A/N: Hey! I know it's been awhile, but my power went out and I had nothing else that I really wanted to do, so I decided to write another chapter. I think I may continue to write this story, but I don't know. It's still going to be discontinued for now. But I was bored and figured I'd just finish this chapter that I'd started. :)
Enjoy!
Bartender by Lady Antebellum
XXX
8 o'clock on Friday night I'm still at home
All my girls just keep on blowing up my phone
Saying come on he ain't worth the pain
Do what you gotta do to forget his name
Now there's only one thing left for me to do
Slip on my favorite dress and sky high leather boots
Check the mirror one last time
And kiss the past goodbye
What I'm really needing now
Is a double shot of Crown
Chase that disco ball around
'Til I don't remember
Go until they cut me off
Wanna get a little lost
In the noise, in the lights
After the encounter with Tim at the Dingo, I spent the next week holed up in my room at Buck's. I couldn't help it, but the crushing feeling in my chest forced me to think about how badly my life suddenly was and the desire to move had become no existent. Ever since I'd gotten home from New York, I'd felt like I had everything: the friends, the home, the job... the boyfriend. It had all been so perfect. Now I was here, with all of it meaning nothing, even though I still had everything except the boyfriend. I knew I was being over dramatic with the whole situation, but not having Tim around felt worse than anything I'd ever felt in the past. It was almost the same as when Dally died, the crushing pain that came with realizing that the person who had become such a big part of your life, no longer existed in it.
I missed everything that had made us, us. The playful bickering, the lunches, the drives. Than there were the smaller things that I realized now made up a huge part of what we'd had. The nights in doing nothing but sitting on the couch, the quiet talks, the kisses shared in the middle of the night. The way he'd been such a huge comfort when the nightmares shook me awake. No one knew about them except him, I didn't want people to get worked up about it.
For as long as I could remember, I'd always had the worst nightmares. It wasn't like one of those reoccurring ones, they were always different, but they all had the same effect. They caused me to wake up, covered in sweat, sometimes screaming my head off. Dally had been my biggest comfort for them, he'd found ways to keep them away, and when he couldn't, he'd had ways to make it easier to go back to sleep. Tim hadn't been around long enough to figure out how to keep them away, but he'd quickly picked up on ways to help me get through the night.
So far since we'd broken up, I'd had a nightmare nearly every single night. Buck had tried to calm me down, but it isn't the same and I always ended up crying myself to sleep - if I even get to sleep again.
At the moment though, it's the middle of the day and I'm still curled up in bed. I haven't really left my bed actually, only to get food and to go to the bathroom. My diet at this time consists of a lot of chocolate and ice cream. It's a bit of a cliché to eat chocolate and ice cream after a break up, but there's a reason they're called comfort foods. I'm also chugging down chocolate milk like it's the water I need to live. Add to that the Jack Daniels I keep on my beside that's almost gone after I opened it yesterday, and you could say I'm having a real pity party.
There was a knock on my door and I mumbled a quiet come in. Soda's head poked in, and I felt guilty for the amount of concern in his eyes. He has so many other worries, and there I was, adding to them. He'd still been the only one who knew anything, so I'd also put him in the position of being the only one who knows why I'm this cut up about the break up.
"I brought you some more chocolate." He said as he held up a bad on e he'd entered the room. I managed a smile and sat up as he came to sit beside me. I rummaged through the bag and pulled out my favorite chocolate bars. I pealed back the wrapper and started to devour the chocolatey goodness of the Kit Kat in my hand.
"I can feel the weight gain like a load of bricks in my stomach." I grumbled as I finished the bar and picked the leftover chocolate off my fingers. It's not like I cared too much about my weight, I'd always been a pretty active person, and I knew I'd work the weight off in time, but I was starting to feel kind of conscious about how much weight I was possibly gaining from all this eating and lack of moving.
"You're fine." Soda said with a soft smile as I started in on another bar, much to the disappointment of the part of my brain that screamed for me to stop.
"Didn't your mother teach you not to lie?" I sniffed as I snapped the bar in half, rationalizing with my brain the I'd be fine with saving the rest for later.
"Yea, she also told me not to put a girl down when she's already feeling low." I felt like crying. Why? That's a good question. Ask my run away hormones.
"Your mother was always a smart person." I sputtered as tears trailed down my face. "I wish she was here to tell me what to do!" Soda's arm wound around me as he pulled me to his chest, rocking me back and forth as he tried to stop my tears.
