Chapter 3

LATER THAT DAY

 

“What do you mean you can’t make it?” I asked, knowing fully well I wanted her to hear the disappointment in my voice.

On the other end, Amanda sighed. “Nina, I’m so sorry. Kayla had homework. I sat down to help her and completely lost track of time. I should’ve called earlier to let you know I wouldn’t be able to make it.”

“You should have,” I muttered, watching a couple ahead of me laugh too loudly at something that wasn’t the least bit funny.

“I know,” Amanda said quickly. “This was all my idea. I dragged you out to take your mind off things.”

“Yes, you did,” I replied, shifting my weight from one heel to the other. “Coming to this bar was all your idea.”

“Believe me, I’m really sorry,” she repeated. “But you shouldn’t waste the night. Please. Just go in and have a drink. Use this time to forget about everything happening at home. Even if it’s just for a moment.”

My jaw locked out of frustration. “I think I should just go back home.”

“No, no, no.” she cut in firmly. “If you go home, you’ll sit in that big house and watch the man you married disrespect you by frolicking around with his secretary in your matrimonial home.”

I stared at the entrance as the bouncer waved two women forward.

“You need this,” Amanda said. “You deserve one night that isn’t about him.”

The words lingered in my head longer than the music thudding through the walls.

I exhaled slowly. “Fine. I’ll go in.”

“That’s my girl.”

“But if this is a disaster, I’m blaming it all on you.”

“I accept full responsibility,” she laughed. “Text me when you’re leave.”

I ended the call and slipped my phone into my purse. For a moment, I stood still, watching strangers disappear through the door like they all belonged to a cult having a meeting behind this large door.

The music hit me first once I got inside. It was loud, pulsing and alive. It swallowed me whole. Lights spun across the ceiling, across faces, across glasses raised mid-toast. Conversation overlapped with laughter, with the rhythmic banging of ice in metal shakers.

I paused for a second once I was inside. I felt like an intruder in someone else’s night life so I moved toward the bar to get a drink to fit in, because everyone around me had one.

The bartender glanced at me. “What’ll you have?”

I stared at the rows of bottles behind him, confused at what I was staring at.

“Something not too strong,” I said finally. “But enough to help me drown the noise in my troubled mind.”

He smiled knowingly. “I’ve got just the thing for you.”

I rested my elbows lightly on the counter. The wood felt cold once my skin landed on it. Around me, bodies pressed closer, laughter rising and falling like waves.

Within minutes, a glass slid toward me. It had a pale amber liquid in it and a thin curl of citrus resting on the rim.

I lifted it and took a cautious sip. My face immediately reacted to the burning sensation in my chest afterwards.

I exhaled and barely had time for a second sip when a shadow fell across me.

Before I could turn fully, someone had locked their lips with mine. A shock wave surged through my body, and in seconds I was frozen like a sculpture.

My fingers loosened around the glass. The kiss was firm, unexpected and strange. For a few reckless seconds, a few dangerous, breathless seconds, I didn’t move an inch.

I hadn’t been kissed like that in a long time but I snapped out of it when clarity slammed back into me.

I drove my fist upward hard into his groin area.

He jerked back with a choked groan, doubling over. Without hesitating, I gripped my glass and flung the rest of my drink into his face.

Liquid dripbackwards his cheeks.

Hands raised in surrender, he stumbled backward. “Hey! Hey!! It’s me!”

“Are you insane?” I snapped even though people were staring at us now.

He winced, straightening slowly. He was tall, broad shoulders, well-built for a man who seemed older than me.

“Aren’t you Melissa?” he asked, then got a reply from the look on my face.

“What the hell. I thought you were someone else,” he said quickly, fumbling for his phone. “I swear.”

“Does that make it better?”

He pulled up a Tinder profile and thrust the screen toward me. “Melissa. That’s the lady I thought you were. We had a dare.”

I glanced at the picture. A brunette woman in a red dress.

“Do I look like Melissa?” I demanded.

He shook his head immediately. “No. No, you don’t. It’s completely my fault.”

I studied him and realized that it was really just a silly mistake. He cautiously lowered himself onto the stool beside me but left a noticeable gap between us.

“Let me at least buy back the drink you drenched me in,” he said to the bartender. “You can tell the bartender to put it on my tab.”

I scoffed then laughed. “There it is.”

He blinked. “There what is?”

“The assumption you thick headed fools have that money fixes everything.”

I watched his eyebrows lift up. “Ouch.”

