Page 120 of The Other Guy

“He messing with you?”

“Just needy,” she says with a shake of her head. “He ordered an Old Fashioned. Fine. No big deal, right? Well, of course we made it wrong. Twice. Which it wasn’t… he just had a very specific order and didn’t think to tell us.”

I chuckle. “Which was?”

“The dumbass is ordering a Manhattan but calling it an Old Fashioned. Like, he yelled at us saying we were supposed to use Vermouth… which is in a Manhattan, not an Old Fashioned. Demanded a cherry instead of the orange peel. Again… wrong drink, dumbass.” She sighs. “This is one of those times where I really wish the customer wasn’t always right. I’ll be right back with your Bloody Caesar which I’m sure you know is made with Clamato juice,” she jokes to Sierra. But she’s gone ghostly white and stock still.

April doesn’t notice but I’ve learned Sierra’s cues. And this one right here tells me something’s very, very wrong.

“What?”

“That’s Jeff.”

“Who’s Jeff?”

“The guy she’s talking about. That’s him. I know it even without seeing who she’s talking about. He does that. He confuses drinks then yells at the bartender or wait staff for getting it wrong because he’s too much of an idiot to know what he’s trying to order.”

“Jeff as in…”

“My ex-boyfriend, Jeff.”

“The guy who used my number with his string of girls?”

“Yes.”

I stand up, ready to introduce myself. I figure it’s only right. But Sierra grips my hand and pulls me back down to my chair.

“You can’t go over there.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have Toby. He’ll demand him back. In fact, that’s probably why he’s here in the first place.”

“To take back the dog you stole from him? Come on, Sierra. There’s no way.”

“Oh, yeah. And he’s probably thinking he’ll somehow sweet talk me into going back to him as well. I posted that one picture of the two of us, and I didn’t even think about blocking him from my social media and he liked it. I wondered if he’d show up here. Mad that I’m with someone new.”

I lean back in my chair and try not to look pissed the fuck off. But I am. I feel the heat rising through my body, the veins in my neck beginning to swell. “You’re making a lot of assumptions for someone who hasn’t seen or spoken to the guy in over a month. And that’s not me accusing you of having contact with him. That’s me wondering why you didn’t mention that you were afraid he’d be back.”

“I wasn’t really afraid of it, just am not surprised. I did take his dog, after all. I lived with him for a year-and-a-half so I got to know a little about him. He’s a proud guy. I injured his ego when I broke up with him. It made him mad that I took the dog, even though he knows Toby always liked me more than him. He knows Kyle owns this bar so I’m not surprised he showed up here eventually.”

She says it all so matter-of-fact. When she first realized he was here she was scared out of her mind. Now she’s kicking back in her seat eating nachos. I don’t understand the quick change in attitude so I call her out, ask her why.

“I don’t know. When April was talking, it was like I was back there living with him again. I was suddenly this person who was afraid of standing up for myself or at the very least being confident in my own decisions. He was pretty good with me letting him run the show.”

I feel the anger swell and I ask in a low voice, “What do you mean?”

She’s quick to explain, “Not in an abusive or controlling way. I promise. It was never that. It’s hard to explain fully.” She looks around then her eyes brighten before she shouts. “Oh! Remember that first morning when we made eggs at your place?”

“The day you expelled stuff from your body that we decided never to speak of again?” I ask and take a drink of my beer to hide my grin.

Nodding and rolling her eyes at the same time, she says, “Yes. That day. We won’t speak of the specifics, right?”

April brings Sierra’s drink and sets it in front of her along with the mushrooms. The table is getting so full of food she can hardly fit it in, but we manage. After taking a large drink and commenting how great it tastes, Sierra pops a breaded mushroom in her mouth, chews, swallows, takes another drink.

“Right,” I murmur.

She wipes her hands on a napkin and uses her fork to load up her plate with all the food in front of us. After she’s satisfied with her plate, she takes another bite. “Sorry, I guess I was really hungry.”

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