The Imperfections

The new girl I hired doesn’t know who he is and walks up to him all smiles, telling him we’re closing soon but she’d love to take care of him while he’s there.

For the first time, I feel something like envy when I look at this fucker. I don’t respect him, so I’ve never encountered that feeling before, but when it comes to looks, anyone can see he has the monopoly. Alyssa’s admission that she was attracted to him floats back across my consciousness, and before I can stop myself, I’m snarling at the blonde I recently hired to work some nights at the bar.

“He’s not a fucking customer.”

She looks back at me, her eyes wide in alarm at my tone. I’m not looking at her, though, my gaze is locked on Theo.

“Why the fuck are you in my bar?”

He stares at me, wide-eyed, apparently surprised by the venom in my tone. More conscious of appearances than I am, he looks back at the new girl and offers her a polite smile and “Thanks, but I’m here to see him” before making his way over to me.

I watch the way he saunters, hating him a little fucking more. I hate the gnawing in my gut that feels like jealousy, the compulsion to ask this asshole for more details about his time with Alyssa—not because they’re relevant or even helpful, but because I’m starving for a morsel of her, but won’t let myself see her again to get one of my own.

I don’t ask, not only because it would be suspicious, but because hearing him talk about being with her now would make me so jealous I’d probably put the bastard through a wall, and how the hell would I explain that to Bri?

Theo takes a seat in the booth across from me like I invited him to. He looks at me then ducks his head, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Hey, Brant.”

I don’t answer him; I stare wordlessly, inviting him to explain his presence any damn time he’s ready to.

Clearing his throat, he says, “I just wanted to say thanks for—you know.” He looks up at me uncertainly. “Um, but I wasn’t sure—I haven’t heard anything.”

“What the fuck do you mean, you haven’t heard anything?”

He looks around, but there’s no one over here in this corner. Now that she can’t get him a drink and flirt with him, the new girl has gone back behind the bar to work on the closing checklist, and the bartender is restocking.

When he sees there’s no one around to overhear us, he leans across the table and says quietly, “About Alyssa.”

I don’t like her name on his lips. Tension builds in my shoulders and I stretch my neck, trying to ease some of it out. “Don’t worry about her anymore,” I state simply. “She’s no longer your concern. Never should’ve been in the first place.”

“No, I know,” he says, pretty quickly, “and I thank you for that, it’s just…I mean… is it done? I thought I’d hear something about her… I don’t know, going missing?”

“Where do you expect you’d hear about it, Theo?” I ask, leaning back in my booth and stretching my arm out across the back of it, looking at him like he’s just about the dumbest piece of shit I’ve ever encountered. “You expect some old-timey newsboy to run through the streets with an evening edition, yelling, ‘Extra, extra, read all about it’?”

Theo sits back, sliding an unamused look my way. “Well, no.”

“Did it occur to you that if you heard about it, that would be a bad thing? Probably better if you don’t hear about it, right?”

“I guess,” he says begrudgingly, but I can hear the dissatisfaction in his voice. “I don’t know. I thought it would be more… climactic.”

Taking a breath and summoning a trickle from the reserve of patience that must be buried deep inside me somewhere, I lean across the table, look him in the face, and tell him, “I am not a fucking monkey performing tricks for your entertainment, Theo. You came to me with a problem and I told you I’d fix it. I’ve taken care of the situation. I don’t care if it wasn’t theatrical enough for you. You won’t hear from the babysitter again. End of fucking story. It didn’t require a follow-up visit. You and I are not friends. I do not want to see your smug, fucking pretty-boy face unless I absolutely have to when I’m visiting my sister and my nephews. Are we clear? Don’t come to my bar again unless you have a fucking reason to be here.”

Leaning back, realizing he’s rubbed me the wrong way and not knowing why, Theo says, “I wasn’t trying to piss you off, Brant.”

“I guess it’s a natural talent you’ve got, then.”

He nods grimly, lips pressed firmly together. “All right, I’ll get out of your hair.”