"It's going to be OK, Mia." He whispered as I clung to his shirt. "Trust me, the pain goes away eventually." I slowly stopped crying and just rested my head against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. That's when I remembered the time.
"Why aren't you at work?" I sniffed as I wiped my hand across my eyes while I sat up.
"There wasn't much going on." Soda replied as he somehow managed to run a hand through my hair. It was starting to look like a bird had decided to make a nest in it. "The boss let us out early." I knew it was a lie. This time of year was normally busy, and they very rarely ran out of work to do anyway.
"Soda, you shouldn't be doing this. I'm not worth the cut in your paycheck." I said as I clasped my hands in my lap. They needed that money to pay the bills, I couldn't believe he was choosing me over that - actually I could. This was Soda, the guy who'd do anything for anyone in trouble.
"Mia you're worth a lot of things, including a little time off work. The boss can be a reasonable guy - sometimes. He gets that you need to be taken care of, and he isn't going to cut my paycheck that bad for the week." Soda tilted my head up to look at him. His eyes shone with a promise to look after me, and I felt my own eyes tear up again. "I'm gonna try to make this better for you, alright?" I nodded my head and let him wrap me in another hug. "I promise I'm gonna stay right here until you're better again." I nodded my head in thanks as tears spilled from my eyes and fell to his shoulder where I was burying my face.
When we finally pulled apart, Soda brushed away my tears and gave me a smile.
"There, much better. You know you look a lot better when you're not crying." I had to laugh a little at that.
"I thought you said you're mother told you to never put a girl down when she was feeling low." Soda gave me a heart melting grin as he stood up.
"Yea well, she also told me to compliment them wherever possible. And I think you look beautiful when you're smiling and happy." I give him a slightly lopsided smile. "That's better." He said and ran a hand down my head before walking to the door, but before he left he turned in the doorway with a grin on his face. "I'll be back around 8 to pick you up, you better be ready by than." He was out the door before I comprehended what he'd said, and I made a mad dash for the top of the stairs.
"Wait! Where are you taking me?!" I called to him as I scrambled down a few steps so I could see the door.
"Clubin'!" He called back and vanished before I could say a single word in protest.
At quarter to 8, I was just finishing the last of my make-up when Buck peeked into the room. He smiled when he saw me dressed in clothes other than my pajamas and stepped inside the room to lean against the wall.
"Well I'll be, look who's moving. It's a miracle." I rolled my eyes and finished with my lip gloss before moving to stand in front of the full length mirror on the inside of the closet door.
"It's not that big a deal, I'm just going out with the guys for a couple hours."
"Listen Mia, anything to do with you moving around right now is a big deal." I couldn't tell whether he was being funny or serious, he looked kind of serious I guess. "I know it's been hard on you the last week, and it's good to see getting out of here for a bit." I inspected myself in the mirror and gave myself a nod of approval. I'd pulled the outfit together as quickly as possible after my shower. I was wearing a pair of tight leather pants that had been hiding in the back of my drawer for a long time and my favorite crop top with the picture of a tiger on it. I'd pulled my old leather jacket out of the closet and had it draped over the edge of the bed. I'd gone a little different with my hair. Instead of straightening it, I'd curled it a little so that the curls were loss and bounced against my shoulders. I felt like I belonged back in New York with all the party people. It felt good.
There was a knock on the door downstairs and I looked at my clock.
"5 to 8, it's probably Soda. Tell him I'll be right down." Buck left to answer the door and I took another look at myself in the mirror. I was lucky with my hair since when I curled it, it stayed mostly where I wanted to it be. I didn't have to use a lot of hairspray, so it didn't feel like my hair was coated in the stuff when I touched my head.
With a sigh, I grabbed my jacket and slipped into it before making my way down the stairs.
Soda and Buck were standing in the doorway talking as I stepped down from the stairs. Soda's eyes flickered towards me before he did a double take.
"Wow Mia." He said and Buck turned to face me. "You look great." I smiled as I came to stand beside him.
"Thanks. You look good too." I said. He really did. His jeans were clean and free of holds, his shoes weren't scuffed up as bad as his sneakers and his plaid shirt looked freshly cleaned. He'd done his hair up with enough grease to hold it back, but not enough to make it since like a disco ball.
"Thanks." Soda grinned and opened the door after I'd pulled on my black heels. "See ya later Buck."
"Don't have too much fun." Buck called back as Soda lead me to the truck.
