The Hate Vow by Nicole French

Six

Don’t ask me how I ended up in the North End that night. Also don’t ask me if it was because a certain Alexander Skarsgard lookalike lived there. By the time I stumbled into Marleigh’s, a lounge on the quieter end of Hanover Street, I’d already consumed three other gin and tonics at two other bars and had promised myself that if I didn’t strike gold there, I was going home.

No one seemed right. No matter what, I couldn’t break this damn streak. They were either too stupid or too stupid. Too boorish or too condescending. This was Boston, so people either had no education or too much. No money or all the money in the world. There was no in-between.

The thing about Boston too was that it was basically all ladies. When a third of the city falls between twenty and thirty-five, and close to half of that number are students, and more than half of them are girls, the odds are definitely in the dudes’ favors. If they offer more than Cup O’ Noodles for dinner, most girls are dying for a ring. Wear a collared shirt, and she’ll be yanking that collar into her bedroom before midnight.

The flipside was certainly not true. Here I was—a lawyer from the best school in the country. Educated, smart, cute as fuck (if I do say so myself), and a certified kick in the pants. But if I wanted to get laid, the guy either had to be drunk enough not to care about any of those things, or he had to be arrogant enough to think he was better.

And tonight, I wasn’t really in the mood to pretend.

“Buy you a drink?”

The stool next to me at the long mirrored bar was suddenly occupied by a guy who looked like he should be named Stuart. I didn’t know why, but in his worn flannel shirt topped with suspenders, his carefully groomed beard, and the thick tortoise-shell glasses, he just looked like one of those hipsters who fronted jangle-pop bands and ironically assumed the middle names they got from their grandfathers. Stuart Jenkins. Or Barry McPhonyName. Something like that.

“I suppose,” I said. “What’s your name?”

“Henry,” he said, signaling the bartender. “Henry Fellowston.”

Close enough.

“I’m Jane,” I said, offering a hand. “What’s your story, Henry?”

You know what? I don’t remember what he said, so I’m not going to tell you. And you know why? Because he was boring. This was made worse by the fact that the second Henry started talking, a few people stepped away from the bar, clearing it all the way down its reflective top and revealing one of the few people on the planet who had never had a problem holding my attention.

Eric.

He wore a simple outfit of black pants, white shirt, and a skinny black tie, and his bright hair gleamed even under the dim lights. Simple, but classic. Well cut.

It made sense now that Eric came from money, of course. If I hadn’t been so sex addled, his spare, yet pristine apartment would have told me everything. What kind of law student has a closet full of Tom Ford and Zegna? How did he always know the right thing to say and do at those events we attended with Skylar and Brandon? At one point, I remembered people approaching him and asking if he was getting involved in the business too. I had thought at the time they meant Brandon’s brief flirtation with politics, since Eric was a new associate at Brandon’s law firm. But now…now I wondered if they were asking because they knew who Eric really was.

While Henry blared on and fucking on about the differences in hop species—apparently this guy went full-on cliché and brewed craft beer on his rooftop—I couldn’t stop staring as Eric accepted his customary two fingers of top-shelf vodka—hell, yes, I remembered that—and smiled at the female bartender.

My heart sped up. My newly sweaty hands knotted together. Dammit.

Our repartee, unspoken, already echoed through my mind. How easy it would be.

You look like a waiter, Gaston. Are you ready for my order?

He’d turn slowly, that familiar twinkle in his eye. I have an order for you, pretty girl. Can you take it?

Why couldn’t it ever be like that with anyone else?

I watched, suddenly riveted by the sight of Eric making casual small talk with both bartenders—female and male. It was like watching an animal in the wild. See the preying jackal in his native habitat. When he thinks no one is watching, he interacts with other jackals too with charm and ease. But is it all a show to lure the female into his den? Only time will tell…

“Uh huh,” I said as Henry began a diatribe on malt preferences. “Please say more about that.”

Eric smiled at the lady bartender. She was very attractive, and my polar opposite. Tall and blonde, with boobs that practically smacked her customers in the face. Eric laughed at some kind of joke she made, and jealousy practically hurled me off my stool. Fucking hell. Why did I care so much if he laughed at someone else’s jokes?

Because he used to laugh at yours.

It was the one thing I offered, wasn’t it? I wasn’t blonde or buxom. I wasn’t anyone’s idea of a cover model. I was smart, quirky, and sometimes a barrel of laughs. Men like Eric didn’t love women like me, but they could be entertained by them. And for a second, I hated myself for ever settling for that. I had never been anything but a passing dalliance for him. And wasn’t that why he was asking me to marry him anyway? To make it bearable, he said? Translation: to entertain him.

