WineBar: The Complete Story

by Alexis Angel

  Drowsiness starts setting in as I make my way back up the block, probably from all the Cancun-related partying and traveling. And the pitcher of sangria, let’s not forget that.

  Sleep, yes, sleep sounds like a decent idea. I want to just fall asleep and forget all the shit that’s happened.

  Because then maybe it wouldn’t hurt so fucking badly.

  Chapter 59

  Emily

  A good night’s sleep is nice, but it does nothing for a broken heart. Ice cream, usually a more effective cure-all, is also doing fuck-all for how I feel today. I’m still shoveling down spoonfuls of a tossed-together sundae from a large bowl while Lana watches.

  “You’re really not gonna have any, Lana?”

  “Maybe later.” Lana’s resting her chin on her hand. She looks like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

  Lucky her.

  “This is breakfast today. I don’t care...I mean, I don’t wanna keep complaining, but I can’t believe it. Still.”

  I consider the soggy, melting mess in the bowl. I throw the spoon down and give up.

  “Tossing in the spoon already?” I don’t know if Lana’s trying to lighten the mood or if she just doesn’t want to deal with this shit today. I, on the other hand, have no choice but to deal with this shit.

  “Fuck ice cream. Nothing can undo last night. I had my opportunity right there. Now it’s gone forever.”

  Lana sits up a little, trying to at least attempt to humor my grave tone.

  “Remind me, Em, what’s this opportunity exactly?”

  I slide the ice cream bowl closer and start in on it again. Lana tries to suppress a smile.

  “I can’t let it melt.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Exactly. Anyway, so WineBar, he’s right fucking there, standing outside a freaking taxi. He asks if I’m okay, and like gives me this look for half a second, but then he just leaves.”

  “Back up a little. He was around for the bar or something?”

  I shake my head, trying to convey how irritatingly unclear it all is.

  “I don’t fucking know. That’s one thing that maybe I could have found out. You know, if I knew how to play my fucking cards right!”

  I pick up the bowl. I’m feeling so frustrated with myself—with everything—that I want to smash it on the floor. I close my eyes, take a breath, and settle for placing it back down on the table kind of hard.

  “What can I say, Em? That sucks.”

  I sit back sullenly, crossing my arms.

  “To put it mildly.”

  “But what about before that?”

  I sigh heavily. I can’t help it.

  “What is this, a hypothetical situation analysis?”

  “Um, yeah, sure. Okay, so let’s say WineBar shows up randomly in a taxi for some reason.”

  I uncross my arms. I don’t know what Lana’s point is, but maybe she’ll have some advice to help make this situation less shitty.

  “Yeah, but that’s what really happened, unfortunately.”

  “Right, but instead of you being there with some dude, let’s say you’re by yourself, walking home, or you’re still in the bar with me.”

  I close my eyes and take another breath.

  “What are you getting at already?”

  “Maybe you didn’t fuck it up with what you said or didn’t say before, maybe you fucked it up by being there, at that moment, with some other guy.”

  Christ. I mean...fuck, seriously? Okay, I close my eyes once more, and now I’m literally seeing red.

  I open my eyes and give Lana a look that I hope says everything. She looks startled, but she tries to recover with a guilty shrug. I start eating my ice cream again.

  I think the sugar’s starting to kick in because I feel some tension drain out of me as I finish the last couple bites. And some motivation, for something. Not sure what, yet.

  I enjoy the last solid spoonful of ice cream, firmly put the spoon down for good as I push the bowl away, and stand the fuck up.

  “Whoa, that’s not regular standing, woman. You’ve got something to say!” Now Lana’s catching up.

  “That’s right. And that something is—I’m leaving.”

  “Wait, what? Leaving? Why do I feel like I’m getting dumped?”

  I pick up the bowl and spoon to carry them to the kitchen. I need to formulate my words and my plan, a little more clearly.

  I’m a top 100 romance author for fuck’s sake, crafting the stuff fantasies are made of—fabricating from nothing the types of love lives that most people can only dream about.

