Tiebreaker (It Takes Two 2)

Music drifts out as I study the familiar weathered red brick and big windows on the second floor––take stock of all the changes, and there are many. A colorful mural of my grandfather riding his favorite bull, Goliath, spans the front of the building. Rowdy’s glows in hot-pink neon above the rusty iron door.

A tide of mixed emotions surges and crests. It breaks over me hard and fast.

Rowdy is gone.

His place is different.

So different I hardly recognize it.

These are the cold facts. I knew Noah had made improvements over the years, but this place looks like it belongs in Dallas, even L.A., instead of small town Oklahoma.

When I was a kid, my grandfather would bring me down here if he had inventory to do, or some other business to attend on the afternoons that my parents were working. It didn’t look like this, though. Nothing like this. Any sentiments I may have had about revisiting childhood memories evaporate.

“Pretty cool, right?”

“It’s alright,” I mutter, both impressed and a little sad.

“I knew you’d like it.” Bebe beams a big white grin. “Come on.”

Inside, from the stage in the middle of the club, the band is playing a cover of Sweet Home Alabama with a hard rock edge.

The interior has been completely remodeled as well. The smell of stale beer is gone. Although the exposed brick remains, the booths are covered in cracked red leather to go with the retro look. The bars have an industrial feel to them. Copper and nickel paired with dark distressed wood. There’s one on each side of the massive room and both are packed four rows deep, the club filled to capacity.

“It’s like this every Wednesday to Saturday,” Bebe informs me, shouting over the live music.

I recognize some of the new guys on the PBR circuit amongst the crowd, here to pay their respects to my grandfather I’m guessing.

Bodies bump and brush past us. “Hey, isn’t that Maren Murphy?” I hear more than once and ignore them as we weave our way through the crowd to get closer to the bar.

My hands are sweating viciously. I wipe them against my jeans as I survey the crowd.

“He’s at the bar,” the busybody on my left announces.

I send a warning glare in my sister’s direction and she bats her lashes innocently in return. “Whatever is going on in that messed-up head of yours needs to stop right now.”

“Think of the hate sex. How intense would that be? And you could finally get him out of your system.”

In a temporary moment of insanity, I picture myself as Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct, straddling Noah and plunging an ice pick into his chest.

Yeah, it would be intense.

“I don’t have him in my system. He’s nowhere near my system. And I have a boyfriend, remember?”

A boyfriend who wants to marry me.

I haven’t told anyone yet. Mostly because I’m not sure how to explain why I’m not engaged.

Bebe rolls her eyes, which impels me to continue. “And for someone that has yet to pop her cherry, you sure are concerned with my sex life.” My sister’s mouth slams shut and her lips thin. “That’s what I thought. You stay out of my business, and I’ll stay out of yours.”

My head turns and my eyes crash into Noah’s unblinking stare. The crowd shifts, blocking my line of sight for a moment. When it parts again, he’s still watching me.

Leaning back with his elbows resting on the edge of the bar, the black t-shirt with the Rowdy’s logo he’s wearing stretches across the wide expanse of his muscular chest. I can’t help taking note of all the changes––the paint covering his arms, the sharper lines of his face, the thick bulk of his thighs beneath his jeans. The fact that he looks even better with age proves that there is absolutely no justice in this world.

In an alternate reality that actually makes sense, his chest is concave and he doesn’t need a costume for Halloween because some woman he messed around with decided to rearrange his face to resemble the Joker. Not in this one, though. In this one he gets to ride off into the sunset looking better than ever.

He gives me a wry smile. The same smile he would give me when he was in the mood for sex. One I’d love to slap right off his annoyingly handsome face right now. I flip him the bird and he throws his head back in laughter. I hate him.

“I need a drink.” My lips are moving but I’m not sure sound is coming out. I can’t feel my face. It’s numb. I think there’s a song by the Weekend about that. It sounded weird when it came out but I get it now. “You want a drink? Let’s drink.”

“I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we get a drink?” the wiseass next to me suggests. I snap out of my Noah trance and level my sister with a look that says mess with me and I’ll pull your hair out.