Fuck. That.

The male bartender slid an arm around the female’s waist and kissed her on the cheek. She cupped his face, and I watched as Eric smiled at them, not with that predatory look I remembered, but with genuine affection. The male bartender fingered the woman’s hand, and a ring on her left hand reflected in the bar top. Eric grinned, then stood up and kissed the woman on the cheek and shook the man’s hand. I recognized the way his mouth formed the word “congratulations.” And the way he clearly meant it.

Oh, hell.

“Jane?” Henry pulled me out of my stupor.

“Hmm? What?”

“I said would you like another beer? I could get us a flight so you could really see the differences in hops I was talking about. It’s a lot better than the stuff you’re drinking, I promise.”

I blinked down at my half-empty PBR. This guy really was nice. Henry was probably the kind of guy I should be seeing if I wanted a relationship at all. I bet he made his own compost too and grew rooftop kale in Somerville. One day he’d build a chicken coop in the alley and bring the eggs to his neighbors out of the goodness of his heart.

He’d be a great boyfriend for a while too. Dutifully learn all my favorite indie rock bands, call me his “partner” instead of something horribly gendered word like “girlfriend,” and no matter what, he would probably always request very politely whenever he wanted to remove a piece of my clothing before we made tender and compassionate love approximately twice a month. And he would always, always remember lubricant because there was no way in hell I’d ever be the slightest bit turned on without it.

May I please remove your bra now, Jane?

I shuddered.

“Um, you know what…” I said, but I couldn’t even finish the sentence. Poor Henry. Someday he really would make some woman a wonderful partner. But that woman wasn’t me.

And then, in that strange way that everyone does when they know someone is watching them, Eric turned. His eyes zeroed in on mine, and the side of his mouth quirked in recognition. Because there was nothing else to do, I raised my pint glass, which was now almost empty. Henry the beer guy was still jabbering away, but I had no clue about what.

Eric picked up his glass and raised it in a silent toast. Then, almost imperceptibly, he tilted his head.

No one would have known it for what it was besides me. A call, a summons. That minuscule movement carried all magnitude of promise. Once I would have jumped at the thought of it. Found the nearest empty room I could and willingly surrendered to whatever the man had planned. To my knees. Against the wall. Bound. Gagged. Whatever he wanted, because it would inevitably become what I wanted too.

The man somehow always knew my desires before I even thought of them.

Eric blinked. His steely gaze hadn’t moved, and as the bartenders stepped away to help other customers, I found myself smiling. Eric was alone.

“Hey, where are you going?” Henry asked, his voice a distant blur as I slid off my stool.

I slapped a ten-dollar bill in front of him. “For the drink,” I said. “Your next one’s on me.”

While Eric watching with an inappropriate display of satisfaction, I patted Henry on the shoulder as if he were nothing more than a puppy and started toward Eric as if in a trance.

Pretty girl.

The term floated back to me once again. I couldn’t let him go there, but by the way he was watching me, silvery gaze sparking over his glass, it would be pretty hard not to.

It was, one might say, a challenge.

“You look like a waiter, Gaston,” I recited as I joined him at the bar. “Are you ready for my order?”

“That depends,” he said without missing a beat. “On whether you’ve checked the menu.”

I smiled. He grinned, but this time, there was nothing innocent about it.

“Who’s this?” the lady bartender asked, reappearing with all her boobular awesomeness.

Eric wrested his gaze away. “This is Jane, Viv.” He turned to me. “Jane, this is Vivian. She and Tom, her fiancé, own Marleigh’s. I come here a fair amount—”

Vivian snorted. “Try every night. I mean, I like the business and all, but you should probably step out of your box sometimes, Eric.”

I sniggered. “Still don’t like breaking your routines, huh, Petri?”

“Petri?” Vivian blinked between us. “Who is Petri?”

Eric hid his eyes under one palm. “Jane, really?”

I leaned in. “Tell me, Vivian. Does Howard Hughes here have a tendency to pick up random tail at your fine establishment?”

Vivian raised a blonde brow at Eric. “She knows you well, DV.”

Eric just groaned into his hand. “Yes,” he said. “She does.”

“We go back a ways,” I told her. “I know all his dirty secrets.”

