Don't Fall

by K. S. Thomas

  “I’m very lovable, so that makes sense.” She marches past me and heads out the door, leaving it wide open as she goes. I’m out of sight, crumpled up on the floor against the wall, but I can hear everything.

  The knocking on the door.

  His footsteps coming closer.

  The door opening.

  “Good morning.” Whore bag Lane and his damn manners.

  “Spare me. I’m here for Tessa’s phone,” Drea announces dryly and I can hear her on the move. Knowing her she’s halfway into the apartment already, nearly to his room, prepping for the search of all searches.

  “She sent you?” He sounds surprised. And almost hurt.

  “No. I sent myself. You’ve done enough damage in the last twelve hours. We all need a break,” she huffs, and I can hear her stomp off, probably into the bedroom.

  The bedroom.

  I cover my eyes, but I can’t shut down my mind. Every moment of last night burns vividly in my memory. Why did the greatest sex of my life have to be attached to the most humiliating morning? And why does it just keep going and going?

  “Found it!” Drea yells, her voice already increasing in volume again.

  After that, the only sounds are footsteps and the door slamming shut as soon as she’s crossed the threshold.

  “Battery’s dead,” she announces flatly, dropping the phone in my palm.

  “Crap.” And I don’t have time to charge it now. It’ll have to take whatever juice it can get on my drive to campus. “Thanks.” I swing my bag over one shoulder and make a mad dash through the open door. If I get zero red lights and speed ever so slightly, I just might make it on time.

  I’m barely making my first California stop of the trip when my phone comes back to life, practically exploding with dings and jingles. My chest tightens almost instantly and I try to fumble for it with one hand, while managing a turning signal and steering a sharp right turn with the other. It’s not easy, but I manage to make it onto the main drag in one piece. I don’t need to check my messages. I can’t anyway. Driving and reading or searching for buttons on my screen are a bad combo for me on a good day and I think I’ve clearly established thus far, today is not a good day.

  Since I’m on a roll, I decide it’s time to face my fears and call Miriam back. At least one of those missed calls is from her anyway. The rest are likely Meredith who has probably decided it’s time to get me on the line so she can tell me herself how she screwed me with Lane. Wow. There’s a new layer to this I didn’t see coming.

  I shake my head, clearing the mental clutter and zone in on the dial tone.

  “It’s about time, Tessa!” Miriam answers sternly. “Do you have any idea how close you were to a surprise visit from me?!”

  I force a laugh. “Well, damn. Let me hang up. Pretend you never heard from me.”

  She sighs dramatically. “I’m serious. I was starting to get worried.”

  I know. But I can’t say it. Can’t even think it. Or all the feelings I just barely shoved back down will come furling back to the surface and this time, I don’t have Drea around to help me get a grip again. So losing it is not an option.

  “I’m sorry, Miriam. Just...first week of school...trying to get back into the swing of things. It’s been a little rough.” The understatement of the century.

  “Is that why you’re avoiding Meredith too?” she asks.

  “Um, sure.” Why not. It could be the reason.

  “You need to call her, Tessa. It’s about the condo,” her serious tone makes me want to hang up more than just about anything. “It’s important.”

  “I will. When I have time.”

  “Make time,” she presses. But, I’ve reached the parking lot. I’m fresh out.

  The day drags on in slow motion after I make it to campus. Today is the longest day of my week anyway, which isn’t helping matters any.

  I feel like my head is in a fog I can’t escape and no matter how hard I try to shake it off or stomp it out, my knees wobble under me like Jell-O every time I move.

  By the time I get to work, I’ve had enough with stewing and I’m ready to be productive. Money. I have a constant need for it, and if Meredith has her way, that need will likely increase in the coming weeks and months.

  “You look ready to rip someone’s dick off,” Cara observes as she’s waiting on drinks for her newest table. A bunch of golfers, retired and ready to get hammered. I like the old dudes. They make for a solid, laid back happy hour and they don’t care that I don’t giggle.

