Eight: A Prequel to Sugar Fix

I

Just like that, it was over.

Her shiny brown curls bounced as she walked, each click of her boot heels landing on the sidewalk with an angry finality. She raised a hand and a taxi materialized out of nowhere to sweep her away. As she ducked into the back seat, she flicked her head around only for a half a moment, just long enough for Jon to see the concrete glint in her eyes. She wasn't sorry.

Perhaps she could have been sorry it turned out like it did. But she wasn't sorry for anything she'd said. She wasn't sorry for the way his heart was fragmenting behind his ribs, or the way he stood with one foot forward, his weight on it as though to start walking-- running-- to catch up with her, if only his body would move.

She swung the door shut and the cab sped away with only her profile visible through the window, as she stared ahead, past the driver, out the windshield to whatever destination was next for her.

It took a full minute for Jon's lungs to thaw enough to allow a full breath. Then another. Each one came as a tiny surprise; that he was still capable of breathing startled him. It took another full minute for him to realize there was someone standing behind him. He knew it, but he still jumped when the hand rested on his shoulder.

"Is she gone?"

Feeling crept back into Jon's body, starting from the point of contact of that hand, and spreading through him inch by inch until he could give a small nod.

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry, man."

Jon turned around and his legs barely held beneath him. "It's okay. I'm a dumbfuck for thinking it could work."

Richie put his other hand on Jon's opposite shoulder and squeezed. "Come on, let's go back upstairs."

"I don't know if I can walk that far," Jon said, snorting softly as though it was funny somehow.

"I'll help you," Richie said. "You can lean on me and pretend you're drunk."

Jon snorted again, and Richie smiled. "Funny how being sloshed is saving face compared to being tore up over a chick." He put his arm around Jon's body and Jon put one foot in front of the other, surprised, yet again, that this time he actually moved forward.

- - - - -- - - - - -- - - - - -- - - -

"Sit down," Richie said, leading Jon to the love seat in the living room of his suite.

Jon sank into the cushions, his leaden arms drooped at his sides. He followed Richie with his eyes, but not his head, as the other man collected three tiny bottles of liquor from the mini-fridge in the bar, their necks threaded between the fingers of one hand,. Their bodies chattered against each other as he tucked the ice bucket in his elbow, deposited two cans of Coke into it, and grabbed two champagne flutes with his free hand.

Making his way to the love seat, he dropped his quarry on the glass coffee table in front of them and sat down. Jon's eyes slid between his friend's hands as he worked, carefully funneling ice into the narrow mouths of the glasses. Richie opened one of the bottles and poured half of it over the ice in one of the flutes, leaving the other one dry for the moment. As he pulled the tab on one of the Cokes, Jon said,

"What the hell is with the champagne glasses?"

The soda can cracked and hissed, a thin tendril of steam rising from it. Richie topped up both glasses and handed the one with the alcohol to Jon.

"We're celebrating."

Jon frowned into his drink before downing half of it in one gulp. "Celebrating what?"