"Who was that guy?" The blonde girl asked her friend as she took a long sip from her mixed drink. The red head glanced around the hall and tightened her grip around the small glass in her hand. The thought of that brunette made her whole body warm with anger and lust. Their first meeting made her so angry, but at the same time, there was something so intoxicating about his voice and eyes that Cassadee could not stop thinking about him, no matter how hard she had tried.

Finally realizing her friend, Laura, had asked her a question, she tilted her head to the side and huffed. "We met at a bar once, kind of, and I offered him a drink, and then he looked at me like I was some weird lagoon monster, so luckily Christy had to leave so I bailed and haven't seen him since."

"Well one, he seems into you, and two, he's gorgeous." The blonde gushed as she patted her shoulder checking to see if the gauze was still taped over her new tattoo.

"The day some suit is into me, is the day the I'm going to wear a pink tutu and go tanning." The red head rolled her eyes in disapproval. Although her body ached for love, she refused to start dating now. She had just started at the local university, and she didn't need a man getting in her way of making this a permanent job.

"Shall I get the appointment for a spray tan, my little ballarenia?"

Cassadee chuckled and then gave her good friend a small shove as they entered their section of seats and sat down next to the two older men they were previously talking to about the local bars for after the game.

The siren sounded for the end of the intermission, and everyone that had left their row came back and took their seats in preparation for another period of horrible hockey. Moaning and groaning, the crowd gave a small cheer for the home team skating out on the ice, and then a loud boo for the opposing team.

"I hate to say it, but I could give to fucks as to who wins this game", Laura chuckled as she grabbed the straw from her soda and sucked out every last bit of alcohol in her glass. "I'm glad Andy gave us these to have a girls night, but fuck man I'd rather be at the studio with a good old bottle of vodka and some, you know." Laura gave her a small elbow to the ribs and a wink to imply what she was talking about, but Casadde already knew what she meant. And that was weed.

Cassadee had always been in the 'art scene' but the normal doings of her friends was something she never picked up. The drugs, alcoholism, and smoking were all habits she bypassed during six stressful years of art school thanks to the influence of her family. She did however have a strong tendency to drink countless amounts of coffee and chew at least a pack of gum a day.

Although smoking and drinking heavily have always hung around in her head, now that she had a teaching job at Carnegie Mellon University, she was not experimenting with anything that wasn't used in the process of painting, drawing, or sculpture making. And that really didn't leave much out, artists these days used just about anything to make pieces.

"You know I never asked you", Laura turned to Cassadee and ignored the booing from the crowd as the opposing team scored another goal, "How do you like Pittsburgh so far? I know it's only been six months and you werent hrilled about leaving your family, but I think its had its time to grow on you."

Cassadee shrugged and let her eyes wander around the arena. Truthfully, she wasn't thrilled with this city. She felt like it was a rip off of her home city of Boston, but here the people were a little nicer, there was much less stress from her family and friends, and the studio and job openings were way better.

"It's nice", the red head whispered as she reached up and started fiddling with the piece of rubber stretching out her ear lobe. Drowning out the words from the blonde, she thought about her appearance to stop her mind from wandering off into unneeded topics. The facial piercings and tattoos, it was a miracle she was able to get hired at such a prestigious school as a full time professor. Then again, it was an art school, and the students that these schools were turning out weren't that conservative on showing their rebellion and individuality. All of her coworkers had tattoos, but held back on the facial piercings, and the thought of gauges made them queasy.

"Are you listening to me, honey child?" Laura chuckled as she moved so she was looking up into the red heads spaced out eyes. As Cassadee shook her head, they both chuckled and started to talk about little things in their lives completely ignoring the game before them, much like all of the other spectators. Laura's boyfriend, her new gallery show, her shitty job at a gallery, and her dreams to go back to school to get her masters degree in graphics were all topics on the conversation. Once the blonde started to drink, she started to talk, and if you gave her an opportunity, she would bitch and complain until her face was blue.

The conversation lasted through the rest of the second, the second intermission, and finally ended with ten minutes left to go in the third. During this time, the score had not changed, and half of the arena was empty, including a good portion of their section.

