Carmen Jenner - Welcome to Sugartown

“It’s in a cast, Elijah, how do you think it is?” We hear the whistle sounding the end of the game, and Ana yanks her arm free and begins the walk back to the oval.

“I’m sorry, baby girl. I fucked up.”

“Yeah, you did.”

“So that’s it? No second chances? You’re just gonna walk away from this clean?”

She backtracks and doesn’t stop until she’s right up in my face, or as in my face as she can be, given how short she is. “You think I’m walking away clean? I’m a fucking mess, Elijah! I can’t close my eyes without seeing that arsehole’s face, without feeling his hands on my body, inside me. He held a gun to my head and you watched—”

“And I killed the motherfucker, didn’t I? I blew his face apart until he was no longer recognisable, Ana! Jesus. Fucking. H. Christ! What more do you want from me?”

Fuck. Every time I try to speak calmly to her lately I lose my shit and frighten her to death. She just makes me so fucking crazy sometimes. Crazier than any woman has ever made me.

She’s crying again when she says, “Nothing. I don’t want a goddamn thing from you, Elijah.”

Ana disappears around the corner of the brick building and I have to fight the urge to follow her. She’s been through enough shit with the people in this town and doesn’t need me making a spectacle of her at her kid brother’s footy match so instead, in the privacy provided by the toilet block, I pound my fist into the brick until my knuckles are bloody and the pain settles in, bone deep. I’m not letting her walk away from this. I can’t.

In the three weeks since my run in with Elijah at Little League Rugby, Holly has been glued to my side. Not that I’m not grateful. I am. I’m also indebted. If it weren’t for her helping me out on a Sunday with the baking, the pie shop would have sunk with this stupid cast on my arm.

She’s done more than that, though. Elijah still insists on coming in every day for lunch and, every day at the same time, I take my lunch over to the house to avoid him.

If Holly’s beside me he won’t even try speaking to me, he knows it’s a lost cause. But it’s when she’s not around, when I’m at my lowest, that he chooses to spark up a conversation with me. Every time I see him it’s like a blow to the gut and I don’t know whether it’s the same for him but the more he attacks at my defences, the more I feel them coming down. And I hate us both for it.

That’s why I agreed to come out with Holly tonight. She’s been so good to me for so long that I thought it was time to be a good friend back. Only, as we enter the pub and the noise of the band and the crowd assaults us, and the realisation sinks in that I’m wearing a red dress that’s way too short and way too tight across my boobs and I probably look like a complete arsehole with too much make-up on and my hand still in this god dammed cast, I want to turn and run straight back out that door. And when my eyes slide across the room and fix on the pair of chocolate ones staring intently back at me and then onto Nicole White practically straddling the pool cue beside Elijah, I feel it like I’ve been punched in the face. Which is why, when Scott and his idiotic friends come strutting over to us like they own the place, I decide to do something I promised I never would again. I talk to him and make out like every word that comes from his mouth doesn’t make me want to throw up.

Nicole chooses this moment to play up the fact that she’s yet again sinking her claws into my sloppy seconds by laughing like a complete whore and running her fingers down the side of Elijah’s face.

“Looks like our exes are getting friendly,” Scott mumbles, sounding about as happy as I am about it.

“Buy me a drink, Scott,” I say, as I grab his collar and lead him towards the bar. “It’s the least you can do after the crap you pulled in high school.”

“You got it, Blondie.”

Holly seems to be hitting it off with the new bartender, who seems real nice and is certainly pretty enough to look at. We don’t normally have the luxury of having bands play at the Sugartown Hotel, but the new guy somehow convinced Dave that bands would get more patrons in the door, and so far it appears to have worked.

Holly and I make a show of dancing. We both agreed it was the right thing to do to support the new guy’s band theory. Best intentions aside, I know we’re both just trying to gain the attention of the two hottest men in place. I make the mistake of seeking out the gaze of one of those hot men and earn a stab to the heart because of it. Elijah once said he couldn’t imagine anything hotter than Holly and I together and, as the band blasted out a very sexy and slightly emo cover of The Divinyls’ I Touch Myself, Holly practically molests me in her effort to get the new guy’s attention. It looks as though Elijah is one step away from jumping the pool table and molesting the both of us.

