It’s strange how life can toy with a person. How the simple passing of time can change someone. How experiences can melt someone down as if they were made of metal and reforge them into something…new. And that something new could also be improved—it most certainly could—however, I often wondered if the reforging could render the metal brittle and breakable. If the reforging wasn’t a step above but simply a weak attempt to give the metal new life without appearing outwardly damaged. If the reforging was simply a bandage to cover the ugly wounds that were once disgustingly apparent.
There was no doubt where I would place my metaphorical smelting. It had occurred months ago during a time that I prayed I could forget, and I was currently stuck in a strange, liquified purgatory that left me…lost. Day after day, week after week, I’ve been attempting to go through the motions of sleep, eat, repeat.
I’ve been doing so out of necessity because…that’s what animals do, right? Sure, there’s some occasional exercise, depending on the species. Some act playful; some don’t. But that’s the gist of it…sleep, eat, repeat. Animals do what they need to do to keep their bodies moving—to live—to thrive—until they die.
We’re animals. Humans are animals, so I supposed that while I was trapped within the molten stage of my own purgatory, I could do just that…I could sleep, eat, and repeat.
But no. Humans need more than that. Our emotions…they go far beyond allowing us to simply sleep, eat, and repeat. They have the ability to make us run both hot and cold, twisting the monotony of what could be a simple existence into something far more complex. Into something that could bring us a joy so bright—so warm that it heats our body from the feeling alone. Unfortunately, the flip side of the coin of this is darkness. A hellish void that’s freezing to the point that we could be pushed to end it all. There’s love. Hate. Jealousy. Guilt. Repressed Desire.
That last one…fuck, that last one. I’ve felt all of the spectrums of emotion because I’m human, of course, but repressed desire is one that I’ve been growing increasingly familiar with. And that, in turn, is beginning to drive me mad because I’m a man that runs hot—I always have. I emote. My feelings are absorbed with the full extent of their power and worn on my sleeves for all to see, so to repress something out of what feels like necessity…it’s unnatural to me.
And I think it’s starting to affect how I outwardly appear to others. I think it’s starting to make me look…bitter. Grumpy.
Even now, I was grumbling to myself as I hunched over my meal—a leftover plate of tikka masala from the night prior—desperately wishing that I could push my chair backward to ease my aching shoulders. The idea was impossible, of course, because the stool, along with all the other stools that surrounded the so-called dining space, were bolted to the ground. I wasn’t sure if Corporate America thought that all of us were inbred criminals who would steal even the chairs in the kitchen space, but the thought of it irked me.
Truthfully, it had never bothered me before. The stools, I mean. But the tangent that I had unnecessarily ventured on within my mind regarding my molten state and repressed desire had suddenly made me sullen…and I was grinding my teeth together as my friend and colleague Shawn Brooks entered the break room. He strutted his way past me, turned to the left to walk around the peninsula of a white countertop, and beelined to the fridge. I watched as he grabbed an orange-tinged Tupperware that had a yellow sticky note adhered to the red top that read: Brooks.
“Turner,” he greeted me as he popped the lid and threw it into the microwave.
“What’s up, Brooks?” I replied, pushing my lunch around with a fork in my own plastic-ware.
The button-down shirt he wore had a blue checkered pattern, and it criss-crossed as he folded his arms over his chest, cocking his head at me. Shawn’s light green eyes, which offset the dark tone of his skin in a striking manner, narrowed at me in mock accusation.
“You haven’t answered my question from earlier.”
I took a bite of chicken, which had turned cold, chewed, and swallowed. “What question?”
“Tomorrow—you goin’ out with us?”
I nearly spat my next bite back in the plastic container. “I thought you were joking?”
His dark eyebrows rose. “About spending quality time with a good friend? No. Thanks for that reply, though—”
“Brooks,” I scoffed. “Come on, don’t do that fuckin’ guilt thing you do.”
“You look miserable lately, Jay,” Shawn groaned. “It would do you some good to let off some goddamn steam.”
I sighed, placed the top on my Tupperware, and snapped it shut. “Letting off steam does not equate to going to a strip club, Brooks.”
He threw his short mess of thick curls back as he whined, “Yeah, yeah, James Turner doesn’t do strip clubs. He doesn’t do one-night stands. He’s a committed man. Oh, please, Jay—you haven’t been with a woman in months.”
“Um…I don’t share my entire life with you. You have no idea if I’ve been seeing someone lately or not.”
“Oh. Have you been seeing someone, then?”