“You men,” I continued sharply, “think you can insert yourselves into a woman’s life, make a mess of things, even bring your whores homes and then throw money at it like that solves anything.”

He stared at me, wondering what was going on and then he laughed.

My eyes narrowed. “What’s funny?”

“You,” he said honestly.

“Excuse me?”

“You have this look when you’re angry. It’s really funny if I’m being honest.”

“How is that relevant right now?”

“It’s not,” he admitted. “I just thought I should say it.”

I rolled my eyes but accepted the fresh drink from the bartender when it arrived.

“I used to wear one of those,” he said quietly, nodding toward the ring on my finger. “Marriage can make you hate the world around you.”

My fingats tightened instinctively around the glass.

I looked down on my ring and stared at it for a few seconds before taking my eyes back to him. “So a married man walks into a bar and kisses strangers?”

“I said ‘used to,’” he corrected gently. “I’m divorced. Have been for a while.”

Divorced.

The word lingered in my mind as I wondered what that might feel like.

He cleared his throat. “And I really am sorry about the kiss.”

I twisted my ring unconsciously before letting it go.

“You don’t look like someone that belongs in a place like this?” he said after a moment.

I didn’t respond.

“It looks like you need someone to talk to,” he added softly. “I recognize this aura around you. I used to feel the way you do.”

My throat tightened.

“Can you not do that? I’m not talking about my marriage with a stranger,” I said firmly.

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

He left it there without pushing further. That restraint and respect for my wishes surprised me more than kiss had. I couldn’t remember the last time I requested for something and it was granted.

For some reason, he shifted the conversation back to his Tinder dare.

“She wanted me to kiss her the moment we met,” he said awkwardly.

“Who?” I asked, dropping my glass down after another sip.

“Apparently it proves confidence.” He continued.

“And you thought assaulting the first woman you saw at the bar was a good strategy?” I asked dryly.

“Hey, I said I was sorry. I really thought you were her,” he defended weakly. “The lighting in here is terrible.”

I snorted despite myself and let out a tiny laugh.

He smiled back at me and continued, stumbling over the absurdity of modern dating, how he barely understood the apps, how his nephew had set up his profile.

“You have a nephew running your romantic life?” I asked.

“Unfortunately. I have a nephew running my romantic life.”

I laughed. Not a polite chuckle but a real laugh. It burst out of me for the first time in years.

“Oh, so that’s funny?” He blinked, then smiled.

Still laughing, I covered my mouth and waved my hand at him to give me a moment. “I’m sorry “

The sound startled me. I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed like that. At home, laughter had been careful and mainly from movies or TV shows.

With Daniel, everything had become annoying and spiteful. But this felt easy in a wau that I couldn’t explain.

The door swung open.

I recognized the face from his phone instantly.

“Oops. Melissa just walked in,” I murmured while chuckling like a child.

He stiffened and looked pale like I had just told him the ghost of a family relative he owed money just walked in.

His phone buzzed in his hand. He glanced at the screen and quickly silenced it. We exchanged a look and the joy inside me wouldn’t stop overflowing.

Suddenly we had become conspirators, partners in crime.

“I should go,” he answered. “Before this gets any worse.”

He settled the bill like he said then waited until I gave him the signal that she had gotten a sit, then he stood abruptly, covering part of his face as if that would make him invisible.

I hesitated only a second then I grabbed my purse and followed this strange man.

“Wait up!” I called out while asking myself what had come over me.

Outside, the air felt cooler and the streets were quieter. The music dulled behind thick walls. We stopped under the flickering neon sign.

He looked at me, half-amused, half-shocked. “You’re escaping too?”

“Seems like the right thing to do.” I replied, meanwhile a part of me was screaming that I was married and shouldn’t be out doing things like this with a man I just met.

He laughed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I can’t believe the first thing I do after getting back into the dating world is to ditch my date.”

“Well, thank you for ditching your date.” I laughed again. “That felt good. Haven’t done something this wild in ages.”

“Same.”

We stood there, grinning like teenagers who had gotten away with something evil that we knew our parents wouldn’t approve of.

Gradually, the laughter faded and now there was this awkward silence between us. The bar’s neon lights cast bright colours across his face. I got to see that the lighting in the bar didn’t do him any justice.

He looked at me, and his blue eyes held my gaze. Before I could retreat into caution, I spoke words I never thought I would ever say to another man who wasn’t my husband.

“Would you like to leave here and go somewhere quieter.”