“Oh, I believe I’ve had about all I could possibly want from you,” I barely said, but it was enough to catch her attention.
She stopped, straightened, her hair shifted off her shoulders as she whipped back around and came stomping up to me like a five-year-old. I tried to fight the grin that spread across my face but couldn’t.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?” she asked, a foot from my face. I ignored the way my pulse raced at her proximity.
“I apologize,” I said, leaning in further. “I’ll speak more clearly then. You couldn’t give me anything you haven’t already. You’re quite the generous hostess, it seems.”
And the facade finally breaks. “You’ve got a lot of nerve! You know that?”
I fell to the back of my heels, wrapping my arms in front of me.
“You kissed me back!” she continued. “I was there! I know when someone kisses me back and you kissed me back, Thomas Eriksson!”
I avoided eye contact, glancing to my right a bit, and noticed a waitress getting ready to pass with a tray of drinks.
“Excuse me, miss?” I said, leaning around the statue that was January. The waitress offered me the tray and I took a cold Heineken. “Thank you.”
January’s face and neck burned a bright red. At any moment, I suspected steam would start pouring from her ears.
I took a swig of beer before answering, still avoiding eye contact. “I didn’t kiss you back.”
She leaned into me, inches from touching me, making my blood pressure spike to unhealthy levels. “You did. I felt you did,” she whispered. “Trust me, there’s nothing you can do or say or even pretend that could convince me otherwise.”
“You tell yourself whatever you need to in order to make you believe that, January, if it makes you feel better. Justify slutty behavior however you wish.”
She stumbled back, hit hard by my unfeeling words. I closed my eyes briefly. I immediately regretted hurting this virtual stranger. I felt physically ill at the lie. I didn’t really feel that way, in fact. Truthfully, that girl just brought something out of me I couldn’t control and it scared the shit out of me.
“You’re an ass**le,” she whispered, her eyes glassy. She turned and stalked away toward the stage once more.
I reached for her but didn’t reach far enough. Every second she walked away I felt too ashamed to apologize to her. I was a coward. I knew it. Never too late to do the right thing. I started walking her direction but noticed she’d walked straight up to Casey from The Belle Jar and started sobbing into his shoulder. Shit! I am an ass**le! When Casey saw me coming, he sat January at the edge of the stage with his girlfriend Sunny and came at me like a bull and I was waving a red flag.
“Can I talk to you, dude?” Casey asked, fury built in his eyes.
I led him to a nearby table. “Listen,” I began but he interrupted me.
“No, you listen,” he said, incensed, “I don’t care if you helped my band get to where it is, and I also don’t know what the hell you and January have going on. Frankly, I find it odd because she claims she doesn’t know you, but somehow you can make someone I’ve never seen cry in the three years I’ve known her, cry and trust me, she’s had plenty of reason to. Now why, I ask you, is she over there bawling her eyes out?”
“There’s no reason, truthfully. I owe her an apology. We...butt heads.”
“Why?” he asked, his eyes narrowed.
“No reason. Haven’t you ever met someone you didn’t like?” Or really liked but didn’t want to?
“I have but that person has never been January, for me or anyone else for that matter. What’s wrong with you, Tom? January is literally the best girl I’ve met in my life and I’ve met a lot of girls in this business.” He took a deep breath. “Seriously, January MacLochlainn is a freaking saint.”
The guilt started weighing hard on my chest then. I was taking my pissed off nature out on a beautiful, innocent, amazing girl for no other reason than I didn’t want to find her beautiful, innocent or amazing. I wanted my hate back. I stood up and squeezed Casey’s shoulder.
“I’ll apologize to her. I’m sincerely sorry for the shit I just pulled.”
“Good,” he said, calming down. “God, Tom, I always knew you were a bit of an ass, but I’ve never seen you do something so low.”
“I know, dude. I’m ashamed. I’ll go apologize right now.”
I walked January’s direction. She saw me coming and stood taller, not wanting me to see I’d affected her. She subtly wiped the tears from underneath her eyes, but it didn’t help, they were still red, sending me down another shame spiral. I could do this. The old Tom could have done this with amazing ease.
“January,” I said softly.
“Yes?” she asked coldly.
“Can I talk to you outside for a moment?”
“No.”
“Please?” I begged her pathetically.
She sighed deeply. “I guess,” she said, letting me lead her outside.
When we reached the sidewalk, I led her a little farther down away from the noise of the club, stopping right underneath a street light. The light bathed her head like a crown. A saint, Casey had said. “I’m so sorry,” I said genuinely. “I didn’t mean any of the shit I said.”
“It’s okay,” she said a bit more warmly than her earlier tone, but she still refused to meet my eyes.