The Things No One Else Sees

She was on the bar in a short skirt. He slumped down in the chair a few tables back and ran a hand roughly through his hair. The club was loud and the music was pounding, and he really wished he had stayed in because watching his girlfriend flash her panties to half the room was not his idea of a good time.

Destiny was his type all over--tall, blonde, gorgeous, flirtatious. He’d met her at a club about a month ago and she’d latched onto him immediately. He couldn’t lie, having a beautiful woman treat you like you were a king felt amazing. Except the treating him like a king part had only lasted a couple weeks. Now she liberally spent his money and flirted with every guy in sight. He didn’t think she was cheating--yet--but she certainly liked attention.

He’d had three drinks and wasn’t drunk enough to deal with her bullshit tonight. But he didn’t want to leave because he cared about her and didn’t want to hear about her going home with someone else tomorrow during practice. Half the team had gone out to the club and he almost felt ashamed that his girlfriend was showing off the goods to his teammates.

Standing up, he turned his back as she bent over and flashed her panties to everyone behind her. His stomach felt sick. There was a quiet alcove in the back of the room near the bathrooms. He’d just go find a table and gather his thoughts away from the pounding music, and then he’d march over there, pull her off the bar, and take her home.

All of the three tables in the back were occupied. The smallest one only had one person--a woman with shoulder-length black hair in ringlet curls with bang swept off to the side. She was in a pair of jeans and a sequined top that was falling off her shoulder. Thick, black-framed glasses were perched on her nose. He recognized her as his friend Jacob’s cousin. Lucy was her name. She would occasionally tag along with Jacob when they went out because the two were close. Joff had spoken with her a couple times before, but the two of them didn’t seem to have much in common.

He plopped down in the chair across from her. She watched him with her dark eyes. “What’s up with you, Lupul?” she asked in her sweet little voice. Now he remembered why they didn’t talk much. He always felt like she was judging him.

“Tired,” he replied. “Why are you back here by yourself?”

“I’m not. Dennis went to the bathroom.”

Joffrey racked his brain, trying to remember who Dennis was. Suddenly, he put a face with the name. Her boyfriend. Jacob had told him a few weeks ago that his cousin had been dating a guy for about a month. “Sorry, I took his chair,” Joff said.

Lucy shrugged. “It’s fine. Where’s Destiny?”

“On the bar.”

Lucy grimaced and took a sip of her cocktail. “You know how to pick ‘em, don’t you?”

“She’s just had too much to drink.”

The woman across from him raised her brows as the corners of her mouth lifted slightly. “Sure. Whatever you say.”

Her comment irritated him. Who gave a fuck what little Miss Perfect thought? She was probably just jealous of Destiny. Lucy was a pretty girl, but was ordinary in almost every respect. He’d never really paid much attention to her and most other guys probably treated her the same. Destiny got attention wherever she went with her long, blonde hair and her double D tits. Plus, she was way more friendly than Lucy who just had dark eyes and judgement.

“Fuck you, Lucy,” he said, pushing himself up from the table. “Mind your own business.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I was before you came back here and sat at my table, Lupul.”

Joff turned away with a stiff back and walked over to the bar. His fingers curled into fists when he saw a man in a baseball cap try to shove a dollar into the waistband of Destiny’s skirt. She laughed at him and took the dollar, tucking it in herself before flipping her mane of blonde hair around into his face.

Goddammit. He stormed over to the bar and grabbed her hand. She looked down at him, winked, then smiled. “Hey, baby,” she purred. “Wanna dance?”

“No. I want to go.”

“But I’m having fun,” she whined.

Joff clenched his teeth. “I’m not. Can we go?” Before she could respond, he grabbed her around the legs and pulled her off the bar, sliding her down to the floor easily. Half her weight was probably in her chest.

“Don’t be such a buzzkill,” Destiny said, running her hands up his chest and over his shoulders. “Come on, daddy.”

He could feel his anger slipping. She knew how to work him, how to make him feel like he was important. “Let’s go back to my place, baby. You’re making me crazy.” And she was making him crazy. He wanted to deck every guy in the club for looking at her almost as much as he wanted to hike her little skirt up and pull her panties to the side so he could fuck her against the wall.

