"Do you have to start with everyone?" he asked, voice down by my ear.
"I can't help it. I have... a condition."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah... it's quite grave. It's called... Startshititis. I'm afraid there is no cure. Whenever someone is backassward, it just kicks in again."
He chuckled a little at that, the sound rolling through his body and into mine. The warning sirens were going off somewhere inside. But they were covered by a nice, thick layering of booze. "How's that tequila treating you?"
"I have a feeling I am going to get quite hoesome soon," I admitted, his fingers spanning my ribcage proving distracting.
"Hmm," he said, fingers inching upward, touching the very underside of my breast. "Luckily, I do have the cure for that," he told me, voice promising.
"Will it be... hard to swallow?" I asked, making my voice as innocent as possible. When he let out a low groan, I knew I had played my card right.
"If ya two are gonna fuck, I would not suggest the bathroom," Adler declared casually. "Yes, I'm eavesdropping," he told us with a smirk. "Go on, duchess. I believe you were talking about... swallowing something."
"I like this one," I declared, waving my drink in Adler's direction.
My brain may have been tequila-soaked, but a lifetime of pushing my alcohol limits here and there made it possible for me to be able to think at least mostly clearly.
And I was thinking that this Adler guy was someone I needed to get to know better. Regardless of whatever happened with Sugar. Lenny too. Who was currently one faux-leather motorcycle jacket down, shaking her hips as she stood at the stereo system, looking through the song catalog.
It also did not escape my booze-goggles that a certain gravel-voiced, bearded biker was watching her like she was some kind of goddamned miracle.
And while I wouldn't attribute any of my observations to the alcohol, I did blame it for the weird, swirly, almost hopeful feeling I felt in my belly at seeing the way that man looked at his woman. Like all the Mallick brothers looked at their women.
Love, I had always believed was just chemicals creating a temporary high.
But then I had met Charlie and Helen.
That man still looked at his wife like she was the sole reason the fucking sun rose in the morning.
After thirty-something years together.
They shot my theory all to hell.
Those fuckers.
I would have been happy believing that for the rest of my life. That love was fleeting. That disappointment and pain would inevitably follow it at some point down the line. And, therefore, it was not something worthy of dedicating my time to.
But now I knew that it didn't always disappear.
Maybe it aged, shifted, grew in a different way, but it could span decades, a lifetime.
"That's an odd look," Sugar said, breaking through my somewhat uncharacteristically sappy train of thought.
I shook my head, trying to dislodge the weird wishy-washy sensation overtaking me. I shrugged a shoulder, reaching for a refill the bartender had dropped in front of me without asking. "You don't know me well enough to know my looks."
His head tilted slightly, eyes going smaller as he watched me for a second. "Whose fault is that?" he asked, surprising me.
"What?"
"Whose fault is it that I can't get to know you better? Sure as shit isn't mine as far as I can tell."
"What do you..." I started, only to be cut off by Adler's hand landing hard on my shoulder.
"This isn't time for ya to discuss that she's got barbed wire on her heart," he declared, the words landing like a sucker punch to my center, knocking out my air.
Barbed wire on my heart?
Did he actually mean that? Think that?
No one had ever accused me of that before.
Being a bit aloof? Not able to take things as seriously as I should? Committed to non-commitment? Possibly a bit too independent - if such a thing existed? Sure. Yes, to all of those.
But guarded?
No.
But, if I were really being honest, I guess I would admit that people wouldn't accuse me of that because they were blinded by the part of me that was completely, one-hundred percent unguarded.
You didn't look at a woman who had no problem flashing someone - ass or tits - and think Damn, that girl is closed off.
It was the emotional equivalent to the musical hairography.
Distract them with the openness, so they don't see the guardedness.
It was true.
I was guarded.
Not with everything.
I shared my joy and humor and frustration and anger with those closest to me, my friends and family.
But when it came to the other shit? The stuff that hurt when you poked your finger in it? The vulnerability crap?
Yeah, I guess I did hide that, wrap it in barbed wire, put fences and walls around it. Reinforce it with concrete.
But I couldn't let them see these things.