Word Prompt: Lust
Scenario: Imagine you are working as a bartender on a Friday night. A drunk woman is pouring her heart out to you just as a brawl breaks out. A beer bottle shatters on the floor and a woman screams. What happens next?
The bar was hopping tonight. I had already emptied the tip jar twice and it was filled to overflowing now.
“Hey, man, you think you could grab another case of Corona out of the back cooler?” Jasper called over his shoulder as he served up the latest God awful concoction of Jaegar and Redbull for some chic sitting at the end of the bar.
How the fuck anybody drinks that shit I will never know.
“Yeah, no problem, on my way,” I yelled over the thump of the music the DJ was spinning tonight.
Friday nights at The Midnight Sun were always interesting. It started out calmly enough. I came in for my shift at eight like I do every Friday night. Changing into the standard black t-shirt with the bar logo scrolled across the back, I turned to step out of the office and was met by the bar owner, Carlisle.
He was a nice enough guy, not a man of many words, but he had been good to me since I started here six months ago. Carlisle didn’t ask questions about why I would move to a small town on the Olympic Peninsula from Chicago. He didn’t seem to care what brought me here and I was more than happy not to offer any of those reasons up voluntarily.
“Evening, Edward,” Carlisle greeted with a slight smile as he passed to enter the office, closing the door softly behind him, not waiting for a response from me.
“Evening to you, Carlisle,” I mumbled as I turned and made my way up the stairs to my post behind the bar.
Getting right to work restocking the beer cooler with the more popular selections we offered. I double checked and replaced all of the liquor bottles for any that would not make it through last call tonight. Jasper joined me before long and we caught up with one another from the week, as our last shift together had been the previous Friday night.
Jasper had met a new girl a few weeks before, Alice, and he was beside himself with talking about how he had found ‘the one’.
My thoughts on the whole sordid affair was simple….he’s fucking nuts. I learned back in Chicago there was no such thing as ‘the one’ and I had no intention of traveling down that path ever again. Period. End of story. There is no one, not for me, not anymore.
The only thing I was looking for now was a good time and a good lay. The one for me was whichever girl caught my attention for the night.
Some tried to tell me back in Chicago that I hadn’t found the one that it was all about lust and not love but I knew different. She was different or so I thought…..
I shook my head as I wiped down the high ball glasses and finished up the last of my prep work for the night just as the bar began to fill with the college co-eds looking for a way to blow off some steam from the week long late night study sessions. I remember those days fondly. Pulling an all nighter with my best friend, Mike, and the girl I thought was my one. We would stay up working on whatever assignment or test was on the agenda. She was a whiz with the science stuff and helped me study for my chemistry exam as we prepared for finals the week before it all went to shit.
I released a heavy sigh and ran a hand through my hair as the thoughts and memories of that time in my life flashed through my mind. It did me no good to do that to myself because that’s all they were….memories.
The fact remained that even after all this time, when those memories flitted through my conscious or when her name would suddenly be on the tip of my tongue I still got the same choking sensation and my heart would clench in my chest. It was testament to the fact that she was different. And I knew that I at one time, like Jasper, believed in having one person made truly just for me.
So how it was that I was now finding myself standing behind the bar after a hellishly busy night listening to the same chic, Jasper had been pouring the Redbull and Jeagar for just a few hours ago, spill her guts about the latest guy to fuck and run on her was yet one of the ways this night would go down in the record books under completely fucked up.
The things she had confided in me, like I was Dr. Phil or some shit, was beyond my comprehension as to why she felt the need to dump her troubles in my lap. I had enough problems of my own but I listened, nodding my head and humming in the appropriate places. She was so far gone that I didn’t think it would matter if I stood there completely mute and never uttered a sound.
“So….ya, this last guy, John, I think that was his name…..” she slurred.
Holy hell, the chic couldn’t even remember the name of the last dude she bedded and yet she wondered why she had an issue with them ducking out before the sun was even up. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out, now does it?
“Yeah, yeah, his name was James.”
Thought his name was John? I thought miserably to myself as I listened to her drone on and on.
“He was really nice or so I thought. We went out on a couple dates…..really, Eddie, he was a nice guy. But then he just up and disappeared when things started getting……intense,” her words were coming slower and she turned up the last of her drink before looking up at me through bloodshot eyes.
“Ya know, Vicky, why don’t you let me call you a cab and you call it a night, huh sweets?” I offered hopefully because honestly I’d had about all I could take of the young and clueless episode for one night.
“Oh…..yeah, may-“ her words were cut off as I heard the crash of a beer bottle and the sounds of a woman’s voice screaming over the music.
“Oh shit! Jasper! Where’s Emmett?” I called as I vaulted myself over the bar and made my way toward what looked like two girls squaring off against one another in the middle of the dance floor.
From what I could see one was a little bitty thing with long chestnut hair that for a split second caused my heart to stutter and I faltered for a half step.
It’s not her dumbass. She’s still in Chicago. Get a grip!
The other was at least a good six inches taller than the brunette with long strawberry blond hair and at the moment she was staring wide eyed at the other girl. Evidently the little brunette was the one breaking the beer bottle. And from what I could see she was about to use it to mess the blond up.
“Bitch, you better back up! I don’t know what your problem is but I’m about to solve it for you ,” the voice of the little brunette wafted to me as I pushed my way through the circle of people surrounding them.
As soon as I heard that voice I froze solid in my spot. For all of thity seconds I could do nothing but stare at the back of the little brunette. I felt Emmett bump into me on his way toward the women to break up the fight before one of them got hurt seriously.
“Alright, ladies, I believe that’s enough fun for one night,” Emmett called.
Though he smiled through most every situation and always seemed to come off as sounding friendly, he carried himself with an authority that most obeyed without question. It worked well for him to head up security for the bar. Emmett just had a way of helping people see the error of their ways with him rarely ever having to become physical.
Emmett’s voice snapped me out of my catatonic state and I moved without any further thought about what I was doing. Circling in front of the brunette I threw her over my shoulder and made my way toward the back door.
I could hear Emmett and Jasper calling to me as I stepped into the alley just behind the bar, letting the door slam behind me before I sat her back down on her feet. I had no idea what she was doing in this podunk town and I sure as fuck didn’t know why she was in my bar. I was furious. My heart was slamming against my ribs and my breathing was rapid and shallow.
Was I was actually seeing the vision of what was before me?
Why? Why would she be here now after all this time? I was completely dumbstruck.
I blinked several times, shaking my head trying to clear it, making sure that I had not completely lost my mind in the last ten minutes. I could hear her rapid breathing; her intoxicating scent was filling my nose.
She truly was standing right in front of me. She wasn’t in Chicago, she was here.
“Edward…” she breathed.
“Why? Why are you here, Bella?”
Okay...there's a little edit in this that is not on the Fictionista submission. I made a mistake and named Seattle in one paragraph when I had said that Edward had moved to a 'small town' on the Olympic peninsula so, I corrected that here. It's mine...I can do that. *wink*
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