Ch.3
A/N: Thank you to everyone reading, favoriting, following, and especially those reviewing. I love hearing your thoughts, so keep them coming...
"Hey Peck! Quit daydreaming and get back to work," Charlie snapped at Gail as she continued to stare at the corner booth, ignoring the growing line of people at her end of the bar.
She focused her attention on the hoards of college kids looking to get hammered, getting lost in the hustle and bustle of pouring drinks and collecting money. But it didn't take long before the redhead came over to order two jack-and-cokes.
"Mixed drinks are at the other end, you'll have to get his attention?" Gail gestured to Charlie with a tilt of her head as she tried to redirect her attention to the other people waiting at the bar.
"Why? You're standing right there, don't you know how to make the drinks?" The redhead asked impatiently, before snidely adding, "There's two ingredients. It's not rocket science."
Poor choice, Gail wasn't one to put up with other people's shit, even when her pay depended on it. "Trust me, there will be a lot more than just two ingredients if you want them from me, get in line at the other end." The blonde bit out, with a bit of a snarl.
"Wow, I guess it's true what they say about dumb blondes. Even ones that come from a bottle." The redhead goaded Gail.
Gail scoffed at the woman's lame attempt to get under her skin, "Seriously, you look like Ronald McDonald and you want to bash my hair?"
The ginger stormed off with a huff in the direction of her manager. Gail knew a lecture would be coming, but she didn't care, it had been worth it to wipe the self-satisfied grin off the other woman's face.
After making the drinks and apologizing to his customer, Charlie turned to his newest staff member, "Seriously, Gail, you know you're supposed to be nice to the customers right?"
"Not when they start it." Gail responded with a shrug, she figured the other girl had gotten off lucky with only one comment from the blonde.
"Keep it up and I'll end it." Charlie warned, he might have been short-staffed but he had fired people for a lot less over the years.
"Whatever you say boss." Gail gave the man a winning smile as he shook his head and went back to serving his patrons.
Gail continued pouring the drinks but she couldn't keep her eyes from sneaking to the corner of the bar. Every time she watched the redhead touch the brunette or the two giggle together, she couldn't help but feel a twinge of something in her stomach, something she couldn't name but definitely didn't like. Maybe it was just her disdain for the chick, since she had the nerve to insult both her intelligence and her hair. Or maybe it was her failure to understand why the brunette who had seemed nice in the park put up with someone like that. Sure, Gail had insulted the brunette, throwing some good material her way when she tried to apologize for tackling the blonde, and the other woman had barely batted an eyelash at the sardonic comments, but she could definitely do better than someone with hair the color of a fire engine.
Trying her best to ignore the two women, she finished off the rest of her shift. The pair didn't stay long, leaving once a couple more girls met up with them. Gail didn't know why but she was kind of disappointed that the brunette hadn't come to the bar to get her own drink. Alright Gail, the sleep deprivation must be getting to you. Since when do you want to talk to people? Pushing thoughts of the woman she didn't know from her mind, she collapsed into a chair at the table her housemates still occupied. While the rest of them were fairly drunk, Gail was stone cold sober, something she wished she could change, but it was too late to play catch up for the night. At last call, they all finally started to head out. As they got back to the houses, Chloe told Gail that she would be spending the night over at Wes' so she could enjoy having the room.
A couple of hours later, Gail didn't know why she was still awake. Having the room to herself meant she could finally sleep with the light on, but even that wasn't enough to get her to close her eyes. She had passed on the opportunity to beat the guys at video games again, and was starting to regret her decision. She lay on her back staring up at the ceiling. Was she scared of going to sleep? No, that couldn't be it, she was getting used to not sleeping and she was way too old to be scared of the boogeyman. Was it weird to not have someone else sharing the room with her? Maybe, maybe she was just getting used to having a roommate there, but that might mean she was missing Chloe and, well, that couldn't be the case.
