Seconds later, he’s gone. I hear the door open and then the screen, and then the doorknob rattles as he checks that it’s locked. I smile at his protectiveness. It’s been a long time since anyone’s taken care of me, maybe not since Grandma passed away, and I’m worried I’m already getting addicted to it.
And that’s dangerous for us both.
Chapter 11
Blake
The bar is hopping tonight.
Not rave style, with drunk people grinding and woo-hooing loudly over even louder music.
But that’s not what this place is about. It’s dimly lit except for the neon lights projected on the screen at the far end of the room, pitchers of mass-produced tap beer are on special, and the only cheers are the smack talking banter between teams.
“Oh! Too bad, Hale! Maybe next time you’ll get a topic you actually know something about! Like maybe the alphabet. What comes after K again?” Cole, a dark-haired, hotshot real estate agent, muses with a thick finger pointing my way and a huge, extra-white smile.
His teammate and business partner, Bryan, gives Cole a high-five and then turns my way to complete the slam Cole set up perfectly. “That’d be L for losers, I believe.”
Bryan holds his fingers, shaped in an L to his forehead, signaling that we’re losers because we lost one round. I don’t want to tell him he looks like an idiot, not yet. We’ve barely started our trivia competition for the night and I’m already done with Cole and his shit. Usually, I can stand him pretty easily since his insults are juvenile at best, unoriginal at worst.
And really, they’re all in good fun, mostly. But I’m distracted tonight. That’s why I missed that easy question about the shortest US president.
I know it’s James Madison—at a whopping 5 foot 4 inches, thank you very much, because any man will tell you that every single inch matters—and not James Monroe. But I got tongue-tied, and my attempt at ‘Madison’ came out sounding like ‘Mondilroe’.
At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
But does Cole believe that? Of course not. He’s a douche waffle who happens to specialize in presidential trivia and delights in giving anyone who misses out on such an ‘easy question’ a hard time.
What’s the capital of Uzbekistan, Cole? Tashkent, but I bet you didn’t know that, did ya?
He sucks at geography, thankfully having a weak spot other than his holier-than-thou winner attitude. “We’ll get ya next round,” Trey tells Cole in my defense before leaning over to clink his beer against mine. Quieter, he says, “You good, man? Not like you to miss an easy one.”
I glare at Trey even though I’m mad at myself. “Yeah.”
One long sip of beer doesn’t make it any truer, though. Looking at the screen for what’s ahead, I can already see how the night’s going to play out. Round two has Cole’s team versus Meg-a-demia, a group of local college professors and teaching assistants.
Cole’s team is known as The Estates. They claim their name was chosen because they’re mostly high-dollar real estate agents, but we all know it's because they come from old money, estate-style, and like to flaunt it.
But the round two topics are ones the professors will slaughter Cole and his numb nuts partner with, like Literature of the 1800s and The Pop Culture Influence of Pokémon.
I bet Cole doesn’t know a Pikachu from a panini.
And after that, it’ll be a loser round with the Estates against . . . us, Anarchy Authority. To be clear, our team name was chosen by Heather, our fearless and sarcastically oppositional leader.
Speaking of the devil, Heather claps her hands to get our attention. I shoot one more withering ‘fuck you’ look at Cole and he acts like a I blew him a lovey-dovey kiss, excitedly watching it cross the few feet and then ‘catching’ it before crumbling the nothingness in his hands and dropping it to the floor to squash with his shiny loafers.
For pantomime, it’s pretty clear he plans to kill us in the next head-to-head. And also, he has on loafers with no socks. That look hasn’t been attractive since Don Johnson was rocking it in Miami Vice, no matter what Cole’s girlfriend du jour told him.
“Blake,” Heather barks, her palm slapping the table.
“Yeah?” I answer back, just as irritated.
“We’re in the middle of a strategy session. If you’d care to abandon your eye-fuck with Cole, you’re welcome to join us.”
“I’m not . . .” I turn to Heather, and her smile of victory tells me that her smack talk got her exactly what she wanted—my attention. “Fine. Strategy?”
Heather nods and immediately swipes her too-long bangs off to the side. They’re green this week, matching her nail polish and eye shadow. “There are hellacious topics still left on the board tonight. I think we’ve got a lock on Art and Architecture, Cars of the 1960s, and Musical Genius.”