“Can we please go back to the kissing?” She giggles slightly, completely ignoring my presence and staring up at Arrow with dreamy, drunk eyes.
The word kissing makes me tighten everything on my body.
But before I can protest, Arrow speaks. “I think we’ve had enough of the kissing for tonight. You should go.”
“But I thought we were having such a good time and you know…”
She trails off to run her hand down his chest, her fingers hooking around the locket he wears.
So he wears a locket, a silver thing he never parts with.
His dad gave it to him when he was six or something. And like his sun-struck hair and tanned skin, his locket shines in the sunlight. It shines with his sweat when he’s had a workout, or he’s played a really grueling game.
It was shining the day I saw him for the first time in that yellow/orange kitchen.
And I dig my nails in my palms when I see this girl toying with it.
“You’re drunk,” he tells her, disengaging himself from her.
“I’m not.”
She hiccups then, proving herself a liar.
“I beg to differ.”
“I’m –”
“That’s why you thought we were having a good time.” He leans a little closer to her, as if to impart a secret. “We weren’t. So as I said, you should go.”
She frowns, looking peeved. “But I –”
“Look,” he sighs, the annoyed lines around his eyes getting deeper. “I’m flattered. Okay? It’s always flattering when a girl throws herself at you. Even as drunk as you clearly are. But as I said to you before you attacked me with your mouth, I don’t fuck drunk girls so you should go before I say something you might not like.”
Hold on a second.
Just please… hold.
Did he say fuck?
Did he actually say fuck?
Before I can process that, the girl, who is so drunk that she can’t stand upright, somehow gets her spine up. Her foggy eyes suddenly become really alert and sort of vicious. “And what exactly will you say if I don’t leave?”
“If you don’t leave, I’m going to have to tell you the truth.”
“And what is the truth?”
Arrow’s answer is to sigh again.
Like he doesn’t wanna do it but he will. And he does.
“The truth is that you’re drunk as fuck and maybe that’s why your kissing is all tongue and no mouth. And it feels like I’m drowning in a pool of saliva. But I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think your kissing is all tongue and no mouth because you’re drunk. I think you kiss that way even when you’re sober and can actually see who you’re kissing. And I think that’s because you’re kind of an over-doer, aren’t you? Too much perfume. Too many moans. You like to go the extra mile and generally, I appreciate it, going the extra mile, doing the extra work. But I don’t appreciate that when I’m choking on tongue.”
He shrugs then, all casual like. “And that’s why you should leave. Because if I tell you all that I think it might hurt your ego a little bit.”
Silence follows his truth-telling speech.
Well, as much silence as you can get in a crowded bar.
The girl is the first to gather her senses. “I… What…” She looks at both of us in a wild, aggressive way. “You two deserve each other. Assholes.”
Then she spins around and stomps away, leaving the two of us alone in that corner. Leaving me to bizarrely wonder why she thought we were together, him and I.
Is it because I came here to stop them? Is it because I look like a jealous girlfriend?
I’m not. The girlfriend, I mean. Or jealous even.
I am not. So totally not jealous.
What I am, though is flabbergasted and shocked and kind of speechless.
Because holy. Shit.
He said those things, didn’t he?
Again, I can’t believe it.
I can’t believe that he said all that. I can’t believe anyone would say all that. Let alone a guy I’ve known for eight years, who’s nothing if not polite.
And patient. And calm and collected and holy fuck.
I can’t…
“You can’t follow a rule to save your life, can you?” he murmurs and finally, I whip my gaze over to him.
Until now, I was watching the girl disappear into the crowd because I didn’t know what else to do.
Because this guy, this rude asshole, can’t be Arrow.
The Arrow I know.
The Arrow I know wouldn’t be leaning against the brick wall as if nothing happened. As if he didn’t say all those horrible things to her.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says in a rough, growly voice when I continue to remain silent.
“Why?” I burst out, my words bitter. “Because I witnessed you completely humiliating a girl just now?”
“I wasn’t humiliating her,” he replies, casually.
I think he even goes ahead and folds his arms across his chest. I can’t be sure though because I’m staring at him, at his smooth, unbothered features, with an open mouth.