Just like everyone else, Chloe was coupled up for the night, hanging out with her boyfriend. Frankie had had a date, Andy and Traci were with their boyfriends, Chris was probably still on the phone with his girlfriend, and there was a redhead out with a really pretty brunette somewhere. Maybe, the loneliness was finally getting to Gail, but she wasn't looking for a relationship, that much she was sure. They were messy and complicated and restrictive. She didn't want the hassle, the responsibilities, or the disappointment. Maybe she just needed to get laid? It had been awhile. She could always call Nick up; it would be easy to fall back into bed with him. But would that satisfy her? Nope, definitely not.
She felt dizzy, and disoriented. She could feel the searing pain in her head, and her eyes had closed in reaction. She didn't know who grabbed her but she could tell the person was a lot stronger than her. That's when she felt the prick in her neck, something sharp like a bee sting. Then she felt nothing, her body didn't feel like hers anymore.
Gail's eyes shot open and she reached for the side of her neck. There was nothing there; it was only a dream. She took a minute to look around her room. The light was still on and she was still alone. She didn't remember falling asleep but she must have. She got up and checked that the door was locked before she grabbed her headphones. It was just after 5am on Saturday morning and she really didn't feel like going for a run. They hadn't been helping anyway. Instead, she put her headphones in and tried to the let the sounds of someone else's heart breaking soothe her to sleep.
Sam had been wrong: it was two and half weeks before the first break-up. Gail returned to her room after a long day of classes, and a restless night of not sleeping. She was looking forward to climbing into bed and ignoring the world for a while. What she was not prepared for was a crying Chloe Price to have beaten her home. Chloe was supposed to have been out with her boyfriend. As Gail opened the door she was met with the whimpering sounds of her woeful roommate. She tried to back out of the room, gently, hoping her roommate hadn't seen her. She wasn't good with other people's emotions, hell she wasn't good with her own.
"Gail is that you?" sniffled Chloe.
Busted. Damn these combat boots. "Yeah Princess. What's up?" She was probably going to regret that question, but it seemed appropriate to ask, and Oliver was always on her case about trying to be friendly towards the people she lived with (Not that she understood why, Frankie was a bitch to everyone, but they all put up with her).
And so began a long winded explanation of how Chloe dumped Wes' sorry ass. She prattled on and on about how when they first met he was cool, and they quickly became friends, but then they started dating. Suddenly, Wes became super possessive and controlling. Then she went into some long-winded explanation of movies in black-and-white versus color. But the gist was that she had broken up with him, and hadn't stopped crying since.
As much as Gail wanted to ignore the words spilling from her rommate's mouth, she couldn't help but retain some of it. Stupid Peck memory tricks, at least she only had to half-listen. Gail wasn't surprised that it had been the perky redhead to end things; she just didn't understand why she was so upset. Wes had been a dick to just about everyone he had met and he was way too possessive of the free spirit seated in front of her.
Chloe began holding her head back and dancing weirdly around, patting at her eyes, "Ugh, I hate crying." This was apparently her attempt to keep the tears in.
"Price, if you're the one who did the dumping, you should also be the one doing the celebrating, why are you wasting both of our times with your crying?" Gail asked like it was the most obvious conclusion to come to. She really wasn't used to seeing her always blissful roommate actually upset about something, her happiness had seemed invincible, considering all the cracks Gail made on a daily basis that just bounced off the girl.
"Because, he was my friend and we dated for a long time and now I'm closing the book, you know, shutting the door, and endings make me sad."
"Well this is one ending that shouldn't. You and him didn't work. He was a dick and when you were around him you were like a pod person. But hey if you want to spend your night crying over some loser like some sad, pathetic puppy, be my guest."
"Wow, you're like really mean."
Gail scoffed, "Like I haven't heard worse? Plus, it's not my fault. Everything you say and feel just comes spilling out of you and it brings out the mean girl in me."
"Everyone brings out the mean girl in you." Chloe pointed out, to which Gail just shrugged accepting the comment for what it was: the truth.