Destiny grinned. “Okay. Let’s go back to your place.”

Joff’s smile was more like a grimace as he pulled her out of the club and out to his car. It always happened this away. He and Destiny had been playing out this scene for two months. He wondered when it would get old.

**********************************

Two months and two weeks and it was getting old. They were at a bar after a game and Destiny was drunk and standing on a chair as she swayed her hips to the beat of the live music. He’d knocked back five beers as soon as they walked in the door. He had a buzz, but that didn’t make him feel any better about her antics.

Turning his back on her, he waved for another beer. His personal life seemed like a cycle of women that were absolutely no good. Destiny was just the latest in a long line of women who all needed the attention of everyone in the room. At first it was attractive, but after a few weeks it was just exhausting.

Joff looked over to the left and saw Lucy three stools away. Her boyfriend was beside her. He looked like an asshole--long hair pulled back in a low ponytail, silver rings on his hands, and tattoos up his forearms. He watched Dennis lean in and whisper something to Lucy before pushing away from the bar and walking toward the bathroom.

Lucy looked miserable for a fleeting moment. It was almost shocking. She always seemed so together and aloof. He felt like shit after watching Destiny eye-fuck the entire place, so he got up and moved down the bar to take Dennis’ stool. “Hey,” he said.

She looked over at him. “Hey,” she replied before turning her eyes back to her drink.

“Where’d your boyfriend go?”

“Away.” She looked extremely unhappy.

“Where to?”

“Probably the bathroom. Where’d your girlfriend go?”

Joff looked over his shoulder. “She’s on a chair over there. Easy to spot.”

Lucy look behind her and shook her head. “Hey, at least you always know where she is.”

“And what color underwear she’s wearing,” Joff replied.

She laughed and turned back around to stare at her drink again.

“So, Jacob said you and Dennis have been together for a month.”

“Yeah,” she said. The word was loaded, like she wanted to say a lot more, but stopped herself. They sat in silence for a long moment before she said, “I’m breaking up with him.”

Joff looked at her with wide eyes. What was she talking about? They had looked pretty cozy a few minutes ago. “Like now?”

“Soon.”

“Why?”

She dropped her forehead to the bar, her shoulders hunched over. He looked down at her, wondering where the judgmental cousin of Jacob’s had gone.

“He’s in the bathroom doing... I don’t know... cocaine or whatever. I just found out yesterday that he’s some druggie.” Her voice was muffled because she was still bent over the bar.

Joff didn’t know what to say. “Oh, wow. I didn’t know.”

“Yeah. I can’t have that shit in my life. I just have to figure out a good time to... give him the boot.”

“Sorry.”

Lucy lifted her head and waved the apology off. “He’s kind of a dick anyway.”

Joff smiled at her. “If it makes you feel any better, my girlfriend is giving every guy in the bar a show over there.”

“Every guy but you,” she agreed.

He sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

“Your type though, I guess.”

Joff glanced over at her. “What do you mean?”

“She’s your type. Blonde, big boobs, short skirt, high heels, attention whore. As soon as you break up with her, I can predict the next one with astounding accuracy.”

Her comment rocked him back on his proverbial heels. “I don’t have a type.”

Lucy laughed. “Oh, Lupul, please. You totally do.”

He opened his mouth to deny it again, but she might have a point. He looked over his shoulder at Destiny. Someone had brought her a shot and she was knocking it back and then pointing at the band, demanding they play this or that. The band was shit--a blues cover band that couldn’t play their way out of a paper bag. And Destiny was damn near ugly, reaching out to make sure everyone was paying attention to her. He thought back to the last girl and the girl before her. Lucy was probably right.

“I should go over there and stop her,” he said.

Lucy glanced over and looked at Destiny. “I guess. Good luck.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “Good luck with... Dennis.”

She scrunched her nose up. “Thanks. I’m going to need it.”

When he got over to Destiny, she was practically falling off the chair. He had a buzz going, but it was nothing compared to hers. “Baby, let’s go home,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her off the chair.

His friend Jacob, who was also Lucy’s cousin, grimaced at Joff as he pointed at Destiny and lifted his hand up to indicated drinking. Yeah, it was obvious she’d had two or three too many drinks.