  But right now, it feels like all I have are dreams as well.

  After getting back from the kitchen, I feel like I have some things, if not everything, figured out. I walk confidently back to the table, almost strutting. Lana looks up from her phone.

  “Um, who the hell are you? And what have you done with today’s sad version of Emily?”

  I can’t quite force a smile, but Lana’s effort is appreciated.

  “She’s still here, just with a bit more of a plan this time.”

  Lana tosses her phone down on the table and narrows her eyes.

  “You mean leaving? Whatever the fuck that means?”

  “By leaving I mean going somewhere. For a while. My life’s too far off track right now, despite what I’ve accomplished as an author.”

  Lana shrugs. That seems to be her thing today.

  “Not everyone’s going to have perfect lives, no matter how successful.”

  I sit down at the table, push back my seat a little, and look at Lana. I know she has to realize the spectrum between perfect and the mess my life is right now is fairly fucking wide.

  “I need to get away and spend some time in the last place where my life was decisively not a mess. It might not make everything perfect, but maybe I can clear my head and start things in the right direction again.”

  Lana picks her phone up from the table and starts looking at it again.

  “Okay, I don’t know, Emily. I can’t argue with you.”

  “Why would you want to?”

  Lana puts her phone back down.

  “I don’t. I just want you to be sure you’re making the right decision.”

  I shake my head. I don’t want to worry about what the right decision is. Not today.

  “Decisions. Who the fuck knows, anyway?”

  “Can’t argue with that, either.”

  Thanks to that, I’m finally able to smile a little, and Lana’s smiling back at me. It’s probably the closest we’ll get to laughing right now.

  “Then it’s settled.” I’m trying to sound conclusive, because now I want to stop talking so I can start planning the trip.

  “Just one last thing, Em. Where are you going?”

  I guess I forgot to say.

  “New York. Naturally.”

  Chapter 60

  Kirk

  “Tell me this is not where you meant when you said we should go out, is it, Tad?”

  I’m somehow back at the same fucking dive bar, watching Tad scarf down popcorn. I’m letting him dictate my plans tonight since I pretty much have no clue about life anymore.

  “No, of course not, man. What the fuck? I’m not that out of it.”

  “Then what are we doing here?”

  Tad tips a handful of popcorn into his maw. I’m not sure whether I admire his ability to eat like an absolute fucking pig in public or if I’m appalled.

  “Pregaming.”

  Right on cue, the handlebar-mustached bartender sets a shot and a pint of beer in front of Tad. He takes the shot without even looking at it, as if he were taking a sip of coffee while reading the paper.

  “I could go for some coffee. That’s pregaming, technically.”

  Whatever beer Tad ordered must be light, since he drinks half of it in one monstrous gulp.

  “They probably have that here—some shitty drip coffee from the kitchen—and they also have some Irish whiskey to go with it. Th
ey also have energy drinks and vodka, whatever helps you loosen the fuck up.”

  I give the mustache barkeep just the right look to get him to come over.

  “Yes, sir,” he greets me, probably ready for a question about local session IPAs or coriander-infused gin cocktails or whatever the fuck kinds of queries he’s used to hearing.

  “I need a coffee.”

  This sends the bartender into a few seconds of silent chaos as he wracks his brain. He’s trying to process my words.

  “Coffee? Sure thing.”

  The barkeep whisks off somewhere, and a mix of cinnamon and citrus smells hit me out of nowhere. I swivel to my right and see the culprit—a young woman with wavy brown hair, a form-fitting light-blue dress, and playful eyes.

  I pivot to my left, to Tad’s stool, but he’s gone. I go back to looking down at the bar.

  “It’s so refreshing to see someone so well-groomed and in shape here, with decent clothes to boot.”

  If she hangs out here, she’s probably used to guys sporting stained T-shirts and bushy beards, yammering at her nervously with greasy bar food on their breath and desperation in their eyes.

  Jesus Christ.