For some inexplicable reason, the two girls started laughing. They really must have been getting used to living together, it was almost as if they were friends.
"Look, you're very wide open and bright-eyed, it's kind of like you belong in the Sound of Music." The redhead looked at Gail expectantly with a smile on her face, so the blonde clarified, "What that means Chloe, is that you're not afraid to be yourself, and it drives me crazy, but when you were with Wes you weren't yourself, and that drove me even crazier." That was as nice as Gail was going to be, so her roommate could take it or leave it.
Accepting what her new friend was saying, she realized that Gail was right and her explanation was more coherent than the movie metaphor she had attempted to explain why her and Wes didn't work out. "Thanks Gail."
Waving off the thanks, the blonde smirked, "You know what will make this better? Tequila!"
"Hey we're here." Chris tapped Gail's boot-clad feet that were hanging out his window.
The blonde grumbled incoherently as she pulled herself up from the backseat. She could barely remember the night before. It was the first time she had gotten shitfaced with her housemates since moving in. How was she supposed to know Chloe was so good at poker when she agreed to place bets using shots? They were already half in the bag by the time the rest of the girls joined them. In her blurry mind, she vaguely recalled drinking margaritas right out of the blender before kissing Frankie or Frankie kissing her, but she's also pretty sure Chloe kissed Frankie, there had been a lot of kissing. And that was before they all went to the bar. What happened after that is anyone's guess; she could probably ask Traci, who had spent the night babysitting the group. Surprisingly, Gail trusted Traci or at least tequila-soaked Gail trusted Traci, so she had let herself cut loose for the first time in forever. On the plus side, blacking out had meant no dreams.
"I've never seen you guys like this before, why didn't you take a sick day?" Chris asked the girls as they piled out of his truck and stumbled their way to class.
"Pecks don't get sick." Gail responded, as she rooted around her bag for a mint. She felt as bad as Chloe looked.
"I need the distraction," Chloe groaned, pulling her hood over her head.
"Hey, I was the only one sober last night." Traci defended herself.
"Show off," Chloe and Gail grumbled in unison.
They were early for class so they grabbed a seat on the steps outside. Gail focused her attention on the big softie, "Hey you, if you've ever cared about me at all, you'd find me some coffee."
Chris hung his head; he was such a sucker for these girls. "Come on, let's go," he said while taking the blonde by the hand, he dragged her to the nearest coffee cart, luckily not far from their classroom, and bought coffees for each of the girls.
As they started to head back, they bumped into Nick who had a huge shiteating grin on his face. Chris excused himself and went to class, abandoning Gail with her ex who she tried to brush off like usual.
"Did you have a nice time with the girls last night?" Nick asked faux-innocently.
"I'm not in the mood for you" Gail growled as she tried to walk away.
"I got your texts." Nick showed her his phone, which had videos of her dancing on top of the bar with Frankie and Chloe. The music coming from the phone was enough to make her head pulsate and her stomach lurch.
Gail reached for the phone but was too slow to get it. She narrowed her eyes, "Nick you have to erase those."
"Erase the evidence, that the fun, carefree Gail I once knew still exists. Not a chance." With that Nick headed in the opposite direction to his class.
Ironic, since he was the one who...never mind... Oh well, at least if all she did was drunk text him it meant she hadn't had sex with him, so that was a plus. Gail resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to kill her ex-boyfriend later; she still had a couple of classes to sleep through.
Gail was still hungover by the time she got to her shift that night. It was Thirsty Thursday and the bar was loud and crowded. She was glad she remembered to grab a couple of aspirin before work, but it still couldn't repel the losers who wanted to hit on her.
"What accent is that?" Gail asked the guy in front of her; the one who had been glued to the bar thus far, taking up prime real estate and trying to keep her attention.
"I'm from Nottingham." The boy replied with a smug grin, he was clearly used to his accent impressing girls.
