You Had Me at Merlot [ Chaennie ]

Chapter 8: The One That Got Away

Three years later

Jennie's girlfriend, Debbie, was a lot of things, but quiet in movie theaters wasn't one of them. Everyone had their faults, and luckily Jennie could handle this one. Mo was just exceptionally curious when it came to dissecting even the simplest of plot lines. It was cute, in a way. It meant she was fully invested.

"Where is she going?" Deb whispered in Jennie's ear.

"I don't know," Jennie whispered back. "I haven't seen this film before. We gotta watch."

"Is she serious right now?" She clutched Jennie's arm. That was rhetorical, right? "Does she know her mom knows about him? I would so freak out. Does she know?"

"Um, I don't think so," she whispered back. The problem was that it was difficult for Jennie to lose herself in the story if her full-time job was question answerer.

She left the film she had very much wanted to see feeling like she'd just completed a school assignment. But Debbie was beaming. That made the whole thing worth it, right? She threaded their fingers, and Deb squeezed her hand and hopped a little. She was a perpetual hopper. Lots of energy. That part was also cute.

"Hey, it's only nine thirty. Want to hit up The Bishop's House on Fourth? I know the door guy. He'll take us to the front. We can do shots off the shovel."

"The shovel?"

"You'll see."

Jennie blinked. Dating Debbie had been a bit of a culture shock. First of all, she was seven years younger than Jennie, and it showed in how they approached their nightlife. Then again, Jennie had never been much of a partier at any age. Her mother once said she'd been forty years old since birth. "Sure. Let's go. Just remember I have to work in the morning, pretty early."

"I will have you home by midnight. Or maybe twelve thirty." She stole a quick kiss and started typing away on her phone. "I'm telling Kelly and Layla to meet us there." A pause. "She says they're bringing Tom-Tom and that one girl Lorna who sells fruit and always looks at me strange, but it's whatever. This place is fire, and we're gonna rage."

"Oh. Okay."

"Oh, and Layla's whole crew from the McDonald's on Eighth Ave is swinging over. You met them at that one party with the big straws."

"This is quite a group." She didn't mind. Much.

The Bishop's House had a steady beat emanating from inside when they joined the line. The group of friends all seemed to locate each other rather quickly and chattered in shorthand. Jennie smiled and nodded along, doing her best to fit in but feeling a tad like an outsider. They said the word vibe a lot. She started to count how many times for fun. Deb moved like a social butterfly between the women, hugging, catching up, fist-bumping, and shouting names back at Jennie as a reminder of who each woman was. "Remember Skinny Drew with the pizza box drama?"

"I do. Hi!"

"What's up, Jennie Jen!" Skinny Drew yelled, her hands cupped to her mouth. She had a lot of energy and apparently hated pizza boxes. There was a lot to keep up with in this friend group.

Jennie and Debbie had been dating for five months now and had been an official couple for three. They'd met when Jennie joined Clarissa, Simi, and a few others for cocktails. Debbie had approached her at the bar and offered to buy her a drink. Long dark hair, petite, and full of energy, Debbie was a force Jennie was still learning to keep up with.

"Baby Jennie, I love your hair. Have I told you that?" Deb shouted the words because the music was so incredibly loud that Jennie could feel the beat pulsing through every inch of her body.

"Once or twice."

"What?"

"Once or twice!" she yelled louder in Deb's ear.

"Dark hair and light eyes? Good God, take me now." Somehow the volume killed the romance, as did the dancing-slash-hopping while she said it. Deb was also now three shots in and a little handsy. She ran her fingers into Jennie's hair, cupped her ass, and smiled.

Instinctively, her arms went around Deb's waist. "We could go now." She topped the comment with a smile that was only half playful because she really was missing her apartment and her bed about now. She wasn't cut from the late-night-club cloth and never realized it more than in this moment.

"No way. We have to dance, like, eight more times." Deb did a bouncy twirl to demonstrate.

"Do we?"

"Come on. Let's do another shot."

"You go ahead. I need to sneak into the restroom." She didn't actually, but she did need a slight breather from the wall-to-wall bodies and didn't want to drink anymore with literally just hours until she needed to open the bar. The journey to the restroom took three times longer than it should have due to the lack of space, but once inside, she found the distance from the crowd allowed her to think clearly. Alone in the stall, she took a deep breath and then another, forcing herself to relax.

A few moments later as she washed her hands, a woman about her age called over her shoulder with a laugh. "We have no business in a club like this anymore. We belong in quiet restaurants with piano players underscoring our mundane conversation. Maybe a library."

"I plan to visit so many more libraries after tonight," her friend inside the stall said back. "What were we thinking?"

"Can you take me with you?" Jennie said with a laugh.

"You're in," the woman next to her said. "Do you like conversation and libraries?"

"I love both. It's a match!"

The woman handed Jennie a paper towel from the dispenser next to her. "I can't believe I used to have the energy for these places."