I sidled in beside a guy nursing a drink and smiled sympathetically at him. “I see I’m not the only one who’s come to this party damaged.”
He whirled his head to the side to face me, chuckling as he shrugged. His blue eyes were piercing, but they had that happy shine in them that had nothing to do with booze.
“Yeah. I might’ve forgotten about this shindig tonight.”
I snagged a glass of craft beer from the barman and held it up. “Same here. I guess we’d better just suck it up though, right? No one’s going to take kindly to us if we’re the wet towels at the party.”
He bit out a strangled laugh. “Wet towels, huh? No. I refuse to be known as one of those. Have you smelled those things? They fucking reek.”
“Exactly.” We clinked our glasses together. “So, who broke you last night? I hope it’s a better story than mine.”
He groaned, shaking his head slowly. “My sister, if you’d believe it. Of course, I stayed up way after she went to bed, drinking an exotic bottle of rum she had while telling myself I wasn’t fucking up all over again. At least she seemed cool about it this morning. She said she’d bought it at the airport but hadn’t been planning on drinking it anyway.”
“Getting drunk with your sister is better than getting drunk with your mother.” I jabbed my thumb at my chest. “My mother and my best friend, who I’m pretty sure she’s adopted as her other son without telling me, broke me last night.”
He held up his fist and I bumped it. There was something so familiar about him, yet I knew I hadn’t served with him. “You get to claim mother and best friend, though. I only had my sister. Although she’s got enough drama going on at the moment to make up for ten fucking people. Jesus.”
My bar mate and I hit it off instantaneously, and a few drinks in, he held out his hand. “I’m Ethan. I’m deploying again in a few days, but I wanted to make the trip out to see my sister. Figured I might as well stay for the party.”
“Scott,” I said as I shook his hand, reverting to giving him my last name without even thinking about it. “It’s nice to meet you, Ethan.”
“Yeah. I was worried I would be the only hungover one here.”
We talked a little about where we’d been and what we’d seen before he tilted his head to the side, eyeballing me intently. “What’s bothering you, Scotty? You’re here with me, but you’re also not.”
I raked a hand through my hair, a little humiliated that I was so obvious. “Honestly? I’m fucked up about a girl.”
“Yeah?” He frowned, light blue eyes blazing with confusion as his lips twisted. “No offense, but you don’t seem like the type who gets fucked up about a girl.”
“That’s because I’m not.” I tapped my empty glass on the bar for a refill. “This girl though, man, she got under my fucking skin. I can’t shake her. No matter what I do.”
“Why aren’t you with her?” he asked, curious more than anything else. “You’re obviously not the shy, reserved type either.”
“She shot me down.” There was nothing more to it than that. “I wanted to be with her, but she said it would be best if we didn’t see each other anymore.”
He laughed under his breath. “That sounds exactly like something my sister would say even if she still wanted to see that person. Fucking pride.”
“It’s not pride,” I objected. “It’s respect.”
“Then respect her enough to fight for her,” he roared, slamming his own nearly empty glass down on the counter before shooting me a shamefaced grin. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to come across so harshly. I’m just aggravated because my sister’s in love with this fucknut who doesn’t have any balls.”
“Commiserations,” I said. “I hope the guy comes to his senses.”
Ethan shoved a hand into his auburn hair, clearly frustrated but unwilling to talk about it any longer. “What about you? You coming to your senses?”
“It’s not like that with us. I fucked up and I let the only girl that I’ve loved slip between my fingers. Sad but fucking true.”
He gritted his teeth and slammed back against the low backrest of his chair. “Who are you to say she’s slipped between your fingers? Has she said it’s over in so many words?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” I fucking hated to think about the