “What are you drinking?”

“My friend is—”

“No, I wanna buy you a drink. What are you drinking?” Dave presses, leaning toward me. His breath is sour.

“I only need one at a time,” I say.

“Come on, don’t be like that, Four Eyes,” he says.

“Four Eyes? Good one,” I say dryly.

Dave laughs again, harder this time. “Come on, I’m teasing you.” He places a hand on my knee before I can jerk away. “I wanna get to know you. Let me buy you a drink.”

This is so embarrassing. Of course, Luke is approached by women all more beautiful than me, ones that would look better next to him in an aesthetic Instagram photo, and I’m hit on by Dave the drunk. The kind of guy who won’t go away when you ask nicely and will get butthurt if you aren’t nice.

“Pick your poison, Eleanor Roosevelt,” Dave says with a smile, his hand sliding around my knee to the back of my thigh.

18

LUKE

Fuck no.

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