"Only Steve and Two-Bit are gonna be around tonight. Darry has to work tomorrow and you know he won't let Ponyboy go clubbing until he's 25." I snickered as he held open my door so I could slide inside.
"I figured her have to wait til he's 30." I said as Soda climbed I to the truck and we headed for town.
It'd been a long time since I was in town at night, at least the part of town where the clubs were. Dally was never much of a club person and Tim just never mentioned going. I took a deep breath when Tim came to mind. Tonight I was going to forget him. I was going to have fun with my friends and enjoy being out of my bed.
"There's Steve and Two-Bit." Soda said, bringing me out of my thoughts. He pulled the truck up to the curb outside a club with a bright neon sign that made it extremely hard to look at. Steve and Two-Bit were standing outside, leaning against the building with cigarettes hanging from their mouths. They looked everything like the stereotypical hood seen in movies, and normally I'd get fired up about how we were all portrayed in films, but tonight it sent a jolt of pride through me. We were tough, and the thought drove me to push any last thoughts of Tim out of my mind as I got out and walked towards the entrance.
"Well hello hottie." Two-Bit whistled as Soda and I came to stand beside them. "Where's you pick up this gorgeous thing, Soda?" I laughed and gave him a shove.
"Shut up, Two." I said, and he grinned. "Let's get in there and get this party started." The boys agreed and we made our way to the line leading into the club.
"ID." The bouncer said robotically as we arrived at the door. We all pulled out fake IDs and were quickly waved in with an impatient wave of the guys hand.
"We probably could have used our regular IDs with that guy." Steve said as we were hit with a blast of music when we entered the club. The energy I felt was immediate, and I let the sounds fill me up.
"Probably, let's get drinks." We walked to the bar and ordered drinks before moving to stand at the end of the bar. I chugged back my shot and felt the buzz running through me almost instantly.
"Come on Soda, let's dance!" I grabbed his arm and pulled him onto the dance floor, which was full of people already.
I smiled as the music crept into me and started to move with it, Soda was smiling at me as we moved with the music, and we were quickly joined by Steve and Two-Bit.
As the night wore on, Two-Bit picked some blonde girl out of the crowd and started to flirt with her, a drink always in his hand. Steve caught sight of someone he knew and disappeared, which left Soda and I alone.
A slow song came on and I felt Soda's hands on my hips as I slowly wound down. I wrapped my arms around his neck as the music spilled around us and couples got together. I smiled as I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, enjoying the moment of peace.
Suddenly, I felt Soda go ridged and pulled my head up to look at him.
"What's wrong, Soda?" I asked as I started to look around.
"Nothing. It's nothing, don't worry about it." But his words fell on deaf ears as my eyes caught sight of someone across the dance floor at the bar. They were dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a t-shirt that stretched tight across the muscles in their arms. I nearly stopped breathing and Soda had to catch me as I started to slip to the floor.
"Don't look at him, Mia." Soda whispered sharply in my ear as I regained my footing. "He's not worth it, remember. This night isn't about him." I nodded and fought to get my breathing under control. Tim hadn't seen me yet, and was talking with some guy that I couldn't see.
"I need a drink." I said, and Soda nodded though he seemed a little reluctant. I'd already done a fair amount of drinking tonight, and my sudden change of mood could easily effect how the alcohol worked on me.
As we approached the opposite end of the bar to where Tim was sitting with his mystery person, I couldn't help but glance at him as Soda ordered two more drinks.
I grabbed mine and threw it back as fast as I could, the alcohol burned on the way down, but I didn't care. I ordered another one and it was gone in a second.
"OK, Mia." Soda said in a warning tone. "Slow down, he isn't worth it. We can leave if you want." I shook my head and felt a grin pass over my face when I saw Tim look up. He saw me and blinked, as if he hadn't expected to see me here. Well too bad for him, but I was done feeling sorry for myself. An idea came to mine and as wicked as it seemed, the idea gave me the power to feel better about the state down I was having with him.
"I got an idea." I leaned in close to Soda, closer than I needed to while still keeping my eyes on Tim. As I whispered the plan to Soda, I watched Tim's eyes flare a little as I moved closer to Soda.
"I don't know, Mia." Soda said as I finished. "This might not be a good idea". I pouted.
"Why not? Not like it's going to do any real harm." Soda sighed and messed with his drink.
"A jealous Tim Shepard is a dangerous Tim Shepard. You know that Mia. To purposely try to make him jealous like that could cause a lot of harm - to me." I rolled my eyes and tapped my nails on the surface of the bar.