“Well, as his bartender, I’d like to think I know a few too.” Vivian glanced at my nearly empty glass. “Need another?”

I nodded, and she left to refill my glass. Eric just watched me, his face settling back into a placid non-expression.

I looked him over, taking in his shirt, the way the slim-cut tailoring showed off a narrow waist, broad shoulders, and those damn biceps all over again.

“Have we been doing a few extra sets of pushups to impress the ladies, Casanova? I don’t remember you being this jacked.”

“I try to take care of things when necessary.”

He was smug, which told me I wasn’t hiding my admiration very well. Asshole. What right did he have looking like that? Did men take a secret class in college that taught them exactly how to roll their sleeves up just haphazardly enough to make a woman’s mouth water? Did they share tips on how hot and bothered a well-placed forearm would make her?

Bastards, all of them.

Vivian returned with my beer. Eric examined the PBR with obvious distaste and told Vivian to put it on his tab along with another drink for himself.

“Yes, I still like my PBR,” I said as I took a welcome sip. “So you can take your condescension and shove it, Eric.”

“I didn’t say anything,” he murmured, but accepted his next drink from Vivian too. This one had olives.

“Dirty martini with Beluga Gold Line,” she said, and Eric nodded appreciatively.

“Damn,” he said after he took a sip. “Tom’s really trying to expand the clientele, isn’t he?”

Vivian shrugged. “He’s shooting for the after-work crowd. He thinks that if a smug son of a bitch like you shows up three or four times a week, there are others who’ll do it too.”

I snorted again, but Eric didn’t answer. It seemed like Vivian enjoyed baiting him too. I liked her already.

“So how do you two know each other?” Vivian asked.

“I added my sample to the dish,” I said. When Vivian just looked confused, I elaborated. “We used to hook up sometimes. And after that spectacularly crashed and burned, our relationship became one of boisterous animosity.”

Eric just sighed.

“You’re kidding,” Vivian said almost gleefully. “No offense, DV, but she doesn’t really seem like your type.”

I hated how much the comment stabbed.

“Then whose type does she seem like?” Eric asked, a little too sharply. Was it possible he was just as annoyed by that statement as I was?

“Well, that guy’s, to start.” Vivian pointed a rag at Henry, who was now talking hops and malts to another unsuspecting lady. She looked about as interested in them as I had been.

All three of us watched with almost academic curiosity as Henry pushed his glasses up his nose and gestured emphatically at the row of beer samples between him and the girl.

Eric turned back to Vivian. “What’s the difference?”

“Come on. Don’t tell me you don’t see it. You’re…look at you. Every weekend I see you in these pristine shirts without even one wrinkle. With your shiny hair and your fancy watch. That guy looks like her. A little, I don’t know, rough around the edges, no offense, Jane. A little rock and roll.”

I guffawed. “He is the furthest thing from ‘rock and roll,’ I can promise you that. He’s basically Gordon Lightfoot.”

Vivian giggled. “I sound like my mother when I say that, but you know what I mean.”

“I’m sorry for laughing,” I said. “But I promise you, that guy is about as rock and roll as the Osmonds.”

Eric was still staring hard at Henry. “He just doesn’t look like a rock star from right now, Jane. He looks like he should be on the cover of Spin Magazine circa 1997.” He took another sip of his drink as Henry pointed excitedly at one glass of beer. The girl was looking around the rest of the room.

Vivian snorted. “Enlighten me. Why 1997?”

“Yes, Petri. That’s an oddly specific year,” I chimed.

“The ill-fitting flannel shirt. The overgrown monk hair. The horn-rimmed glasses I’d bet five dollars he picked up at the Goodwill. I’d bet you five more they don’t even have a prescription.”

I chuckled. “I see it. Henry does kind of have that nineties emo look going for him.”

“Henry? Is that really his name?”

Vivian shrugged. “If he’s nineties, then so is Jane. She kind of reminds of Gwen Stefani. Like she should be his lead singer.”

We all looked down at my outfit. Thin black and white shirt slipping off one shoulder again, an arm full of silver bangles, and the loud pink hair that I’d blown into waves. I guess the reference worked. Gwen Stefani wasn’t Asian, but she did have pink hair at one point. And we both liked red lipstick.

Eric seemed extremely interested in that last aspect of my outfit too, but when I looked up, he glanced away and took another sip. “He looks homeless. Like he lives on someone’s couch. And nowhere near good enough for her.”

“Who, the girl over there?” Vivian asked.

“No,” Eric replied. “Jane.”