  “Bad day,” I mumble, dropping two sticks of celery into each Bloody Mary. “But nothing a good dick ripping wouldn’t cure.” I smirk. Cara says some of the weirdest stuff considering she spends all day with toddlers. Weirder still is that it’s always spot on in its crass and blunt way.

  “I’ve got a few dicks over in the corner that probably hang limp anyway. Don’t think anyone would mind seeing them go,” she says casually, filling her tray, her eyes lit up in wicked delight.

  “You’re nuts.”

  “No, their nuts.” She wiggles her brow and grins broadly.

  I roll my eyes and laugh. “God, who lets you near their kids?!”

  “A lot of people who probably shouldn’t,” she says, straight-faced for all of three seconds. Then she’s grinning again. “Now how about that last bottle of Bud so I can get back over to limp-dick city.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Speaking of being on it. Who’d you land on top of last night when all was said and done?”

  “Excuse me?” My hand slips and the bottle cap goes flying halfway across the bar.

  “Girl, don’t even try me. I was here. I saw you in action. I know you didn’t go home empty-handed last night. Though, that would explain the foul mood you’re in.” She takes the long neck bottle from me and waits for my response.

  “For your information, I went home alone. Well, sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “I went home alone,” I reiterate, not interested in filling her in on the complicated details of my current life.

  “And then?”

  I hiss in exasperation. “And then...I went to bed.”

  Cara leans in close. “Yeah, but whose bed?” She winks and takes off, leaving me to tend to the three guys who just came and had a seat at the bar. I’m so flustered, the first draft I pour for them is straight foam. I blame it on the frozen glass and move it along. After that, things slowly improve, mostly because I’m too busy to get distracted and screw up any more.

  Happy Hour picks up and Cara and I hardly have time to chat after that. Sometime around nine at night, things slow down long enough for us to devour some cold Chinese food Cara’s husband was kind enough to drop off two hours earlier.

  I’m slurping up slimy chow mein noodles when she starts in on me again. “Is he the reason you’re all dark and troubled Tessa today?”

  “I’m not dark and troubled Tessa,” I grumble, mouth full.

  “Yeah, ya are. It’s cool, I like dark and troubled as much as the next girl, I just really liked happy and horny Tessa, too. I think she needs to come out more often. Seems more age appropriate for you.”

  “Says the twenty-two-year-old married lady who spends most nights in bed by eight-thirty.”

  “Have you seen my husband? You’d be going to bed early every night as well if he was waiting in it.” She laughs heartily. She should. Beck is hot as hell.

  “This conversation is making me less comfortable by each passing second.” I shake my head and keep an iron clad focus on my take-out box, poking around inside with my chopsticks in search of broccoli I probably ate already.

  “Wait another thirty minutes and things will be really unpleasant.” She glances at the clock. It’s nearly ten already. Karaoke starts at ten.

  “Oh, God. I forgot.”

  “Hm, on the other hand...I think I just figured out whose bed you slept in.” I watch her gaze follow someone walking through the crowd. It takes me a second to r
ecognize him. As soon as I do, I wish I’d never given up my search for broccoli.

  “What the hell is he doing here?!” I slam my half empty box back onto the counter and barrel my way past the bar back and bouncer blocking the path between me and him.

  “What would possess you to come to my place of work?” I demand, stepping straight into his path and forcing him to stop.

  “I heard it was Karaoke night.” Unbelievable. He’s acting as if nothing ever happened. He would of course, because that’s just the sort of thing Whore Bag Lane would do. “Also, this is a bar to most people, not your place of employment.”

  “You can’t stay,” I say flatly. My stomach starting to churn daggers through the cold, greasy dinner I devoured way too fast.

  “I’m pretty sure I can,” he counters, though noticeably without cracking a smile or even hinting at any sort of charm.

  “Not if I ask security to remove you.”