“I—no, whatever—look, going to a strip club has nothing to do with being committed to someone,” I retorted. “I don’t wanna walk into a place with loud-ass music, half-naked women, and dollar bills all over the floor—”
“Yeah,” Shawn interrupted me in a sarcastic tone, “that sounds like a terrible time.”
“Shawn—”
He gasped dramatically, his vibrant eyes widened, and the microwave dinged.
“You did not just first-name me. My first name is reserved for people who are so inclined to scream it out.” His jokingly shocked gaze flashed to me. “Unless…”
“Brooks, please.”
Shawn grabbed his meal from the microwave, walked over, and sat on the stool beside me. He shot me an uncharacteristically serious glance.
“Don’t make me say it,” he murmured.
“Say what?”
He sighed. “Fine, I’ll say it. I mean this with all the love in the world, but you’ve been…bleh since you finalized the divorce with your wife.”
“Dammit, Brooks.”
I didn’t think of her much—swear to God, I didn’t, but his mention of my failed marriage did make my thoughts swing back to Allison.
I thought it would hit me like a punch to the gut at the time. Mutually ending a relationship with a woman whom I thought was the love of my life should have hit me like a punch to the gut, but the sparks had fizzled out long before we inevitably called it quits. The main issue was obvious—cliché, almost—we got married too soon. I mean, so soon that my parents assumed that her father was walking me down the aisle with a shotgun due to an unexpected pregnancy kind of soon.
I wasn’t.
I was just filled with such an infatuation that I couldn’t stop myself from diving headfirst into everything Alli. Into her long, blonde hair—her bright blue eyes—her tan legs—the way she’d moan my name and bite my ear when I was deep inside of her. It was a toxic high that I had once related to finding God.
I have since realized that that God has quite the morbid sense of humor, but that was beside the point.
Happiness with Alli was so long ago that even thinking of it felt like a fever dream. That was before we came to realize all of our irreconcilable differences. She liked going out to clubs; I hated dancing and loud spaces. She liked the great indoors; I tried to go camping as often as possible. She wanted to immediately start having children; I thought that was a terrible fucking idea considering her penchant for clubbing. The woman loved to shop; I was trying to save for the down payment on a house. She loved attention; I was jealous by nature. She bought a cat on a whim; I was allergic. Okay, that last one wasn’t entirely irreconcilable, but I really wanted a dog, and she put her foot down—anyway.
We just didn’t fit together, and we could only try for so long to force our respective puzzle pieces together. It was two years before the fire that once burned between us no longer had so much as embers, let alone any trace of heat at all, and we respectably went our separate ways.
Or, that was what I fucking thought was going to happen.
The divorce—the legality of it all was what really smacked me in the face. Her lawyer—the lawyer that I didn’t even realize she had hired until it was too damn late to get a respectable one for myself—believed that, amongst many other valuables, she was entitled to our home. The whole. Goddamn. Thing. Not a dime to me. Now, I didn’t give a shit about the money. I had money. I wasn’t rolling in it by any means, but I wasn’t about to put up a fight for who won the television that we previously had in our living room.
She did, by the way—she won the rights to that, too.
It didn’t matter. It was in the past—truly in the past. It wasn’t the divorce that had put me in such a shitty headspace. I didn’t blame Shawn for assuming that—I also didn’t correct him because I didn’t care to speak of it.
“I am not bleh,” I argued.
“Then come out and have a beer,” he spoke through bites of spaghetti.
“At the strip club?”
Shawn swallowed and then nodded. “Yeah.”
“Why do I need to go with you to a strip club? We can go get a beer literally anywhere else.”
“Tommy suggested it,” he noted.
“Tommy?” I said the name with an upward inflection, attempting to place him.
“He’s in sales.”
“How’ve I not met Tommy from sales?” I questioned. “That doesn’t sound familiar at all.”
“He’s new,” Shawn stated. “Started on Monday.”
My eyebrows unintentionally raised. “And he’s so bold to recommend that we all go to a strip club together for an after-hours event? I feel like I should talk to human resources.”
Shawn laughed. “I thought it’d be good for you, so I said—”
“Don’t say it,” I muttered.
“That you’d tag along,” he finished his sentence with an admission, smiling wide with not a single trace of guilt.
I griped, “Brooks, why?”
“’Cause you need to get your mind off of your ex-wife.”
Oh, good God.
“It’s been three…almost four months since the divorce was finalized.” I assured him, “Trust me, my mind hasn’t been anywhere near Alli.”
Shawn set his fork down in his lunch, interlaced his fingers in front of himself pointedly, and made direct eye contact with me for two whole seconds before stating, “Prove it.”