Scott jumps right on in behind me and I feel my spine turn to slush when I think about the last time a guy stood that close behind me. Then I remember the way Elijah had reacted to that scenario and, with a quick glance in his direction, I excuse myself and head for the bar. He doesn’t make a move toward me, but I feel his eyes burning a hole in my backside until I’m sitting safely on a stool.

Holly stays on the dance floor and I’m okay with that, because it gives me a chance to suss out the new guy and see if he meets the best friend seal of approval.

“Thirsty work, huh?” He leans over the bar and his eyes are sparkling as he winks at me. He’s got a very Adam Levine kind of vibe—sex on a stick and just as cheeky too. “What can I get ya?”

“Johnnie Walker, blue label, neat.”

“Ooh, top-shelf? Either you’re in for a big night or you’re buying for the guy in the corner who’s been tossing them back like lollies and hasn’t taken his eyes off you all night.”

“Let’s go with the first one,” I say and slap a fifty-dollar note on the bar. I gulp down the shot. My stomach threatens a mini revolt and I have to choke it down again before it makes an embarrassing reappearance. After the burn settles all I can taste is Elijah, and my heart hurts all over again.

“Tonight, I’m drinking for Australia,” I declare and tilt my glass toward him in a salute.

“Thatta girl.” He refills my glass and shakes his head when I slip another fifty-dollar note from my clutch. “This one’s on me.”

“Thanks.” I smile and sip the shot slowly, and then, because the taste is so familiar I hold the glass beneath my nose and inhale. When I open my eyes sex on a stick is watching me with a half-smile and a knowing glint in his eye.

“How long has it been?”

I don’t know if he’s talking about the last time I got laid—which sadly has been never—how long it’s been since I had a drink—I am sort of acting like a raging alcoholic—or how long since Elijah and I broke up, but I find myself answering the latter, anyway. “Four weeks.”

“I think from the death glares he’s sending me right now that it’s safe to say he wants you back.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Yeah? So is life.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“That dance you two were doing, was that all for him?”

“Mine was. Holly’s though, Holly’s was all for you.”

“And this Holly, is she complicated?”

“Surprisingly not.” I lean back on the stool a little to get a better look at him. It’s kind of an odd question for a guy who doesn’t know her from a bar of soap, and I feel a flutter of excitement for her when I realise he wants to get to know her a lot better. “Holly’s a great girl. She’s calls it like she sees it, she doesn’t like to be undermined, patronized or interrupted when she’s ranting. She’s loyal to a fault and she’s been a bossy, nosy bitch since kindergarten.”

He laughs and shakes his head. “Wow, that’s really a stellar recommendation.”

“She’s the best woman I know. I hear she’s also fireworks in the sack, though that little titbit came from her, so don’t blame me if it turns out not to be true.” I swallow back the rest of my drink and slide off the stool I’m occupying. “Will you tell her I went home? I don’t want her to feel like she has to take me home when there’s someone else waiting for her.”

“I’ll tell her.”

I swing around and face the room, my eyes automatically searching out Elijah’s, as if they’re on autopilot. Disappointment washes through me when I don’t find them anywhere. Maybe he went home, or maybe he’s in the bathroom taking a pee. That thought automatically makes me need to go myself so I turn back around and say, “Oh, and if you break her heart I’ll hunt you down and rip out yours.” And then I strut away to the ladies.

I’m still laughing at the look on his face when I stumble into the bathroom and freeze in my tracks. Propped up against the wall is a young couple fucking one another’s brains out. Crude, yes, but there’s really no other way to describe it. His jeans are down around his ankles displaying a firm arse and two long muscular legs, one with a very detailed tiger tattoo. Her legs are wrapped around his hips. One of his hands supports her weight while the other palm is slammed flat against the tile, and his thrusts are hard enough to nail her to the goddamn wall. He groans with each one and the sound rings in my ears—primal, animal, it calls to some baser thing inside me yearning to be let out of her cage.

The moment seems to stretch on for eons.

Neither one of them has noticed me yet. Her eyes are shut tightly, and the noise of the door banging shut is swallowed by her moans.

“Oh, fuck me harder,” she cries out and I find I’m equal parts aroused and revolted. Also, I can almost pinpoint the second when my addled brain catches up to what my eyes are witnessing and my heart shatters in two. I can’t look away, and yet I’ll never be able to look at him the same way again. In this moment, all the bullshit that had transpired between us before seems like just that, bullshit.