  He tilts his head, his eyes narrowing. “It’s really going to come to that? You’re going to have your hired muscle throw me out and cause a nasty scene? How are you even going to explain that? I’m sorry, he can’t stay, I had sex with him last night? If you don’t intend to see your one night stands ever again, might I suggest sleeping with men who don’t sleep across the hall from you or teach your classes. My showing up on Karaoke night, with a hundred other people, to disappear in the dark and listen to really bad singing, should be the least of your worries.”

  “You did not come here to listen to bad karaoke!” I hiss, my face so hot I could melt popsicles on it.

  “I didn’t?”

  “No,” I insist, too furious to notice the corner he’s verbally shoving me into.

  “What other reason would I have?” The crease of his mouth slowly rises, taunting me. And I get it now. Humiliation. That’s what he came he for. Which we both knew from the get go, but now he’s going to let me deliver the final blow to myself and he’s going to watch.

  “I could report you for sleeping with your student,” I huff, my last-ditch effort to take the heat off myself.

  “You’d have to out yourself to do it, and we both know you loathe being the center of attention.”

  “You know nothing about me.” He knows everything about me. How the hell does he do that?!

  “I know enough,” he growls, his jaw tightening again. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I see my friends.” I don’t get a chance to respond, not that I had a snappy comeback handy, but he moves right past me, weaving his way into the crowd and briefly disappearing from sight before resurfacing along the wall at one of the many booths. There really are people there waiting for him. I can’t make out their faces, but I can gather by the table they’re at they don’t frequent this place. If they did, they’d know how the ac vent blows straight down on them there, turning anyone who sits at the table for too long into a human icicle. Plus, once upon a time, someone puked in that booth. No matter how much Lysol has been sprayed down into the cracks, given enough body heat, the stench always makes a comeback.

  “I don’t get it.” Cara is standing beside me, tray full of empty glassware. I’m about to be really busy. “He’s gorgeous. And, he’s back for more. Why do you look like he sat on your face and farted?”

  God, what sort of expression might be described this way?! “You know, some days it shows more than others that you grew up with seven brothers,” I mutter, leading the way back to the bar before I fall too far behind on drink orders.

  “You’re not answering me. Why aren’t you answering me?” She picks away at my desperate attempt to maintain any shred of dignity where Lane is concerned.

  “Fine. We hooked up last night.”

  “Obviously? What happened? Really bad jackrabbit sex?”

  I pause. Sometimes I need an extra second to take in the things she says to me. “No. Pretty mind blowing, actually.”

  “You realize you’re making me want to ask more questions, not less, right?” She garnishes the Long Island Ice Tea I just put up with a large lemon wedge and a cherry. Doesn’t matter how often I tell her not to add the damn red ball of formaldehyde to every beverage I place in front of her, she thinks they go in everything, thus, they go in everything Cara serves.

  “Here it is. We hooked up. It was probably the most amazing night of my life, until this morning when Jules showed up to return the phone he forgot at her place. Seems I wasn’t his first hook up of the night.” My shaker faces an exceptionally violent spasm at my hand and half of the lemon drop shots I poured in there mere seconds ago come spilling out again.

  “Damn.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But...I don’t get it. Why is here now?”

  I sigh. “Because on top of being my humiliating one-night stand, he’s also my roommate...and my professor. Thus, he’s used to seeing me every second of every day and clearly is suffering from some sort of separation anxiety now that he’s seen me naked and simultaneously learned said sight will never grace his eyeballs again. Or maybe he’s just an asshole who likes to rub in the fact that he’s an asshole.

  She shakes her head. “No way. I don’t buy it.” I don’t see why. It was a perfectly logical rant. “He wouldn’t be here to make you more uncomfortable at his own expense. I mean, he’s in this with you. And you’re not exactly hiding in embarrassment at the sight of him. Maybe if he was trying to make you cower in a corner somewhere while he was busy hanging over his next conquest, I’d buy the torturous piece of shit thing, but that’s not what he’s doing. There’s more to it than that. Trust me.” She glances back over her shoulder in his direction before picking up her tray to go make rounds. “I don’t think you know the whole story. Something else is going on. And that guy, is definitely into you.”