Adopting her own fake British accent, "Ooo did you live in the woods, with a band of merry men?" She smirked at her own joke.
"Are you asking me if I am a homosexual?" The boy was seriously confused, and more than a little tipsy.
Maybe I should, she thought to herself. What a waste of a perfectly good pop-culture reference. Then again, this guy is probably as fake as his accent. Pretending to take an interest in the small talk, she asked, "What were you doing in Nottingham?"
Delighted that he had her undivided attention, the boy bragged, "I was studying medieval literature as part of my English degree."
"That's very random. How long were you in England for?" This boy's accent didn't sound right. Gail had only spent a couple of weeks in England during her trip but she had a knack for languages and accents.
"A semester." The guy was drunk and didn't realize his mistake.
Is this boy really as dumb as he looks? Narrowing her eyes in suspicion, she asked, "And before that?"
"I grew up just down the street from here, in fact my flat is just around the corner." He added with a lecherous grin.
HA, I knew it! And, this dude actually thinks he has a shot. "Could we recap? Your name is Winston and you were only in England for 2 months."
Finally catching on to his mistake, "I'm sorry what are you asking me?"
Rolling her eyes, Gail decided to spell it out for the bloke, "I'm going to be honest with you, Winston, this isn't going very well for you. I'm going to go home alone tonight, away from you and all your fakery, because there is not enough alcohol in this bar to get me in bed with you."
That was when Gail heard a bright laugh coming from the side of her wanna-be-paramour. The laugh sounded like it was dripping with honey and it belonged to the brunette from the park, the girl had overheard the entire exchange. Waiting till the boy left with his tail between his legs, Gail redirected her attention to the chuckling woman at the bar; one who, she couldn't help but notice, had arrived alone. She wasn't sure if the girl recognized her from their early morning runs "together", after all she hadn't gone for hers that morning and they didn't see each other every time, but Gail certainly recognized her, even with her dark-rimmed glasses, which were a new addition to her features. This was the closest they had been to each other since their roll in the dirt the first time they met. Gail wasn't sure why but the sound of the laugh and the proximity of the girl caused her stomach to flip.
Keeping her cool, Gail asked, "Find something amusing?"
"Yep" The brunette popped the "p" loudly. "That kid didn't stand a chance did he?"
"His name was Winston, what do you think?"
"British boys not your cup of tea?" The brunette continued chuckling as she gave the blonde a long look, for some reason the bartender seemed familiar to her but she couldn't quite place it.
Rolling her eyes, Gail responded, "Fake British accents are not my cup of tea."
"Aw but he seemed ready to hop the pond for you." The brunette could barely contain the grin on her face at her own joke, even as it quirked to the side.
"How many more of these lame jokes do you have?" Gail asked exasperatedly.
The brunette pondered the question for a moment, tapping her chin, "Well, I could probably work in something about the Queen if you want."
"I'll pass." Gail didn't want to admit that the brunette's enjoyment was amusing her, it wasn't her style, plus she didn't even know this girl and she barely let people she considered friend-ish crack this many jokes. "So what are you having?"
"If I ask for tea and biscuits will you kick me out?" The brunette asked as her face continued to light up with amusement.
"Yes."
"OK, ok, well how about fish and chips?"
"You know, you're really pushing your luck." Gail kept her face straight but her blue eyes betrayed her. The brunette could tell she wasn't in any real trouble for continuing her jests.
"Hey Peck, stop flirting and start serving." Charlie interrupted the girls' banter, if Gail wasn't going to be of use behind the bar he was going to send her out to the tables soon.
Smirking in response to the reprimand, she countered, "You know Boss, you're always telling me to be nicer to the customers, this is called customer service." She gestured to the woman in front of her.
Charlie shot her his patented stop-being-a-smartass look, which Gail acknowledged with her fake-innocent-what-did-I-do-look.
Focusing back on her customer, "Alright, Chuckles, what are you having?"