  “Thanks” is all I say as the bartender serves my black coffee, along with an actual box of sugar cubes. You can’t make this shit up.

  Just go to a nightclub, lady. That’s what I want to tell her, but I know that I’m going to end up at a nightclub not too long from now, and that’s the last place I want to be right now. I can’t tell someone else to do the same.

  I scan the room behind me. Maybe I’m looking for a secret exit.

  There’s another woman staring at me. She’s sitting at a table by herself. Her long hair is dyed gradating shades of blue, purple, and pink, falling over her fashionably worn white T-shirt.

  I start drinking the coffee black; it’s instant and tastes like fucking garbage.

  I take one more look at the dyed-hair girl. Her face is stunning. And as she smiles, her features come alive with a remarkable sweetness—but it all does nothing for me.

  “You’re drinking coffee! That’s so cool,” the woman next to me squeals. Jesus, is she for real?

  I feel kind of bad for her. She could have any other dude at this bar any night of the week, but she can’t help but zero in on me.

  Apparently, I do the same thing. Ironic, right?

  An hour later and I’m still sitting hunched over a mug of coffee, except this time, I’m at a club, with a 180-decibel DJ set blaring through the speakers. The huge room is packed wall-to-wall with sweaty, gyrating partiers—people up for a night of intense fun.

  Sprinkled somewhere among the crowd are a few of my friends. There’s Tad, as always, and Susan turned up at one point. And there’s Garry from the gym—a young guy suited to these clubs with pulsing EDM and swirling masses of dancing bodies.

  Fuck, now they’re releasing fucking bubbles, and they’re getting all over the goddamn place.

  I feel two thin, feminine hands gently sweep across my back. What fresh hell is this now?

  I turn around to face the crowd and the stacks of speakers and whoever it is who feels compelled to start touching me. There are strobe lights and stupid fucking fog-machine fog making everything hard to see, but there’s a tall, raven-haired woman whose black dress is squeezing her toned stomach and giant fake tits much too tightly.

  She is coolly confident, and I couldn’t picture her smiling or laughing, like ever. She’s looking at me with sultry, ravenous eyes straight from some print ad in a glossy magazine.

  “Watch out for those bubbles.”

  I’ll admit, she has a way of projecting her voice so I can hear it over the music and growing craziness of the crowd. What I can’t place is her accent; it’s maybe eastern European.

  “Why do I need to watch out for the bubbles? Nobody else seems to care.”

  Fuck, she does laugh—a single, high-pitched shriek of a laugh. It’s nearly sinister.

  “They get in your coffee.”

  Is this real life? Because what the fuck.

  I spot Tad emerging from the crowd behind this weird-as-fuck bubble lady—he’s doing his best to dance, and he points his finger at me. I think he got her to come over.

  “Thanks for the pointer,” I tell her, then I turn my back to them both. I could be polite, but the coffee here is really good.

  And this is what I’ve been reduced to. Drinking coffee at a nightclub. This was totally my scene—should still be my scene. So why am I not feeling it?

  Why am I not finding the first hot girl I see and fucking her up against the wall in a dark corner?

  But I know why. I just don’t want to think about her.

  I’m not quite finished with my cup when Garry grabs my shoulders, with Tad gesturing emphatically for me to come along. Susan must have bailed, but I go with them, figuring that if I stay out late enough, they’ll be satisfied and stop bothering me with this shit for at least a week or two.

  Until we get to the next spot—a big outdoor space with string lights in SoMa—and Tad and Garry have streaks of fluorescent paint and glitter on their faces.

  Whatever scene they left behind at the last space, they could probably have a lot more fun tonight without me. Then again, if they want to spend time on this shit, I can’t stop them.

  There’s no coffee here, so I finally give in with cheap beer in a red plastic cup. I grimace into the foamy cup.

  Fuck. How the mighty have fallen.

  “This reminds me of fuckin’ beer pong,” enthuses Garry, making the most of it by chugging the rest of his own beer.

  “Sure does,” I deadpan, eyeing Tad talking to a group of women at another table.