  I scoff, unwilling to accept the possibility. If I do, if I succumb to any scrap of hope, I’ll be eternally screwed in the long run when he turns out just to be the torturous piece of shit after all.

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he lied about Jules. And I don’t have time for liars. No matter how hot they are.”

  She glances out toward the crowd keeping Lane temporarily hidden, then back at me. “Did Jules actually say they slept together?”

  “She didn’t need to. It was implied.”

  Cara does a half roll of the eyes. “Well, yeah. I mean, it’s Jules. Sex is always implied. Doesn’t mean it happened though.”

  “Why? Why are you so set on planting evil little seeds of doubt in my brain, Cara? Don’t you think I have enough going on there already?!”

  Her nose twitches, giving every indication I’ve about robbed her of her last bit of patience where I’m concerned, then she gives it one more go, “You don’t know because you were in it last night, but I’m telling you, if you had been on the outside watching the same show I was, you’d be questioning things too. Because I saw the way he swept in to ward of that creeper on the dance floor. And believe me when I say, all us girls were watching from the bar when he pulled you close and you two danced, practically melting into one another. But all that heat fizzled the second Jules broke in and snatched him away. He wasn’t into her. Not even a little bit. So, I’m calling bullshit on Jules’ sex-plications. If that man knew he was going home to you at the end of the night, there’s no way he made a stop at her place beforehand.”

  “Dammit, Cara. Now I want to believe you!”

  She grins. “Finally. You have any idea how heavy this tray is getting? I feel like my arm’s about to fall off.” Then she takes off, shaking her head as she goes, long ponytail bouncing back and forth as she maneuvers her way through the crowd.

  After Cara’s impromptu therapy sessions (I notice people feel compelled to drop those on me a lot lately), karaoke starts, and the night goes from awkward to unbearable. Tonight’s singers are a new class of tone deaf and off pitch, and I curse myself, not for the first time, for forgetting to invest in earplugs yet again.

  I purposely
avoid looking at the stage all night. I don’t want to know if Lane sings. More importantly, I don’t want to know if he was the one and only singer tonight who didn’t make me wish I could peel my ears off and stick them to the bottom of my feet in hopes the ground would muffle the sound. Though, I suspect he was.

  Avoiding the stage extends to avoiding the door when the music stops. In fact, I don’t look at much beyond what little there is between my feet and the counter of my bar until the place is finally empty and our doors are locked.

  “Where’s Matt?” I ask, noticing now that our one and only bouncer appears to be absent.

  “He took off,” Cara says, jutting her jaw toward the exit. “Got pissed when I told him he couldn’t spend all night with his back to the crowd bullshitting with some chick.”

  “Wait...what? When did this happen?” And what else have I missed since committing to staring at my flip flops and woefully impaired pedicure?

  “’Bout an hour ago.” She shrugs. “Figured it was nearly closing time anyway, no point in bothering with getting someone else here tonight.” She laughs. “Especially not when rinky-dinky Brad is the only guy they’ve got on call.”

  “You’ve got a point.” Last Christmas party we had here, every single cocktail waitress beat him in an arm wrestling match. He’s funny though. Likeable. Doesn’t have to worry about breaking up a fight because he’s unusually skilled in diffusing them. Given the place is empty now, fights aren’t exactly an issue anyway. Hoisting all the heavy trash cans up to empty them in the dumpster out back is and we need muscles for that.

  I glance over at the one nearest to me, overflowing in empty glass bottles and God only knows how much weight in fruit garnishes. “Well, this sucks,” I grumble, tucking my fingers under the rim and dragging it across the floor to the back door. Might as well get the shitty parts done and over with.

  Using my other hand to pick up another trash can along the way, I make it into the small storage room housing all of our liquor bottles, as well as an old as time ice maker. The motor’s hum is so loud, I can barely hear Cara jabbering on about something in the background anymore.