Page 133 of Unloved

She’s so beautiful, smiling as she flashes her ID to the bouncer and waiting inside the doorway for me to follow.

It’s warm, a little hazy with smoke, and it looks like not much has changed since it opened in the 1960s—as stated on the painted signs above the bar. It’s mostly high-top tables and a few red vinyl sofas. The lights are dim, blue and green shimmering accents flaring across the black-and-white-checked floor.

There’s a singer with a guitar up on the small stage in the corner, singing a gorgeous acoustic cover of some popular radio hit. Even the dance floor is crowded, couples slowly spinning to the music.

Ro had warned me it was a “small bites” place, which meant it would cost me my entire spring grocery budget to feed myself. Looking over the short menu as we step up to the bar, I’m glad I ate before.

I order us both a drink, opting for their whiskey-themed special and grabbing Ro a fruity seltzer. We toast and smile at each other, and it’s seamless—tinged with the awkwardness of overexcitement. I canfeelthe thrill thrumming between us.

“Do you want to dance?” I ask.

She nods immediately, grinning like a loon as I down my drink and wait for her to finish hers before taking her hand, leading her to the crowd of bodies sluggishly swaying.

Ro’s head is on my chest, soft curls across my arm, as she’s left it almost all down in a swirling cascade of dark brown. The woman on stage croons, smoky and beautiful as she sings “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off” with the soothing piano and strings echoing behind her.

I want to press the words into Ro’s skin, to make sure she can hear what I’m thinking without the terror of speaking it out.

Your touch feels different. Your words feel different. Everything with you feels different, better.I press a kiss to her hair, then to her forehead, and watch as her plush lips slip into a smile and her eyes bat up at me.

The words almost tumble out then and there. It’s our first date, but forget the rest. I’m done, I’ve decided.

Be mine. Let me call you my girlfriend, not just my friend. I’ll be so fucking good to you.

I close my eyes and contentedly breathe in the familiar scent of her clean floral and coconut perfume. Everything here withher seems perfect, like the pictures already in frames at the store of happy families—frozen, beautiful moments. I want a million of them with her.

But when I open my eyes, I see a ghost.

Carmen.

Carmen Tinley is here, in my bubble of bliss, like a haunting reminder of everything I don’t want evencloseto Ro. I try blinking, hoping somehow it was a trick of the light, that she’ll just disappear.

But there she is—at the bar, drinking a glass of wine the same color as her painted lips and vibrant hair, looking every bit the sad, lonely woman she was the first night we were together. And just like the last time, she’s staring at me.

I tuck Ro tighter to me, almost accidentally, and she lets out a breathy sigh of contentment.

“I like this,” she whispers, and her vulnerability makes me feel a little dizzy and sick. Enough that I pull away from Ro and run my hands through my hair.

“Matt?”

Even in her confusion, her tone is nothing but soft, gentle encouragement.

“Let me, um—” I shake my head. “I’m going to grab us some more drinks. And close out.” Because as much as I need some goddamn alcohol in my system, my need to get out of here is far greater.

“Okay.” She smiles. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom.”

I watch her all the way to the hallway, while the back of my neck pricks with that same feeling of being observed. Once Ro is safely away, I turn and walk right up to the little bar and order a shot of whiskey for myself and a fruity hard seltzer for Ro.

I’m far enough away that we shouldn’t be able to touch, yet when Carmen turns in her barstool, she presses her shoulder directly into mine where I’m leaning on the bar top.

“Funny seeing you here,” Carmen says, smiling. White teethgleam beneath red lips, eyes darkened with glittering shadow that I once reveled in.

“Keeping tabs on me?” is my curt response.

She takes a long swig of her wine and shakes her head. “Total coincidence, I swear,” she says, crossing her heart like a promise.

“I’m here with Ro,” I spit out, jaw tight, my entire body wound like a spring toy, barely holding everything down.

“I saw.”

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