Prologue: Annie
"Listen, Annie, I'm just saying I think you just need to put yourself out there and get laid!" Josie shouts over the bar top, sliding my drink toward me.
I take a long sip, relishing the feel of the cool glass against my lips, and frown at the miserable stack of singles in front of me. Bartending the swing shift is always hit-or-miss, and today is definitely a strikeout.
"Can you maybe not put my business out there for the whole bar to hear?" I hiss.
Josie lifts her head, placing a hand above her eyes as she fake-scans the room. "Oh yeah, because table twelve all the way in BFE and Randy really give a fuck. No offense, Randy," Josie calls down to our regular, who sits a couple of stools away from me.
Randy just chuckles and lifts his glass.
"I'm just saying," Josie continues, leaning over the counter, "it's been over a month since you broke up with asshat-mcfuckface Tristan. And I love living with you, babe, but if I hear the opening credits to Pride and Prejudice one more time, I might throw your TV off the balcony."
My stomach churns at the mere mention of his name. Josie is right—Tristan is an asshat-mcfuckface, along with whatever other colorful adjectives she usually throws in front of his name. But there was once a time when I honestly thought he was my forever. I thought I would end up being Mrs. Asshat-mcfuckface. Maybe I'm just naive. Maybe it's the deep-rooted mommy and daddy issues speaking. But I truly believed I'd met my soulmate at twenty.
Clearly, I was wrong. Now, at twenty-four, I am bumming a bed in my coworker's spare bedroom, trying to figure out how to be single—a job Josie thinks I am doing a shit job at.
"I don't know... I just don't think it's been long enough," I say softly, tracing the condensation on my glass with my index finger. "We were together for years."
"Babe, I could understand that logic if you and that twat-waffle ended on good terms," Josie counters, grabbing a clean rag. "But him working out of state and trying to convince you that messaging a random girl who lives fifteen minutes away from his hotel room is 'nothing' completely nullifies it. The mourning period is over. Back me up on this, Randy!"
Randy grunts in solid agreement.
"See?" Josie says triumphantly. "Even Randy agrees with me."
I reach into my back pocket, grab my favorite pen, and chuck it at her. "Randy will agree with anything after he's had two beers. Isn't that right, Randy?" I call over my shoulder, earning another agreeable grunt from the end of the bar.
"What about that new server, Denny? He's cute," Josie says, wiping down the stainless steel ice well.
"First of all, Denny is like nineteen. Gross," I shudder. "And second of all, after the nuclear fallout with you and Luke, I think it's better if I don't sleep with coworkers. Tommy still can't schedule you two on the same shift without someone throwing a lime wedge."
Josie crosses her arms leaning against the register. "It's not my fault Luke is a prick who couldn't even bother to—"
"I'm just saying," I cut her off, knowing exactly where that specific tangent is headed. "I'm not good at the whole casual thing. You know I've only ever been with two people, and both times, they were my boyfriend."
Josie drops the rag into the bucket of sanitizer before turning back to me, her expression softening. "Then there's no better time than now to try something new. You spent almost half of your twenties playing housewife for a man—no, sorry, a boy—who couldn't even say thank you, let alone get you a meaningful gift for your birthday."
A dull ache flares in my chest. I know she means well. Josie isn't trying to twist the knife; everything she is saying is the gospel truth. But part of me still hurts from admitting how much time, effort, and youth I've poured into a relationship that ended up not mattering at all.
The hardest part of the breakup is coming to terms with the fact that I gave Tristan everything I thought he needed, but he never once tried to meet me halfway in the four years we spent together. When he needed to move to Chicago for work, I packed up my life and moved with him. When he told me our apartment should just be in his name, I blindly agreed. When his job needed him to work out of state and he was only able to come home one weekend a month, I didn't say a word. As embarrassing as it is to admit, to my core, I'm a lover girl. I love deeply and I love hard, which makes falling out of it feel like losing a limb.
Stuck at a total loss for words, I stare into my empty glass, biting back the hot tears I've been fighting on and off for the past month.
"Annie, babe, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to push," Josie says, instantly reaching across the counter to squeeze my hand.
"No, no, you're right." I shake my head and sit up straighter, forcefully wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. "I'm fine. Fuck him. I deserved better. For God's sake, the man couldn't even crop me out of his Tinder photos. What an absolute douche."
