Fabulous.
I tried to engage them in a little conversation, but the topic maneuvered its way back to a movie I hadn’t seen yet. My mind wandered to other patrons of the bar for a bit, and then I realized I hadn’t heard a word Mare had been saying.
What a lousy friend I am.
I tried to focus again on her words, nodding and agreeing that a second Magic Mike movie would be the bomb. Another screwdriver appeared in front of me, but I didn’t recall ordering it. My head was definitely fuzzy, and I was starting to wonder how in the heck I was going to get home. All the shots were catching up with me, and I was starting to feel a little sick. Blinking made the table spin, and I quickly I excused myself to the restroom.
Walking proved more difficult than I thought it was going to be. As soon as I stood, I realized just how bad off I was. I held on to a couple of the stools as I made my way to the ladies’ room, thankful that there wasn’t a line. Once I got myself into a stall, I found I couldn’t even hover over the seat like I normally would and plopped down on the cracked toilet with a grimace.
As wooziness overcame me, I steeled myself against the feeling, no longer caring about the cleanliness of the toilet seat. I swallowed hard, leaning over my thighs and telling myself I was not going to throw up. I just needed to focus a bit. Slow breaths. I hadn’t had this much to drink in a while, and at five-foot four and a hundred and thirty pounds, I just couldn’t hold my liquor like I could in college. Still, I had been considered a pro back in the day, and I wasn’t about to lose it now.
I hoped.
With determination and some more meditative breathing, I finished up and fiddled with the lock on the stall. It outwitted me for a moment. The little sliding bolt just wouldn’t move the right way to release the lock at first, but I eventually managed to get myself out. I stumbled forward as I approached the sink and tried to wash my hands, but the lack of soap in the dispenser only allowed me to rinse off. The towel dispenser was obviously in cahoots with the latch on the stall door and made it very difficult for me to get the couple of sheets of paper I needed to dry off my hands. Instead, a big pile of them fell out at my feet, which I found remarkably funny for some reason.
Still giggling, I used one of the fallen towels to open the door, balled it up, and tried to hold the door open with my backside while simultaneously tossing the paper into the trashcan near the sink. The force of the throw was apparently too much, and I stumbled out the door and into a brick wall.
It was pretty warm for brick and not nearly as painful on my back as I would have thought it would be. I leaned back against it some more and sighed. The dizziness returned, and I nearly fell forward. That’s when the brick wall grew hands and arms, which wrapped around me and kept me from falling on my ass.
Still dizzy, I turned to find the brick wall was wearing a grey, cut-off muscle shirt, which did nothing to hide the graffiti-like tattoos all over the arms that held me steady as I tried to get my bearings.
Where am I?
Oh yes…Thirsty’s, outside the bathroom.
I looked forward and focused my eyes on the chest in front of me. I had to tilt my head up to discover it was, in fact, not attached to a brick wall but an actual face that was way, way up in the air.
The guy was massive. Just massive. He was well over six feet tall with shoulders that took up nearly the whole width of the hallway.
“Hi there,” the brick wall said in a deep, jocular voice. “You all right?”
Alarm!
It’s not that Thirsty’s was known for a lot of riff-raff or criminal activity of any kind. It wasn’t. I never would have walked into the place if it were like that. It was a typical sports bar in the suburbs of southwestern Ohio, mostly catering to the pro football crowd whenever the Bengals played the Steelers. The usual clientele were locals blowing off steam from work or commiserating about their failed marriages. Occasionally, there were a few singles looking to hook up. Most of the people I saw there I had seen before, even if I didn’t know them.
This guy did not belong here.
Wherever they keep the official entries for men your mother warned you about, this
guy’s picture would be at the top of the list.
His arms and chest bulged with muscles. He really did resemble a brick wall. I could see the outline of his abs through his shirt, stacked like the bricks around a fireplace. Every visible inch of his darkly tanned skin was completely covered by a myriad of tattoos. I couldn’t focus on any one image without all of them blending together like the mosaic of a swiftly moving, graffiti-covered train car. His nearly black hair was the same length as the neatly trimmed beard covering his face, and dark eyebrows framed his greenish-brown eyes.
Maybe I was feeling a little of that southern haughtiness my grandmother was known for displaying whenever we walked through a Walmart when I was a child. Maybe I was going so far as to profile the guy for his height, insane number of tattoos, ripped jeans, muscle shirt, and assumption that he had a Harley parked somewhere outside. Maybe I was just in shock from the abrupt encounter itself.
Aside from all of that, he was absolutely gorgeous.
Maybe I’m just drunk.
“Yes,” I finally said, hoping I sounded more convincing than I felt. “Sorry, I just lost my balance a bit.”
“I see that,” Brick Wall responded. He smiled, and his eyes lit up with amusement. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and his fingers tightened around my hips, causing a ripple up his arms.
Good lord, he had a lot of muscles—great big, bulging muscles that couldn’t be hidden by his clothing.
“You need some help?” he asked.
“No, I’m good,” I replied. I tried to wave my hand dismissively but realized it had a bit of a death-grip on Brick Wall’s forearms. His hard, muscled forearms, which ran all the way up to ridiculously broad shoulders.