Chapter 69
Emily's POV
The bartender raised an eyebrow but didn't ask questions, just turned and started mixing something that involved way too much vodka and not enough of anything else. When he slid the glass across to me I took a sip and had to fight not to make a face. It tasted like nail polish remover mixed with regret.
Perfect.
I sat there drinking and trying not to think about anything, but of course that didn't work. My brain kept circling back to the same few images on repeat. Ethan's face in the restaurant. The way his voice cracked when he said he couldn't do this anymore. Alex's careful expression when he told me to take the day off, like he actually gave a damn about whether I burned out.
And underneath all of it, this creeping sense of panic that I'd just thrown away the best thing that ever happened to me because I was too scared to let myself need someone.
I finished the first drink and ordered another. Then a third. The bartender stopped giving me looks and just kept refilling my glass, which was either very responsible of him or incredibly irresponsible depending on how you looked at it.
There was a guy sitting two stools down, nursing what looked like whiskey on the rocks. Mid-thirties maybe, button-down shirt rolled up at the sleeves, the kind of calculated casual that screamed middle management.
He'd glanced over a few times and I was drunk enough, lonely enough, that I thought maybe I could just talk to someone. Just have a normal conversation with another human being who wasn't Ethan or Alex or tangled up in the complete disaster my life had become.
"Rough night?" I said, the words coming out slightly slurred around the edges.
He looked over and smiled, but it wasn't the kind of smile that reached his eyes. It was the kind that traveled down, taking inventory. Lingering on my face, my chest, the way I was leaning forward on the bar. "Could be better," he said, sliding one stool closer. "Could be worse. Depends on how the rest of it goes."
I opened my mouth to say something—what, I didn't even know. Something about breakups maybe, or work stress, or how sometimes you just needed another person to confirm you weren't completely losing your mind. But the way he was looking at me stopped the words in my throat.
He wasn't listening. Wasn't interested in whatever I might say. He was just calculating odds, running some internal probability assessment about whether I was drunk enough, lonely enough, desperate enough.
I turned back to my drink and took another sip, the vodka burning all the way down. The guy shifted again, closing the distance between us to one stool, and I felt that familiar tightness in my chest. The one that said danger in a language I'd learned too young to ever forget.
This was what happened when you threw away every social connection you had. When you systematically cut yourself off from friends and support systems and anyone who might actually give a damn about you as a person. You ended up drunk in a bar at two in the morning with no one safe to call, no one who'd show up if you needed them, and the only company available was men who looked at you like a problem to be solved or an opportunity to be seized.
The guy's hand landed on the bar close to mine, his fingers almost brushing my wrist. "You here alone?"
I pulled my hand back and focused on catching the bartender's attention. He was down at the other end, wiping glasses and not looking our way, and I felt a spike of panic cut through the alcohol haze. The guy was definitely closer now, his knee almost touching mine, his breath carrying the smell of whiskey and something else I couldn't identify.
"Hey," I said, louder than I meant to, waving at the bartender until he finally looked up. "Hey, I need—" The words tangled on my tongue, my thoughts scattering like marbles across a tile floor. "If I pass out or whatever, can you call my boyfriend? Wait, no. Shit. He just broke up with me. Can you call my boss? Alex Monroe. He's—he's probably in my phone under—"
The bartender was walking over, his expression shifting from bored to something more alert. "You okay?"
"She's fine," the guy next to me said smoothly. "Just had a little too much. I can make sure she gets home safe."
"No," I said, but it came out muzzy and unconvincing. "No, I don't—I need you to call—"
"How about I call you a cab," the bartender said, and I nodded even though the motion made the room tilt sideways. He was already pulling out his phone, already moving away from the guy whose hand was now definitely on my arm, and I thought thank god before everything started blurring at the edges.
The rest came in fragments. Strong hands under my arms, lifting me up, guiding me through the door into the cold night air. I thought it was the bartender helping me into the back seat of a cab, and I tried to mumble something that might have been thank you but the words dissolved before they reached my mouth.
Then someone slid in next to me and the door slammed shut and my brain, slow and waterlogged with vodka, tried to make sense of it. Why was the bartender getting in the car? Why would he need to come with me?
I forced my eyes to focus, turning my head even though the motion made my stomach lurch. Not the bartender. Wrong build, wrong clothes, wrong everything. Alex's face swam into view, his expression tight with something I couldn't read through the fog in my head.
"What—" I started, but he was already leaning forward, giving the driver an address.
That wasn't my building. That wasn't anywhere near campus.