"Sorry, I didn't mean to get you in trouble." The brunette apologized sincerely; worried she had gotten the other woman in trouble at work.
Jeeze, she apologizes a lot to you. "No worries, Nerd, he's already forgotten about it. But you may want to order something if you're going to keep taking up a stool."
"What makes you think I'm a nerd?" The brunette asked as she unconsciously fiddled with her glasses.
Gail gestured to the frames, "Well Clark Kent, between those and the previous jokes, I think nerd is fitting."
"Really, I'm the nerd? You just made a Superman reference."
Gail shrugged, "Superheroes are cool. You going to order a drink before the bar closes tonight?"
"Mmhmm...well I'll have whatever's good that's on tap."
Nodding in acknowledgment, Gail poured the drink, while the brunette studied her. "Do I know you from somewhere?" she finally asked.
Gail was about to respond and tell her that they run by each other almost every day at the park when they were interrupted again.
"Hey baby sorry I'm late," the redhead from the other night came over planting a kiss on the brunette's cheek. "Hope you weren't too bored waiting for me." She added with a glare thrown Gail's way.
The brunette didn't notice the animosity, "Hardly, I was having a fascinating conversation about England." She threw a crooked smile Gail's way.
Not paying any attention to what the brunette was saying, the redhead responded, "Great, look Holly, my friends are outside waiting they want to go to the new club across town, you ready to head out?"
"I thought you said we were just grabbing a quick a drink," Not pleased with the last minute change of plans, Holly added, "I have a ton of studying to do. My exam is coming up."
Ignoring Holly's obvious displeasure, the bitchy redhead continued, "Eh, they changed their minds, come on you ready."
Sighing in resignation, the brunette conceded, "Yeah I guess, I just have to finish this and pay for my drink."
"Alright, hurry up, I'll be outside." She made sure to give the brunette a kiss on the lips and to shoot a smug look at Gail before she headed back out the way she came.
Gail had watched the entire exchange through narrowed eyes; it was a perfect reminder of why she hated relationships. She realized that she had been right: McD (her nickname for the redhead) didn't deserve Holly (Gail mentally noted that the name had a nice ring to it). Interrupting whatever morose musings were playing out in Holly's head, Gail pointed out, "You might want to hop to, looks like your girlfriend is impatient." Her words were laced with disdain.
Misinterpreting the tone, the brunette started to get defensive, "Do you have a problem with the fact that I have a girlfriend?"
Gail was put off at first at the hard look coming from the brunette, before she realized that Holly thought she had a problem with lesbians, she corrected that misconception, after all it was only one lesbian at the moment she had a problem with, "No, just a problem with her. It'll be three bucks for the beer."
Pulling out her money and depositing it on the bar, Holly continued to sip her drink sullenly.
"You know if you don't want to go you don't have to." Gail pointed out as she collected the bill and grabbed her change, she didn't know why she felt the need to say it but seeing the look on the pretty girl's face bugged the crap out of her.
"Thanks for the unsolicited advice, but I'm a big girl, I can make my own decisions." Holly drained what was left in her glass. "Keep the change," she said as she headed out the door.
Well, that went well, Gail thought to herself as the next batch of college guys came over to get their beer. She shook off the entire exchange and focused her attention back to work.
Her body felt weird. Heavy. She couldn't move but she was awake. She could see and hear everything around her but she couldn't move a muscle of her own volition. Yet she was moving, or rather someone was moving her, pushing her through the crowd. She wanted to stop, wanted to yell for help but she couldn't. No one even noticed.
Gail's eyes snapped open and she tried to control her labored breathing. She tapped the home button on her phone and checked the time, 4:30am. Who needs an alarm anymore? She threw off her sheets and grabbed her sneakers. She headed to the park and did her familiar run. There was no Holly that morning, surprise, surprise. But for some reason the solitude irked Gail more than usual.
A/N: Yes, Gail inadvertently learned Holly's name solely because it was getting really annoying to keep writing the brunette from the park.