  Two of them are looking at me already, and after Tad points, they all take in an eyeful. They’re all amazingly attractive and dressed too nicely for a crowded outdoor club.

  In another life, where things turned out differently, I’d happily walk over and introduce myself. In that life, I’d be having my pick of which one I wanted to fuck all night. Or maybe I’d take both. They sure as fuck wouldn’t complain.

  But in my life right now, where nothing makes sense, I’m beyond ready to just go the fuck home.

  “Garry, my friend, it’s been real, but I’m out. Tell Tad thanks. I’ll see him at the gym.”

  I don’t wait for Garry to respond. I just vanish through the exit, wondering how the hell I got to this place in my life and if anything will ever be the same again.

  Chapter 61

  Emily

  The barista at the enormous coffee shop by my hotel keeps mentioning this bar, the Aviary. He says I just have to see it for myself, that I need to experience drinking a glass of wine while looking at the view.

  The problem is that the Aviary’s at the top of a skyscraper, and it’s the most overcast day imaginable. And I don’t even want to think about wine right now.

  The other problem is that I’m in New York and I’m spending all my time on my laptop, drinking the same coffee I can get anywhere else. At least at this coffee shop there’s always a ton of other people doing the exact same thing, and it’s open until midnight. It honestly beats the bar in the lobby of my hotel, which is like ninety percent tourists every night.

  My newsletter is going out regularly over the free Wi-Fi. But after a couple days of this, I tell myself that I’ve had enough with being productive.

  After finally emerging from my hotel after a super late breakfast, I traipse over to Seventh Avenue and grab a taxi going south. I end up at the Pegu Club, which is more of a bar, on Houston.

  The place isn’t big, but there are quite a few hot, stylishly scruffy, and seemingly unemployed guys hanging around—most of them drinking coffee at this hour. It’s weird, but I have no interest in talking to any of them.

  The notion of bringing my laptop down here to do my newsletter strikes me, but shit, I can’t keep going down that road, as much as talking to and hearing from my readers helps. It’s time to get
outside into the daylight, back into the world.

  I leave and start walking downtown, not really thinking about much and doing some half-conscious window shopping in Soho, checking my phone every few minutes for whatever reason.

  Screw it, I need to stop...whatever this is.

  I walk into some random bar on Broome Street. There is low lighting, leather upholstered furniture, a fake fireplace, shelves of books lining the walls...and one man sitting at the bar—one very good-looking man in a high-end tailored suit. I’m talking a Freeway-caliber suit at the very least.

  I size him up as I approach the bar, slowly. He’s young, but much more put-together than those dudes up at Pegu Club. In case anyone’s getting nervous that I’m mentioning Freeway, I’m guessing that this guy’s underwear choices are agreeably conventional.

  The guy turns around, and I stop walking. His face is strikingly handsome and just a bit rugged.

  Then he smiles. Nothing overwhelming, just a warm, friendly smile that’s also hot as hell.

  But I feel nothing. I smile back politely, turn around, and leave.

  Luckily, there’s a taxi barreling down the street that I’m able to get so I can go back up to where I’m staying in Midtown and get back to doing the only thing I seem to enjoy these days.

  As soon as I get back to my room, I set up my laptop and start spilling my guts to my readers. Yeah, I know I said I needed to get out in the world, but I can’t.

  Forget going to the coffee shop and talking to the barista and dealing with all the other bullshit. Something about sitting at the little desk in my hotel room and typing is helping me understand what’s bothering me.

  I can write in my newsletter what I can’t even admit to myself.

  That this is all about WineBar.

  Still.

  The best part is not sending this stuff out into the void. The best part is hearing back from my readers, knowing that I’m reaching people, hearing their thoughts, and getting their advice.

  I wind up spending much of the day in my room, through the late afternoon, getting down my thoughts for new newsletter updates, continuing the dialog of what I really want to talk about.

  After getting some of that out, I feel better. It’s still not amazing, but it’s an improvement over my time in New York so far.