The memory of Josie and me sitting on our living room couch a week after the split still burns in my brain. She'd been casually swiping while I wallowed in Jane Austen and a pint of ice cream, only to stand up so fast she nearly spilled her wine, calling Tristan every curse word known to man. He had the absolute audacity to use a picture of the two of us at the Grand Canyon—a trip I paid for, by the way—as his profile picture.
The heavy, sinking feeling in my chest finally shifts, rising up as a sharp, slow-burning anger. Why should I be the one hiding in a dark bar, hurting? I wasn't the one who broke us. He clearly has no problem moving on while I am still stuck in the vast, empty ruins of what could have been.
"You're right," I let out in a fierce huff, "I need to get laid."
I am still blotting at the leftover mascara beneath my eyes when the familiar, brass chime of the front door swings open, letting in a gust of the humid night air.
"Well, maybe tonight's your lucky night," Josie whispers, her eyes tracking past my shoulder toward the hostess stand. "Because Corona-No-Lime just walked in."
I look up at the mirrored wall behind the liquor bottles to see his familiar face. Wes—or Corona-No-Lime, as we've dubbed him—is making his way toward his usual seat at the absolute furthest, darkest end of the bar. I've waited on him a few times over the last two weeks, and the memory of those brief encounters always lingers in my mind a lot longer than they have any right to.
He doesn't look like the college kids or the loud corporate types who usually frequent the place; he looks like a man who has been chiseled out of something hard and left to simmer in a permanent, dangerous bad mood.
Through the glass reflection, I watch him drape his dark jacket over the back of the cheap vinyl stool, exposing the massive breadth of his shoulders. He fills out his plain black shirt with a kind of thick, muscular gravity that makes it clear his bulk isn't just for show. Underneath his rolled-up sleeves, heavy bands of colorful ink wrap around his forearms, flexing as he runs a hand through his hair.
He has a sharp, striking jawline covered in a day's worth of blonde stubble that matches the clean, short crop of his hair. But it was his eyes that caught me—even through a mirror. They are a piercing, vibrant green, framed by heavy brows pulled into a permanent, guarded scowl. He is undeniably, dangerously handsome. And entirely unapproachable.
Before I even have a chance to unwind from my near breakdown, Josie is already moving.
With the terrifying efficiency of a best friend who has decided tonight was the night, she grabs a fresh lowball glass, scoops in ice, and pours a heavy double shot of the top-shelf bourbon Wes ordered last week. She doesn't even look at me as she slaps a napkin down next to the glass.
"Wait, Josie, what are you doing?" I hiss, my heart instantly leaping straight into my throat.
"Helping you," she whispers back with a wicked grin.
Before I can grab her arm, she is sliding down the bar top. I watch in absolute, paralyzed horror as she stops right in front of him.
Wes's green eyes flick up, cold and sharp enough to cut glass, unbothered by her presence. He opens his mouth, likely to give his usual clipped, polite order, but Josie beats him to it. She slides the amber double bourbon right into his space, her fingernail tapping the side of the glass.
"From the bartender at the end of the counter," Josie says, giving him a brilliant, completely unbothered smile. "She thought you looked like you needed it."
My breath hitches. I want the floor to open up and swallow me whole. Randy chuckles from his stool, and I swear I am going to murder Josie in her sleep.
Slowly, Wes's head turns in my direction.
His piercing green eyes track past Josie, sliding down the long, empty stretch of the dark mahogany bar until they lock onto me.
My heart hammers violently against my ribs. Sitting under his full, undivided attention is completely different than watching him through a mirror. The standoffish wall he usually keeps up doesn't drop, but his brows twitch slightly. His gaze drops to my mouth, then down to the bar napkin I am still nervously gripping in my hands, before rising back to meet my eyes.
He stares at me, evaluating me with a heavy, quiet intensity that makes my skin tingle.
Then, his large, tattooed hand reaches out and wraps around the glass.
He doesn't smile—I don't think his face is legally capable of it—but he lifts the bourbon an inch off the counter in a silent, slow toast directly to me. He takes a long, slow sip, his throat flexing as he swallows, his green eyes never breaking contact with mine over the rim of the glass.
The white-hot heat that flares up my neck has absolutely nothing to do with alcohol.
Josie slides back over to me, leaning her elbows on the counter with a triumphant smirk. "You're welcome. Now go down there before I pour another one."
