The One Who Shot Me - Sequel To Bulletproof Love

Set Up

I could see his eyebrows furrow above his dark sunglasses, which, as I could recall, he sometimes did, even at night. His lips parted, as though he were beginning to say something, but he instead shook his head. He once again parted his lips, and they moves as if he were struggling to form words.

“Tony?” I called his name again, this time with less surprise, in order to get him to say something. His silence was eerie.

Tony swallowed and moistened his lips with his tongue before separating his lips for one last time before speaking. “Dylan…” He let his voice trail off at the end of the sentence; he spoke my name as if its syllables dripped poison onto his tongue. “You smoke cigarettes?”

I decided to shrug off his question and took a deep breath to buy myself some time. I’d previously known that I was not prepared at all to see Tony, yet here I was, and I needed something to say. I was nervous, however; I was sure that he would shrug me off like a bug on his shoulder and walk away, leaving me alone with my thoughts and regrets, once again.

Yet, I spoke through my overthinking. “Uh...um...are you - do you still need this lighter?” I gestured toward the small metal object balancing between my sweating fingers.

Tony looked down toward my hand, and saw that his own hand was still extended in the direction of mine, and he nervously shoved it into the pocket of his hoodie. “Oh, um...no. Thanks, I guess.”

I nodded in response and put my lighter into my purse. By the time I’d looked back up at Tony, the existing layer of tension only seemed to multiply exponentially, and I swallowed hard. We both started to stammer at the same time, letting out different arrangements of “well...um...err...uh…”

Finally, Tony told me that he had to go, and while I did miss him, and I knew it, I was thankful for this, because things had never been this awkward between us, not even when we first met. He turned away and walked back into the club, and I waited a second before taking my cigarette out of my mouth and stomping it into the ground to put it out. Afterwards I followed Tony’s footsteps back inside; I didn’t want any of my companions to know that I had seen him, or even talked to him.

Walking back into the venue, I scanned the bar, trying to see if Jessica was still there. She was, indeed, sitting right where she had been sitting before, and Vic was right there as well, but this time Ashley was snuggled next to him, and suddenly, everything clicked in my mind. Ashley must have known the guys were here, and that’s why she chose this destination, in Sydney. It became clear to me that I was being set up.

I pushed my way through the crowd as quickly as I could, and when I finally reached the bar, I went right up to the couple standing in front of me and greeted Vic for the second time that night before pulling Ashley away by her arm and requesting some time to speak privately. Ashley said a few things of question and protest as I practically dragged her through the club, searching for a bathroom. I spotted the public restroom at the end of the hall before bringing her with me into the room.

“Okay, Dylan, what the hell is going on?” she asked as soon as I let her go, turning to one of the dirty mirrors above the sinks to check her appearance.

“You knew Pierce the Veil was in Sydney before you brought me here!” I saw her face fall in the mirror from confused to sorry in a matter of seconds. “Why didn’t you tell me? Did you think I would never find out?”

“Dylan, listen. You’ve been mopey ever since your breakup and I wanted to take you somewhere. Vic was already here, and he helped me pay for stuff. Plus, I missed him.”

“Did you even think about me possibly running into Tony?” I wasn’t all that upset anymore, but this was seemingly the one part of the story that made no sense.