"Go home, Anna. I got it."
Home. Jaime would be out still, over at her boyfriend's house, most likely. Silent, empty, lonely home.
I shook my head. "I'm fine. I'll help."
He rolled his eyes but let me carry the mixer to his SUV. When we finished loading, we bellied up to the bar and Darren, the owner and manager, slid us a pair of beers. We'd been DJing at Green's Tavern for years, and Darren let us stay after hours to drink until he had to leave.
We drank the first beer in companionable silence. Jeff spoke up halfway through the second.
"So. Problems with the boyfriend already, huh?" He spoke without looking at me, a Jeff-quirk.
"He wasn't my boyfriend." Isodidn't want to get into the messy details. "Just a guy. But yeah. The problem is, he's gone."
Jeff took his time to formulate a response. "And you didn't want him to leave."
He was trying hard to hide the jealousy in his eyes, but he couldn't quite manage it. At least, not from me.
"It's complicated. It wasn't anything. Just one night. But then he had to leave, and he won't be back. Sucks."
Jeff spoke in short sentences, sometimes leaving out words. I had a tendency to start sounding like Jeff after a while.
"Sorry to hear it. He was good for you?"
Jeff was being careful. He knew I knew about his feelings for me, and he also knew I wasn't interested. What he didn't know was my mind and body seemed to be changing their minds.
"Yeah. He was great for me. Treated me like I was beautiful."
"That's 'cause you are." The words seemed to slip past his lips as if he'd tried to hold them back. "Shit." This last was mumbled into the mouth of his beer bottle.
I twisted on my stool to look at him. Our knees were almost touching, but not quite. I could feel the space between our knees as if static electricity was sparking between us.
"I am?" I tried not to make it sound flirty, but didn't succeed.
Jeff drained his beer and popped the top of the third. Darren had left a few on the bar for us while he counted the register. His actions were short and jerky, the bottle clinking against his teeth as he lifted it to his lips.
"Don't, Anna. Not if you don't mean it." He was examining the bar top as if it held an answer. "You know how I feel. So don't."
"How do you feel?" I wasn't looking at him either. It was just easier.
Jeff didn't answer for a long time. "Quit playing games with me," he said, eventually.
I shifted my legs so our knees touched. Jeff jerked, as if the contact had physically shocked him.
"Damn it, Anna. Don't fuck with me." Jeff stood up and slammed his beer bottle down. "I need a shot, goddamn it."
"I'm not playing games, Jeff. I promise."
"Then what is this? What are you doing? I've spent six years as your friend and partner, nothing more. I haven't—what I feel hasn't changed in all that time. But now, suddenly...you—" Jeff reached over the bar and pulled a bottle of whiskey out, found a shot glass and poured a finger into it; he slammed the shot, and then poured one for me. "Times like this I miss smoking."
He'd quit cigarettes two years before, and I'd never heard him voice a craving. He'd also never drank anything but beer or Jaeger.
Darren was at the end of the bar watching us. He'd nodded at Jeff when he first grabbed the bottle. I was feeling dizzy, now, but I didn't stop. I finished my beer and grabbed another. The dizziness was welcome, the lightheaded forgetting a pleasant distraction from my emotional turmoil.
Jeff was facing away from me, staring out the window into the darkness of an empty street, traffic light cycling from red to green.
"You're just using me as a crutch to get over what's his name," Jeff said, apropos of nothing. "Not fair to me."
I stood up unsteadily and made my way next to Jeff. I didn't touch him, although I wanted to.
