The Lie

“Anything that can make me forget a man,” I tell him.

He raises his brow, an eyebrow ring glinting under the lights. “I think that’s called Scotch. Or whiskey, since you’re American. On the rocks or straight?”

“Straight,” I tell him.

“Good to know,” he says with a wink, turning around to grab a bottle.

Suddenly there’s someone in the seat next to me.

I turn my head to see a big bearded beast of a man wearing a grey t-shirt. His arms are covered in tattoos, even across his collarbone. “Oy Rennie, don’t be giving your customers a hard time.”

He’s drunk but non-threatening in a weird way. I mean, he’s huge, and when he turns to face me, he’s not smiling. Just observing me with green-grey eyes, the color of the ocean beneath a dock. I don’t see any malice in them, nor predatory charm. He’s just here as I’m here.

“He’s not giving me a hard time,” I tell him, sticking up for Rennie who’s pouring me the largest shot in the world. “The world is giving me a hard time.”

Rennie turns around, giving the tatted beast a wry smile and sliding the drink toward me. “This is on the house,” he says. “Since the world isn’t being so nice.”

“The world isn’t being so nice to me, either,” the guy next to me says.

Rennie rolls his eyes. “We know, we know. That’s your excuse for everything.” Still, Rennie turns around and gets him a shot too. And then, to my surprise, pours one for himself. He raises it in the air.

“To the world,” Rennie says.

Me and the tatted guy raise our glasses. Theirs go down like water, though even in my heartache and the need to bury the pain, I take it easy and have just a sip.

“I’ve never seen you around here before,” Rennie says, wiping at the bar with a rag, his biceps bulging under his shirt.

“I live in London,” I tell him.

The tattooed guy makes a derisive sound. I look at him defensively. He manages to shoot me a sloppy smile. If the guy wasn’t drunk, he’d be gorgeous, that much is true. Full lips, a brooding stare, built like he does MMA in his spare time when he’s not throwing logs in the Highland Games. The kind of guy I would normally go nuts for, if only my mind wasn’t so preoccupied.

“But you’re American,” the drunk guy says, his brogue getting thicker and thicker.

“I am,” I tell him. “But I go to film school in London. I’m just here for the summer, working at the short film festival.”

“My brother is a teacher,” the guy says.

“Oh really?” I ask, staring at him closer now. He doesn’t look familiar. I wonder about Brigs’ brother. But other than the fact that he’s a rugby player, I don’t know anything about him. Though his arms look like they could definitely win a game.

He nods and licks his lips, staring down at his empty glass. Doesn’t say anything else.

“So what’s ailing you, Miss America?” Rennie says, swinging my attention back to him.

I bite my lip for a moment, wondering if I should tell the truth or not. But these guys are just strangers in a bar. In a few weeks, I’ll be gone from Edinburgh. Maybe even sooner if Brigs doesn’t need me anymore. His book is moving along at a snail’s pace. It used to be he would type so fast when he was around me, but now it seems everything has slowed to a crawl.

“I’m in love with someone I can’t have,” I tell them.

Rennie whistles while drunk guy twists his lips, giving me the “that sucks” look.

“I’m not sure what’s worse,” Rennie says. “Being in love with someone you can never have or having someone and losing them.”

“You can have both,” the other guy says. “That would be worse.”

“I don’t know,” I say, suddenly philosophical. “I think I’d rather know, just for a second, that your feelings were reciprocated.”

“You’d rather have that and have it snatched away thereafter,” he says, incredulous. “You’re a daft bird is what you are.”

“Easy now,” Rennie says. He gives me a sympathetic look. “You know, I’ve only been bartending a short while here but I’ve already given out a therapy session’s worth of advice. I think, in your case, you need to tell the man. I have a hard time believing that anyone who learned you were in love with them wouldn’t already feel the same.”

Normally I would blush stupidly at that. A hot looking bartender with black spiky hair, paying me such a compliment. But I only feel doubt.

“Not this guy,” I tell him. “He’s…married.”

Rennie raises his brows. “Aye. I understand now,” he says, gravity in his words.

“And I kind of work for him,” I go on. “He’s paying me as a research assistant for his book.”

“My brother is writing a book,” the guy says, his eyes narrowing, sea glass green, as he looks me over.

I swallow and nudge my glass away from me, hoping Rennie will take the hint and fill her up. He does.

“What’s your brother’s name?” I cautiously ask the drunk guy, noting the tattoo of a lion on his forearm.

“What’s your name?” he responds.

“Yvette,” I tell him without missing a beat.