“I’m going to move away from Toronto,” Destiny announcing, holding onto Joff’s shoulders. “People here don’t appreciate me. I can sing, you know. I could make it in L.A. I have talent.”

“I know, baby. Let’s go.” Sometimes she got like this when she was drinking. He hated it. If she didn’t end things by fucking around with some other guy, then he was going to have to end things before the month was out. It was the vicious cycle that he’d been through before. Attracted like a moth to a flame at first, and then he got sick of all the drama. Her body and the sex were both amazing, but it wasn’t worth all this bullshit.

“Oh my GOD! Angie!” Destiny pulled away from him and squealed in delight at a woman a few yards away.

The band was droning on, playing subpar blues over the noise of so many different conversations. His head was starting to hurt. He had practice tomorrow at ten o’clock. He needed to go home, and didn’t have time to babysit a drunk girlfriend. Defeated, he sat down at Jacob’s table with two other friends and watched Destiny chatter away to the other woman.

“Waiting for Destiny?” Jacob asked.

“Yeah. Not sure how much longer we're going to last.”

Jacob shook his head. “At least you never run out of them.”

Joff wanted to tell his friend that he wished he would run out of Destinys so he could stop the sick cycle he was in. He didn’t, though. Five beers and a loud blues bar just weren’t ingredients in a heart-to-heart with one of his best friends.

After a few minutes of trying to ignore how terrible the band was and trying to suppress his irritation with Destiny, he heard a clamor off to the right.

“What the fuck?” Jacob said, standing up.

Joff could see Dennis, Lucy’s deadbeat boyfriend. He had her upper arm in his hand and his face was inches from hers. It didn’t look good, especially when Joff knew she had intended on breaking up with him.

Within a second, he and Jacob were both making their way over to the bar where the two were standing.

“Hey, man. Let go of her,” Jacob said.

Dennis glanced over at them. “Fuck you, man. This is between her and me.”

Lucy struggled to pull her arm out of Dennis’ grasp, but his fingertips were pressing too tightly into her flesh. It set Joff off and he reached out to break the man’s grip. Dennis was taken by surprise and lost his hold on Lucy the second that Joff’s hand grabbed his shoulder. He swung at Joff, but missed. By then Jacob was on the man, punching him in the face and then in the stomach. Dennis ended up on the floor of the bar, out cold.

The crowd of people around them erupted. Two men at the bar cheered their approval while a woman shrieked and hurried behind the bar. Two bouncers, one by the stage and another by the door were descending on them.

“Are you okay?” Joff asked Lucy. Her dark hair fell in soft curls around her face and her bangs had flopped over to obscure one eye.

“I just want to go home,” she said, turning around to head for the door.

“You okay?” the bouncer asked her as she pushed through a line of people who were gawking at the man on the floor.

“Fine,” she mumbled, putting her head down and moving past everyone.

He looked back at Jacob, who was explaining what had happened to a group of men around him while the bouncer tried to rouse Dennis, the druggie.

“Hey,” Joff said, jogging after her. “Do you need help getting home?”

“No.”

The cold February air was a shock after the humid heat of the bar. “Let me call you a cab,” he said.

Lucy leaned her back against the brick exterior of the building. “I called one before the thing with Dennis. I wanted to get the hell out of here after I told he we were through.”

“I’ll wait with you. He’s a jerk, and I don’t trust him.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m fine, Lupul. Go find your girlfriend.”

“I’m trying to be a nice guy here,” he said. Who did this girl think she was, busting his balls when she didn’t even know him? He was just trying to help.

Lucy sighed and crumpled to the ground to sit with her back against the wall and her legs out across the sidewalk. “I know. I just want to be alone. This has been a bad week.”

Joff settled down on the sidewalk a few feet from her. “I’ll just sit here with you while you wait. We don’t have to talk.” He wasn’t sure why he offered. He felt like they were both going through something similar at that moment in time--lost in the sea of failed relationships--and it didn’t take much to throw her a life preserver just for a minute. True to his word, he kept his mouth shut and sat beside Lucy for over ten minutes until the cab pulled up to the curb.

“See you, Lupul,” she said as she stood up and walked toward the vehicle.

Notes