The Whole Time

Ch.1 Heartache

EDITED

It's was a Saturday night and Jeremy was at the club in Danville. He's Sitting at the bar with some of his friends as he yells out his order for another beer at the waitress and pretends not to remember the fact that they slept together two months ago. That's his fault for sleeping around too much. The waitress sets the beer down at the table. It's the same thing every week he gets together with a group of friends for a few hours and to be quite honest he's getting pretty sick of doing the exact same thing every week. Unlike Monty and Johnny they have children at home, Monty is married to Mindy and Johnny is married to Vanessa and Coltrane just got married to Stacy a few months ago. Jeremy is the last one in the group to settle down. For them, this is a quick break, a few hours out of their routine lives. It's fun for them before they go back to the true joy in their lives. Johnny takes a quick look at his phone, smiling like to himself before he puts it face down beside his beer.

"Vanessa?" Jeremy asks and he gives him a quick nod.

"You have to head home?" Jeremy asks him.

"Na," he lightly laughs, lifting the beer to his lips. "But after the text she sent me, I want to"

"That's the sign," Monty says to him from across the table, twisting the silver band on his ring finger. "She wants you to come home, she just wants it to be your idea."

Johnny shrugs. "I don't care, I'm still going home to have sex with my sexy ass wife. Win win."

Monty laughs, slamming his empty bottle on the table and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Too bad you got kids man because I doubt you're going home to fuck. You're going home to a bed full of children cockblocking you."

"Couch it is," Jeremy says, grinning at him as he blows out a tired breath and palms his clean shaven jaw.

No one expects him to add his opinion, he's childless, single too thanks to his recent break up. 8 months later and he's still not sure how to wrap his head around it. Like most nights, he'll hang out after they have gone home, he'll hook up with some girl, preferably a tourist who's here for Christmas. His attention starts to wander off to the chaos in the bar, a group of old men stand at the jukebox, arms linked over their shoulders, their drunken sways make him lightly laugh. Most people here are in need of a cab. As he scans the crowd, tuning out the conversation about rash cream going on beside him, he sees a familiar face and does a double take. On the other side of the room, dancing on the table, long lean legs, slim shoulders, angular features and skin white as snow. Yeah, that's Candace Flynn. They used to be best friend for as long as he can remember. She's the same, but so different. Her hair cascades in long red waves down her back, the end strands touching the curve of her ass, which is barely covered by the hem of her tight silk black slip. She's drunk as hell, hands on her body, moving into her hair. He blinks, again and again because he's not sure what the hell she's even doing here. After high school, she followed Billy to college, her boyfriend and the father of her child. As far as he was aware, she was living in LA, raising their kid while he went to UCLA doing arts and media. A whole lot of useless  information but it still made him wonder what she was doing back here, dancing half naked in a bar with... he has no idea who the girls are that she's with.

"You know her?" Monty asks, gesturing at Candace.

"Yeah." He says leaving it at that.

"She looks familiar," Johnny says, squinting at her.

"You look like someone's dad the way you're staring at her." Monty says to Johnny laughing.

"I am someone's dad. Not hers though," Johnny says conspiratorially, averting his attention.

"Thank god. Where are her friends?"
He asks himself and glances back over at Candace, who's now wearing the little black slip around her hips, the bottom of her ass out there for whoever to see. She rolls her hips at the assholes cheering her on. That's when he noticed who those assholes were. Regulars at the bar. Creeps in their fifties who hang around and prey on the drunk twenty somethings. He's  seen it enough to know it's not safe and the owner isn't always watching them.

"Excuse me," he grumbles, wiping the last of his beer off of his lips. Candace had been a reckless drinker for as long as he could remember. In high school, she'd passed out the couch at his Vanessa's or Stacy's house countless weekends, the amount of times he put a bucket beside her, checked her pulse or draped a blanket over her, were endless. Stacy and Vanessa also took part in taking good care of her, they never complained and they had a good time together but Stacy and Vanessa aren't here and the girls she's with sure as shit don't seem to care if Candace shakes her ass at half of the bar. He  hasn't seen Candace in four and a half years. Which seems bizarre but their paths never crossed. After she moved they just stopped talking after a few months. Not even when it came to each other's birthdays or Stacy's or Vanessa's birthday. Every year, one of them wasn't able to make it. Despite how long it's been, he doesn't hesitate to grab her elbow and drag her toward the exit.

"What the fuck," she said and smacks him, the alcohol making her weak and uncoordinated. It isn't until there outside that she starts to panic and the darkness doesn't seem to help with the parking lot, covered in snow, doesn't offer much light apart from the street lamps at the road. "Let me go," her voice trembles and he holds both of her arms so she's forced to look at him.

"Jeremy!"