We made our way across the room to where she was sitting. As we walked by, she looked up at Noah who was still singing on stage. He lifted his eyebrows at her in recognition and then did the same to me when he saw me following her. I waved and looked over at Max, hoping he was paying attention, but his eyes were closed, deep into the song he was playing.
After getting comfortable on the bar stools, if that was even possible, and ordering our drinks, Mina wasted no time in breaking her good news. She raised her left hand in front of my face and wiggled her fingers so that the marquis cut rock on her ring finger glimmered at me.
“Get out! Are you serious?” I screamed. “When did he propose?”
She tucked a corkscrew curl that kept falling in front of her eyes back behind her ear and told me the entire story of Noah getting down on one knee the previous New Year’s Eve. She said after Evie had died, he realized that we really weren’t promised another day, so he didn’t want to waste any time being apart. They had gotten a place together in the summer and the wedding was going to be in the middle of December, during winter break.
“What about Max? Who is he living with now if you and Noah have your own apartment?” I asked.
She looked down and I could see the sadness in her eyes. “Max isn’t doing too great,” she admitted. “He got his own place; he said he really didn’t want to live with anyone else. We are all still really worried about him. It’s getting better, but he still refuses to even talk to another girl. It’s like he feels he’s cheating on Evie if he does.”
Hearing that made me sad too. I completely understood how he felt. I had been leery to get a new roommate because I was worried that I would be replacing Evie too. I was still so scared about forgetting her.
“Maybe I need to talk to him… not here or anything, but maybe we can grab a coffee and help each other somehow,” I thought aloud.
“That would be great Scarlett. I know you are probably the only person in the world that can even begin to understand what he is going through. It’s so easy for all of us to tell him he needs to get on with his life, but he really thought she was the one, ya know?”
I nodded. I knew all too well what it was like to find out the person you thought was your soul mate, wasn’t ever going to be there for you again. It felt like this gaping hole in your heart had been torn open, and no matter how hard you or the other person tried, nothing could ever completely fill it.
My facial expression must’ve matched the gloomy thoughts crossing my mind because Mina tried to quickly change the subject. “So, you’re back at Rice with me, right? Where are you living? Why didn’t you call me?”
“I’m in the same apartments I was last year, just a different building. I have a new roommate, her name is Tessa, and she seems to be pretty cool. I really haven’t said more than five words in passing to her, so I’m not sure. It’s all kind of weird…”
Just as I was about to finish the thought about her not being Evie, large hands wrapped around and covered my eyes from behind.
“Guess who?” Max’s deep voice said jokingly. I jumped off the bar stool and flung myself in his arms. He held me tightly, oh so tightly, as if we were trying to communicate all of our hurt and suffering through the embrace.
“It’s so good to see you Scarlett,” he said as we pulled away from each other. “I’m so glad that you’re back.”
“Me too,” I answered honestly. “I’ve really missed you guys.”
Seeing Max for the first time in so long did, of course, remind me of Evie, but in all of the good ways. He hopped up on the stool next to where I had been sitting and patted the empty one for me to join him.
After congratulating Noah on his upcoming vows and saying hello to the rest of the band, Max and I enjoyed casual conversation until Mason and the rest of Jobu’s Rum took the stage. Seeing him stand up there, in all of his rocker glory, reminded me of exactly who I had spent the last twenty four hours with. My boyfriend was a local rock god, and a mighty fine one at that. For the first time in nearly a year, I felt happy.
MASON
Seeing Scarlett come out of the back in that flimsy ass sundress filled me with unexpected emotions. On one hand, she was so fucking sexy that I just wanted to show her off to every person in the bar and gloat that she was all mine. On the other, she was so fucking sexy that I wanted to tell her to go put more clothes on so that every guy in the place wasn’t thinking about screwing her senseless; she was mine. But overwhelmingly, I thought that she was so fucking sexy, I wanted to feel her tight little body wrapped around my hard cock again. The last twenty four hours had done nothing to extinguish my hunger for her. In fact, it had only increased my desire to have her with me every minute of every day- to make her mine forever.
I knew I needed to get her out of this city. It was only a matter of time before punk-ass emo boy showed up to reclaim her heart. The one he had already destroyed once before. I couldn't allow her to forgive him, because once she did, she would be his again. I would NOT let that happen. I knew I couldn't ask her to go with me after she had just come back to get settled and pick up the pieces of her life, so I needed to convince her that she couldn't be without me, so that she would ask to come with me. God, I prayed she would ask to come with me.. If I could remove him from the equation, I felt confident that she and I could make this work. She had no idea how much I needed her. She was the only one that could fill the emptiness inside me. I knew how easy it would be to go back to the way I was before the day I met her. My life was a party ~ a little drinking, a little more drugs, and a helluva lot more women. All of that shit was a temporary plug, but she was a permanent fix.