“Dani,” she says. “What do you need?”
“Nothing, just wanted to introduce myself.” She starts to walk away, and I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree, sweetheart,” she says with a confident smirk on her face. It falters for half a second, telling me she’s not as practiced at this confidence thing as she’d like for me to believe. When she realizes her coat of armor has faded slightly, she stands a little more upright and with her chin sticking out a little more. It’s like she’s trying to prove herself, but to who, I don’t know. Maybe herself.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” I stutter and watch in embarrassment as she walks away. Over the next few minutes, the crowd gets heavier in the bar, and there’s not a single seat available. I’m tempted to go join Hennessey with his friends, but I’m not up for being the token vagina at the table. Grown men have a way of making a chick feel awkward when she’s by herself. Either they want to create an obvious distinction between me and them, or they try to make me feel like one of the boys. It never ends well when you’re too unfamiliar with someone to just be freaking normal around them.
A cardboard disposable coaster that the bar uses slides toward me from down the bar top. It stops right in front of me, hitting my untouched beer bottle. I stare at it intently for a moment, wondering what the hell it’s doing here. It occurs to me a little too late to look around for who may have sent it my way. A chill runs down my spine before I decide I’m just being dramatic, and I lift it up to read it. It’s your standard one-time use coaster with PORT OF CALL on one side along with the bar’s address and phone number. I flip it over to see if it’s the same deal on the back and freeze at the sight of the familiar print in black marker. It says LEAVE, LULU. OR YOU’LL REGRET IT.
I hold the coaster in my hands for several minutes before making a decision. I could live in fear, or I could fight back the only way I know how—by rebelling. Leave or I’ll regret what? What are they going to do? Send me more pictures of Jameson with random women. That hurts, but it’s not lethal, and if anything, it’s forcing Jameson to own up to his actions. Everything the person has done so far has been unpleasant and creepy, but barring the day I freaked out on Lydia, it’s not so bad that it’s something I can’t deal with. Signaling to Dani, I ask for a glass of water and summon the courage to do the only thing I can to express my disapproval of this little game this sick asshole is playing.
She brings me the glass, and I give her a quick thanks. Half the crowd that was surrounding me has moved to the back where the pool table and darts are at. I catch sight of Hennessey and decide I’ll tell him about this in a minute. It’s just—I don’t think the police can do anything about this crap. At least that’s what Detective Capriotti said—that we’d have to have stronger evidence of wrongdoing before the DA will prosecute. But I can’t act like a sitting duck for the rest of my life. Plus, we don’t know that this person is even dangerous. It’s all so up in the air right now.
I situate my feet on the bottom rung of my barstool and stand with the water glass in one hand and the coaster in the other. I hold both in front of me at eye level and slowly dunk the coaster into the water. I look around the bar, seeing if anybody responds, and I say loud enough for the people within a few feet of me to hear, “Game on.”
I sit back down, and it’s not another minute before Hennessey’s at my side. He checks out the water glass and asks me what I just did as he fishes the coaster out of the water. I turn on my barstool to explain and apologize, because what I just did was extremely stupid. All confidence and bit of bravery I had is now gone.
A loud noise erupts from the back of the bar that shakes the walls. I clamp down onto the bar top and stop breathing. Smoke billows out of the hallway to the bathrooms as people rush toward the front of the bar to get away from it. They push and shove mercilessly at one another to be the first to get out. Hennessey jumps off his stool and gets the older male bartender’s attention. He yells, “Ernie! Watch Mel!” and then darts toward the smoke.
There’s a flash of light in the hallway, burning bright and hot. It takes a second to realize that a fire’s broken out.