"Come on, please. For me." I batted my lashes at him, something I'd always thought was as stupid as it got. But I wanted to hurt him. Sure, making Tim jealous by making him think I was happy without him and moving on to better things could end with a fight, but he deserved to suffer a little didn't he? What about what he was putting me though?
"... OK." Soda said reluctantly. "But this could be a big waste of time, what it he doesn't care? You know he can hide what he's feeling well enough that he might not even react." I smirked as I rested my hand on his.
"Trust me, Soda." I said. "He's already reacting and the fun hasn't even started. Another shot please." I took the glass from the bartender and didn't even blink an eye as I caught Tim's eye once again and downed the drink. "Let's go." I grabbed Soda's hand and pulled him to the dance floor once again.
Making sure that I was facing the bar so I could see Tim, Soda and I kept dancing, though I made sure that I was closer to him than I had been before. I watched as Tim's mouth curled up into a sneer and I smirked as I leaned close to Soda's ear whenever I talked to him.
Soda was a bit reluctant at first, but after a bit of prompting, he relaxed and the atmosphere around us went back to being light, except for the new source of energy that came from the adrenaline to get a reaction out of Tim.
It worked after about an hour and a half, and I watched as Tim stormed out of the club, whoever he'd been sitting with followed behind him.
"Ha, there ya go." I said as I stepped back and nearly toppled to the floor as I stepped back from Soda. He caught me and I snickered as he pulled me to a standing position. "Told ya he wouldn't be able to keep a straight face."
"OK, you're drunk. I think it's time to call it a night. Let's get you out of here." Soda wrapped an arm around my waist an slung my arm across his shoulders. I tried to focus on where my feet were going, but I couldn't seem to keep them under me.
"Hey, Steve." I looked up to see Steve talking with some guy at a booth, several beer bottles scattering the table. "I'm taking Mia back to my house, she's had enough for the night." Steve nodded and finished his beer.
"Yea I better to find Two-Bit and get home too. Later Jay." He shook hands with the guy he'd been talking to and started to make his way around the club in search of Two-Bit.
"He probably got lucky with that cheap blonde he'd been flirting with." I said to Soda as we made our way to the door. "That hair wasn't even real. I hate those bottle blondes." I mumbled to myself as we walked out the door and started for the truck.
"Think you're so smooth, don't you Baker?" I nearly tripped myself at the sound of time voice as we stepped out onto the sidewalk. Soda and I turned to see Tim leaning against the building, a cigarette in his hand.
"What are you doing? Have you been waiting for me to come out? You're such a stalker, Tim!" I snapped as I managed to get my footing in my heels.
"Can't a guy have a smoke outside a club?" He sneered at me and I narrowed my eyes at him. "Besides, what's it to you? You've clearly moved on." I gave him a sly look.
"Aw, is little Timmy jealous?" I asked in a baby voice and that got a rise out of him. He crushed his cigarette and stormed over to me, but Soda blocked his way.
"Back off, Shepard." He warned and Tim looked like he was going to push past him, but when I wrapped my arms around Soda's neck from behind him and rested my head on his shoulder, I watched something different flash through his eyes. In the haze that was clouding my vision I wasn't quite sure what it was. Hurt maybe?
"OK, fine, I get it." Tim said as he back up a step. "You've clearly move on." I gave him a smirk and watched his eyes burn. "Just watch her, Curtis." Tim said in a warning tone to Soda, although he never took his eyes off me. "She's a real bitch when she's drunk." He walked off down the street and disappeared into the black of the night.
Soda sighed in relief and unwrapped my arms from his neck.
"Well, that was fun. But it's time to get home, come on." I let him lead me to the truck and help me get in.
I don't remember the rest of the night, since I passed out. But at some point during the night I woke up on the Curtis' couch, tears streaming down my face once again.
Hey bartender pour 'em hot tonight
'Til the party and the music and the truth collide
Bring it 'til his memory fades away
Hey bartender
I'm feeling that buzz
I'm ready to rock
Ain't no way I'm gonna tell you to stop
So pour that thing up to the top
I'm coming in hot
Hey bartender
What I'm really needing now
Is a double shot of Crown
Chase that disco ball around
'Til I don't remember
Go until they cut me off
Wanna get a little lost
In the noise, in the lights
XXX
Hope you enjoyed it! Please review! :)
~ Stay Gold!