"I'll be right back, okay? I have to run to the bathroom."

"Want me to go with you? Wouldn't want that tall, gorgeous, suit to kidnap you!" Chuckling, Cassadee shook her head and made her way out of the section and into the hallway empty of most people. All of the food and drink stalls had closed, and most of the screens showing the game were turned off. It wasn't a comforting vacancy, it was more of an eerie one that reminded the red head of several horror/kidnapping scenes that didn't settle with her stomach.

Green eyes focused on the signs and doors, she started to play with the small diamond above her lip and completely lose track of where she was walking.

After a few minutes, she saw the overplayed symbol for the ladies room, and as she started to walk toward it, bumped into another girl exiting it.

"Watch out, freak."

"Shut your mouth, you fuck." Cassadee calmly snapped back and smiled at the lack of retaliation from the girl as she walked into the bathroom and leaned against the sink counters. She didn't really need to go to the bathroom, she more needed a break from her friends voice and complaining.

Pulling out her iPhone, she opened up her text messages and hovered her thumb over a few names. She wanted to see how her father was, how her brothers were, but the thought of receiving bad news made her stomach sick. She already had more baggage than one human being should have from one family, she didn't need to be reminded of any more potential tragedies.

After a few more minutes of rolling through contacts, she took a huge breath and decided on one name all the way at the bottom of the list. A name that hadn't been touched in over two months.

Hey Danny, just wanted to see how you were doing, it's been a while, I miss you.

Pressing send, she watched the little bar under the name fill up, and a small 'delivered' pop up under the text bubble. Taking her lip between her teeth, she watched the screen, waiting to see the small bubble that meant they were responding show up, but after four minutes of reading through older conversations and staring at the small screen, she accepted defeat.

It washer fault after all. She shouldn't be bothering, she should torture him like this. He didn't deserve this kind of bullshit. He already puts himself through enough, her checking up on him would only annoy him. He and her were in a fight after all, as displayed trough messages from their previous short conversations.

"He-ey, thought you fell in!" The familiar voice brought a small smile to the red heads face. "Why do ya look so down, what'd you get your period?"

Chuckling, Cassadee shook her head and checked her phone one last time before slipping it back into her back pocket with her good hand. "Ready to head home?"

"Yeah, man!" Laura cheered as the walked out of the bathroom and into the halls that were slightly busier than before.

The two walked down a few flights of stairs until they ended up at the main entrance to the building. Once outside of the doors, the cold air of Pittsburgh whipped agains their faces, making then both cringe. Holding themselves tightly, they headed to the corner to cross the street to the parking garage where their car was parked. Once at the corner, the blonde gasped and started punching Cassadee's arm.

"Look, look, look, Cass, it's him!" Laura pointed across the large slab of cement in front if the building. "The suit that wants you, he's right over there! I think he saw us, lets go say something to him!"

"Shut your face right now!" Cassadee said in a harsh whisper as she looked behind her and came into direct eye contact with the brunette boy that had ever so great fully graced her with his presence at the bar earlier. As he opened his mouth to say something, Cassadee quickly looked away and dragged her friend across the street and quickly walked down the sidewalk, glancing over her shoulder one more time only to see the brunette staring down at his phone, which lit up the sadness and rejection that was smothering his face.

As Laura babbled about how stupid her friend was, Cassadee simply walked up the stairs to her car, ignoring her words,and checking her phone to see if a response had been sent.

Nothing.

Once the two reached the red heads car, they got in and with no hesitation, headed out of the garage and in the direction of Laura's apartment. The whole drive there was filled with angry words about how dumb Cassadee was for ignoring a guy that showed interest in her. How she would be alone for a long time if she wasn't down to take a risk with guys every once in a while. How she needed a good sexual experience to lighten her up.

To all of this, she simply rolled her eyes and kept quiet unit she drove up to the front doors of a tall apartment building. Putting the car in park, she looked out of the window at the brunette man leaning against the front of the building with a small piece of white paper between his lips.