I exhaled. “I’ll think about it.”
His teeth blinded me, and he smacked me on my left shoulder twice.
“Atta baby, Jay. I knew you had it in you—”
“This feels like coercion at its finest,” I retorted as I stood and snatched my Tupperware.
Shawn murmured, “Uh huh. Thank me later.”
***
The remainder of my work day was as it usually was. My used Tupperware was stowed by my feet once I returned to my cubicle. I clicked the black button with an up arrow on the right-hand side of my desk, lifting it to the appropriate height, which allowed me to stand as I worked. I jiggled the mouse to wake the screen. My glasses, which I typically wore for late-night driving and computer glare, sat waiting for me next to my keyboard. I grabbed the silver, circular-lensed frames, brought them up to my eyes, and went to work.
Staring at spreadsheets day after day, analyzing data and various other reports to determine the financial soundness of companies that invested in our services, was…boring. There’s no other way to put it—it was never a job that felt glamorous, but I liked it. I was able to put in my eight hours per day and not concern myself with the stress of working overtime. If I had to call in sick, there was no worry over who would cover for me because the work could wait. I had a decent salary. The benefits were good. The commute was only twenty minutes on a heavy traffic day. Like I said, I didn’t have much room to complain.
And though today was a typical day, I found my mind wandering more than it usually did. Perhaps it was because Shawn had mentioned Allison and assumed that I was discontent over the lack of her presence in my life, but I was drifting off to memories that I seldom tried to visit while I drove back to my apartment—the apartment that I had taken from Claire Branson and Zoey Sheffield.
It was the day that I was told that the house I had bought with Alli was no longer mine—that was the day that I had moved into apartment 2A. I knew Claire and Zoey well…better than well. They were both part of the friend circle that we had built for ourselves here in Salem, Virginia.
Claire was my brother Luke’s girlfriend. It had been approximately one year since I had teamed up with her, Luke, Zoey, and—for what seemed an inexplicable reason at the time—their across-the-hall neighbor, Liam Cohen. The skeletons in Claire’s closet had come to roost, and save for a few wounds that were far from superficial, we had all come out safe on the other side. Traumatized and forever bonded by what we had gone through together, but safe nonetheless.
And Zoey—well, she’s Claire’s best friend. Her old roommate. And I had a bit of a fling with her a few months back. It all went sideways when she fell in love with Liam…that wasn’t something that I dwelled on, for there are no hard feelings there. Not only was it months ago that Zoey had been officially seeing Liam, but it was impossible to hold a grudge when we had all been put through hell for a second time.
Just after Zoey had stepped aside from our casual fling, she and Claire had moved out of their apartment due to a break-in from Zoey’s stalker. A horrifying event that was perfectly timed due to my recent homelessness, I shacked up in their apartment all by my lonesome because they were concerned about the threat and just…never left, I guess. In a long story very short, we all attempted to find the man after I had moved in—to detain him and call the police, of course—and don’t even ask me how she did it, but when he began to threaten us all, Zoey ended him.
And I really do mean ended him. I saw the corpse. I helped toss him in the river. I watched him float away—we all did, along with Liam’s sister, Cassie.
It was a moment that was pinpointed in my life. One that forever solidified my memories to be filed in folders labeled as before or after its existence. It was my metaphorical smelting…and the more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I really was liquid. If I really was waiting for a mold of some sort that I could be poured into so I could begin anew. Perhaps, instead, I had already been reforged. Perhaps I had been melted and left to solidify in a horrifically warped version of myself. Perhaps this was it, and I was just fucking damaged.
I shook my head to clear it, the reminder of the things that I had witnessed and the impact that it had on me an unwelcome one that I hadn’t revisited in quite some time, and a glass of whiskey slid across the countertop to sit pretty in front of me.
After arriving home, I found myself wandering to Henry’s, the bar just down the street from the apartment complex, as I regularly do. The space was small and the lighting dim. Music often played so quietly that one would have to strain their ears to hear it, and regulars would frequently wander in and out. It was a watering hole that I had grown to love, and it just so happened that Luke and Claire were two of the employees who manned the bar.
Luke stood before me, his grey eyes—my grey eyes—squinting at me. I knew the look. He didn’t have to say anything to go along with it, but he did anyway.
“What’s under your skin, Jay?”
I shrugged, reached for the glass, and brought it to my lips. The liquid went down smooth, and the taste lingered on my tongue, wetting the facial hair around my lips just enough to keep the scent fresh in my nostrils with every sip.
