“Yeah, me too,” I say. If I head home now, I can get eight hours of sleep before work rolls around.
Everyone but Sean agrees, leaving him alone on the court.
“Oh, come on. I’m sorry,” Sean says. “We haven’t even been here an hour.”
“And it would have been less if we’d known you were in a bad mood,” Trent grunts. He’s the only one who can get away with calling Sean out.
“I’m not.” Sean tries, but everyone’s already walking away. “Okay fine.” He sighs. “Lana dumped me.”
“Ah. The age-old tale,” I muse. “Unsuspecting girl meets the heartless Houdini of relationships.”
“Lana was not unsuspecting, okay?” Sean chucks the ball at my chest, but I don’t move to catch it, so it bounces off and rolls away.
Ow. That shouldn’t have hurt. I need to get to the weight room. I wonder if the pull-up bar I put up in the shop is still there.
Grant retrieves the ball and puts it in his bag.
“Sure, she was,” I mutter.
“Whatever.” Sean grabs his phone and keys from the bench. “You up for a drink?”
I can’t think of anything worse right now than drinking withthisSean. But we’ve learned the hard way not to let Sean go to a bar alone when he’s in a bad mood.
“I got an exam in the morning,” Trent says before I can decline.
Which leaves me. Grant doesn’t drink, and we respect him enough not to force him into a bar too often.
“Great. Let’s go,” Sean says to me and is already halfway out the door.
Looks like I’m playing chauffeur tonight.
***
This bar was the wrong choice. It’s packed. But a bar with this many people—well, women—is Sean’s dream come true.
“I’m going to find a table,” I say.
He either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care. He’s already on his way to find a new heart to break.
I don’t have to go far to not find a table. There’s no hope. Everyone must be here for the band, but they are too loud for my taste.
I pull out my phone and message Juliet. I wonder if she’s here. She mentioned a bar. Maybe I could convince her to go out with me in person.
But if she’s only on the dating app because of her friend, then I might risk scaring her away. I can’t screw this up.
MichaelB22: What kind of music do you like?
I wait, but there’s no response, and I’m forced to listen to this metal-banging, headache-inducing crap people call music for the next ten minutes.
My phone vibrates, and I lift it up so fast I almost send it flying across the room.
NotthatJuliet: Anything but country.
Knife to the heart.
MichaelB22: You were perfect until this moment.
NotthatJuliet: Seriously? You actually like that twangy stuff?