"You're lovers outside", Cassadee smiled at Laura as she excitedly slammed on the window to catch the mans attention. With no luck, she quickly gave Cassadee a kiss on the cheek, thanked her for the ride, the fun, and the venting, and then ran from the car and into the arms of her long term boyfriend. As they shared a kiss, Cassadee sunk down in the driver seat, and before she set the car back in drive, pulled out her phone and checked one more time to see if a response was waiting for her.

Again, there was nothing.

With the overwhelming worry and disappointment weighing on her shoulders, she turned the car around in the closest parking lot and headed back towards town. Her first idea was to go to her studio and try to clear her mind, but as soon as she remembered a few late night studio escapades from her old studio, she felt sick and instead pulled into the parking lot of the last bar she was in. The bar that introduced her to the brunette that seemed to be showing up every time she had managed to get him out of her head.

Grunting with annoyance of the thought of the brunette boy in a suit, she parked her car in the lot behind the bar, tore off her Penguins jersey, shrugged into her Leather jacket, and then locked her small car and headed into the bar in high hopes to ease her nerves from the night.

But as she opened the door to the bar, and walked over to the closest empty stool, she looked up and noticed a familiar set of brunette curls sitting directly across from her. Cursing wildly in her head, she took a deep breath and did theinly sensible thing she could think of doing.

Cassadee walked around the bar, pulled the stool out right next to the man in the suit and sucked in a deep breath. Sitting down, she ran a hand through her long hair, and then looked over at the brunette who was already staring at her with wide eyes.

"I'm James", he gave her a sweet smile that lit a fire in the pit if Cassadee's stomach. "I think I scared you away last time before I could introduce myself", he looked down at the gauze on the girls hand, then up at her face.

"I think I may have done the scaring. But hey, I can get you that drink now, right?" She chuckled sending the man a sideways glance with a crooked smile.

Shaking his head, James lifted his hand and turned toward the girl making his nerves go crazy. As the bar tender grabbed two beers, he gave Cassadee a small smile. "That's not how I roll." The bartender set down the drinks in front of each of them. "Allow this beer to be my apology to you, for declining your offer."

Smiling, the girl nodded and took a swing from the bottle. Setting the bottle back down, she looked over at the man and had the strong urge to tear all of his clothes off. Not only was he extremely attractive, but he has the nicest eyes, cutest smile, and the way he faced her, leaning against the bar in a white button up shirt with the sleeves rolled showing his muscular forearms, made her want to do things that were far from her normal mannerisms, but she was neglected and far too stressed out to really worry about that.

"Did that hurt?" James whispered breaking the short silence between them. As he grabbed her hand and inspected it, the red heads defense crumbled and she pulled her hand back and nodded.

"Only on the bones", she quickly shrugged from her jacket, showing her bare arms, and peeled the gauze off her hand revealing the newly tattooed piece of skin.

"That's awesome, really beautiful, suits you well", James smirked and held back the strong urge to throw up all over the girl from the nerves in his stomach.

"Thank you Mr. Suit, have to admit you're not doing so bad yourself in the face department."

After a short stare between the two, Cassadee went back to her drink and carefully watched the boy next to her. The red head was never one for one night stands, but the feeling in her stomach, the way they were talking, the stress on her shoulders, and the amount of alcohol in her system practically begged her to make something happen tonight. Just once, just to make her relax.

"Oh?" James laughed, "What about my other departments?"

Smiling, Cassadee was about to respond when a familiar vibration ran up from the back pocket of her jeans. Grabbing her phone, she hit the top button and almost fell out of her chair as she examined the text on her screen.

"Are you-"

Cassadee quickly grabbed her things and ran from the table, dialing a number and holding it up to her head. As James called her from the bar, she blinked her eyes hard and started to Jo to her car until a familiar male voice echoed from the other side of the phone.

"Cassadee, I'm so sorry." With those four words, the red head started to cry, crumbling to her knees on the sidewalk just outside of the parking lot.

She had tried, tried so hard, and she lost him.

Notes

thanks for reading ! :)