“Weird day,” I told him bluntly.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Claire emerged from a door to the back room on the opposite end of the bar. She held an unopened bottle of clear liquor that I couldn’t discern, and she appeared wholeheartedly unbothered until her gaze quickly found mine. Her red hair was up in a messy bun, and the yellow light from the shelves of alcohol to the left of her shined through the strands, making them glow as she cocked her head to the side.
“What’s up with you?” she asked, setting the bottle down in its appropriate spot on the lower-most shelf and walking over to us.
“Said he had a weird day,” Luke answered for me, crossing his arms.
“Hmm.” Claire mimicked his motions.
I glanced at Luke. “I can talk for myself, you know.”
“Uh huh,” he mumbled. “So, what’s up?”
I chose the least prominent thought in my mind. “My friend from work wants me to go to a strip club with him.”
“Has your friend met you?” Luke asked, his eyebrows high and his expression amused.
The bell from the entrance chimed overhead, and I ignored it.
“Don’t get me started,” I returned, holding up a hand. “Told him it wasn’t my scene—he does not care.”
Claire chuckled. “Tell him you’re not going—he can’t force you.”
I groaned. “He made this whole fuss about thinking I’m hung up on Alli.”
“Ooo,” Luke voiced with a cringe as he ran a hand through his typically well-coiffed brown hair. “Yeah, no.”
“Plus,” I added, “he already told the guy who suggested the place that I’d tag along.”
A high-pitched voice trilled from behind me, “Oop, catch us up,” and I didn’t even turn to view her, for I knew where she was intending to go.
Her usual seat was to my right, and Liam normally sat beside her, on her right. The blonde duo did as such, and Zoey’s tiny frame slid onto the barstool beside me.
Before I could answer, Claire spoke for me, “Jay’s work friend invited him out to a strip club.”
Liam let out a loud, “HA!” while Claire turned to grab his and Zoey’s usual drinks. His mop of hair was thrown back, an arm wrapped around his upper stomach as he laughed, and he beamed as he stated, “That’s funny.”
I watched as Zoey pressed her lips together to hold back her laugh, her green eyes shining at his amusement.
“You wanna sort him out?” I asked her in a grumble.
Zoey argued, “Hey, he’s not wrong. You in a strip club is hilarious. What are ya gonna do? Ask a stripper to go on a date before she gives you a dance?”
“I’m not going to ask for a dance,” I clarified, grabbing my glass and taking a quick sip. “I’ll get in, get out, get back home. It’s a visit of obligation.”
“Uh huh, sure,” Zoey countered as Claire slid her a bottle of cider and Liam a beer. “Which one you going to? Red Light? Gas Lamp? PT’s? Rifle Ralph’s?”
Liam lifted his beer, smiling widely at her until he took a drink.
“Are those real places?” I questioned. “The fuck is Rifle Ralph’s?”
“All very real,” Zoey noted. “Rifle Ralph’s is full nude—you should go to Rifle Ralph’s.”
I glanced at Liam. “Are you not concerned about how she knows this?”
“Nah,” he replied in a snicker. “We already had the talk. If she wants to apply for a job at a strip club, I told her I’d do the same—”
“And I do not want the housewives or housemen of this town or the ones surrounding it scraping their nails down his body, so that dream died about a millisecond after it was born,” Zoey quipped.
“Dirty Dan’s would’ve paid well,” Liam remarked quietly, and Zoey elbowed him hard enough in the ribcage for her dainty force to cause him to cough and giggle simultaneously.
Luke and Claire laughed at their exchange, the entrance dinged overhead once more, and I peeked toward it with a smile on my face. My smile fell away quickly, and I took a large sip of whiskey because Cassie had just walked in.
She was tall. For a woman, I suppose—five foot nine, maybe five foot ten. Her brown hair was straight—like a curtain of rain that fell from her head down to her waist and fuckin’ shimmered. Swear to God, it shimmered.
I mean, fuck, did she put glitter in it? I didn’t fuckin’ know—doesn’t matter.
Her smile was…large. Blinding. It would scrunch up her slim nose and warp her freckles, pinch the corners of her brown eyes, and turn them into tiny slits. Due to it being early November, it was freezing as shit outside…and for whatever reason, she was wearing a crop top. It had long sleeves, but, y’know—still. The white fabric stopped just above her waist, showing off her stomach and a very tiny belly button ring. Her legs were long. Tan. I couldn’t see that they were tan right now, considering that she was wearing jeans.
Thank God she was wearing jeans.
