Chapter 3

Chapter Three

The bar was dark and the air was cool and smelled like cheap booze and the lingering hints of cigarettes. It wasn’t overwhelming, but I could still smell it beneath the other scents. I stepped inside the building, letting the heavy steel door close behind me. It let out a loud clang as it fell heavily closed, making me jump as I stood still, waiting for my eyes to adjust. When I could see clearly, I took in the room. It wasn’t a big bar, just a small hole in the wall place with rock music playing from the speakers that hung high on the dark painted walls.

There was a small dance floor, but no one was dancing tonight. A few tables were setup and booths lined the far wall with a mirror reflection out towards the patrons. 

I took a step forward, almost falling, when I realized that there were several steps that led down towards the bar. I took them slowly, my heels clicking loudly on the concrete floor as I clutched the guard rail. My body was tired from the long day of work, but I was going to have a drink damn it. 

Making my way over to the bar, I looked at the shiny surface. It was painted a black that gleamed in the soft blue neon lights. There were a few men sitting at the bar nursing their drinks. They looked up at me as they approached and the lights cast an eerie skin on their skin, making them look otherworldly. Any other time, I would have been creeped out by their looks but tonight, I just didn’t have the energy for it. 

I wasn’t here for them, a good fuck sounded like a great idea for another night when I didn’t feel so broken. I wanted to tuck myself into one of the booths at the back and drown my sorrows into a few glasses of cheap whiskey. It would be the cheap stuff tonight. I needed to put back as much money as I could towards a lawyer for handling my divorce. 

I never thought I would end up alone in a place like this. That I would be thinking about getting a divorce from the man that I thought I would spend the rest of my life with. Yet, here I was.

Leaning over the bar, I flagged down the bartender. She brushed her long green hair over her shoulder before making her way over to me. She was pretty and her features were almost delicate. She had the kind of beauty about her that would make most women jealous. The soft blue light made her skin look like it glowed. Her honey-colored eyes met mine and she tilted her head to the side. Pressing her lips together in a thin line before she spoke.

“Evening honey, what can I get you?” Her voice was soft, but hard at the same time. 

I looked back to the bar, scanning the labels of the bottles that lined the shelf before l looked back at her. “A whiskey, neat.”

“I’ll get that for you. Did you want to start a tab? You look like you could use a few tonight.” She said, biting the inside of her cheek as she smoothed her hands over the leather vest that she was wearing. There was nothing on underneath it and it showed off pale hints of her tattooed flesh. The artwork of a dragon hugging the moon was inked into her shoulder and the top of her arm. It was so detailed that it looked almost real. 

I watched as she turned away from me, grabbing one of the bottles of amber colored liquid. She turned around, pulling out a tumbler and setting it onto the bar. She poured the alcohol into the glass before pushing the glass towards me with two fingers. 

“Yeah, I need more than a few.” I said, picking up the whisky and taking a sip. Grimacing at the taste as it burned its way down my throat. 

“I’ll set that up for you.” She said before looking at the men that sat at the bar. “If anyone gives you any trouble, let me know. We don’t get many like you here.”

“Um, oh, okay.” I stuttered, unsure of what she meant. One of the men sitting at the bar shot me a toothy grin, but that wasn’t what worried me. No, it was the way his eyes seemed to grow darker than they should. 

It had to be a trick of the lighting or maybe I was just more tired than I thought and my mind was the one playing tricks on me. That had to be it, peoples eyes didn’t turn black like that. 

I walked over to the last booth, slipping onto the red leather seat and scooting against the wall. I took a sip of my drink before setting it down on the dark, polished wooden table. Names were etched into the top of it, but I didn’t take the time to read them as I traced my fingers over the imperfections. Some of the names were couples with hearts and plus signs linking their names together. 

My throat felt tight. I was going to be alone. More alone than I had ever been before. I was going to have to divorce my husband, the man that I had wanted to start a family with. The mad that I had promised to stand by in sickness and in health. 

The man that had slept with my sister. 

My sister, who I didn’t want to see again, who was pregnant with my husband’s baby. Her sleeping with Nolan hurt. It hurt worse than knowing he had cheated on me. He could have had anyone, why did he have to sleep with Bethany? How could she do this to me?

If someone had told me this morning that I would be at a bar drinking alone while my husband and my sister celebrated her pregnancy. I would have laughed at them like they were crazy and told them that neither of them would do that to me. 

But now I knew the truth. That they would hurt me like that, that they’d been together for a while now and she was doing something that I hadn’t been able to in all the months that we had been trying. 

My sister was going to have Nolan’s baby.