No, I just knew that they were tan because we had met over the summer, and every day that I saw her, she wore shorts. Short shorts. Denim shorts. Black, white, blue, every goddamn color imaginable—you bet your ass she had them. Wearing that along with a pair of black high-top kicks, she’d stroll into Henry’s, say hello to her brother, and…I don’t know…exist.
Whatever.
I sound bitter, I know. I can’t fuckin’ help it.
She waved a white-tip manicured hand at us all, held up an index finger to signify that she would be right back, and strolled directly to the women’s room.
“Do you have to do that every time she comes in here?” Claire muttered.
“Do what?” I returned.
“Have a look on your face that screams that you’d rather her be literally anywhere else.”
I sighed. “That obvious?”
Claire snorted. “You’re not exactly a master of disguise, Jay.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that.
Luke interjected, “Drop it, baby—he’s just not a fan. It’s all good.”
“Cas can be a lot,” Liam interjected in an understanding tone. “I get it.”
Oh, Liam, you are far from getting it.
“She’s nice,” Claire whined back.
“Claire’s right,” Zoey nearly sang, her pixie cut tilting to the side as she argued alongside the rest. “Cassie’s nice.”
“Yeah, she’s plenty nice,” I retorted. “No qualms.”
“If you had no qualms, you wouldn’t glare at her so much,” Claire argued. “What’s your deal?”
“So—not dropping it,” Luke murmured.
“She’s…”
I considered my words, and nothing came out. Instead, I buried my face in my whiskey and shrugged. Claire grumbled something about me needing to play nice, and she wandered off to check on the few customers who were sitting at the tables to the right of the bar.
What could I say? That she’d gotten under my skin? That she sends my mind somewhere I didn’t want it to be? That I was wholly tired of seeing her?
No, I couldn’t say any of those things because the insinuation would be damning. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Cassie. She was fine, really. More than fine. Nice girl. Good sense of humor. Attractive as all hell, obviously, and there was no doubt that some sort of chemistry lingered between us. I felt it constantly—it was a low simmering that had started off in the base of my gut and warped its way up into my chest over the past few months.
I wasn’t an idiot. I knew what the feeling insinuated, and I wasn’t averse to romance—quite the contrary. I had considered exploring this…this crush with Cassie. I had given it significant thought, as I typically do with all things in my life. However, she was…young…nearly a decade my junior. And she was Liam’s little sister—so it could cause some sort of a rift within our tight-knit group.
Therefore, she was off limits…and that was fine. The crush that felt rather inappropriate at times would dissipate eventually. There were certain times that were more difficult than others to repress the desire that I held for Cassie Cohen, though…and for whatever reason, tonight was one of those times.
I felt rather than saw her slink into the stool on my left. It was where she usually sat—directly next to me, so close that I could feel the heat of her through my clothing.
Cassie reached for my glass, brought it to her lips, and took a large sip. The act was one that she repeated every time we were both at Henry’s—she would steal my whiskey, drink the remainder of it, and buy me my next round. She did it with a teasing smile. A playful attitude that dared me to, I don’t know, chastise her for it.
She did so just now, and even though I knew it was coming, the gesture twisted something up inside of me. It was the typical yearning that I experienced around her and, as usual, I had to stifle the urge to grab her by the back of her neck, yank her lips to mine to taste the whiskey on her tongue that she had stolen from me, and remind her that the next round is on her.
I closed my eyes for a beat, took a cleansing breath through my nostrils, and let it out—because that just couldn’t happen. Normally, I would shoot Luke a glance and he would get me my next drink, but for whatever reason, I was feeling especially weak tonight. So weak that I just…needed to go home.
“You have such good taste,” Cassie joked as she set my glass down in front of herself, taking it as her own.
“Cas,” Liam admonished her. “Stop bothering him.”
I sighed. “Uh huh. Good taste. Right. I’m, ah—I’m outta here tonight, actually.”
“Oh, come on, Jay,” Cassie complained. “Stay. Have fun. Please.”
The last word came out as a playful beg, and she pouted out her lower lip in a way that made me want to bite it. I considered her last word for only a moment until my brain damn near screamed at me.
“Early morning at work,” I lied, needlessly telling her, “Go ahead and drink my whiskey—I won’t.”
Luke and Claire griped from behind the counter, stating that the night was still plenty young. Zoey loudly agreed with them, and Liam mirrored similar thoughts aloud from the right of her.
I didn’t listen to them, though. I paid my tab, began walking toward the front door, and caught Cassie frowning as I chanced a peek back at her. She waved goodbye, I waved back, and I returned home to sleep, eat, and repeat.
