Call her ZADDY

Gabrielle takes her shot

"Come on let's go take a shot," Gabrielle offered while grabbing Mick's arm and pulling him away to the bar.

She couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy. Mick's whole interaction with Ian had been so painful to watch; it was sad really. He was so transparent. How could she not feel bad? I mean Mick was a lot of things, but he was still a human being with feelings right?

——

At the bar the two began laughing and taking shots, where the drunker Gabrielle became, the funnier Mick got. As they laughed, Gabrielle took in the wedding crowd,   realizing they might actually be the two funnest people in the room, which incidentally never happened to her.

Sitting up in her bar seat a little taller , Gabrielle glanced up at the dismissed bartender feeling victorious. She couldn't wait to shove their good time in the woman's face. That lady had been such a fucking bitch! What type of person would blatantly flirt with a man right in front of his date at an where she was there as the hired help?

        But when she finally spotted the woman, the bartender appeared to be much older than that she had seemed only minutes ago. Her tan skin looked more leathered and her smile lines seemed deeper set as she frowned. During their failed introduction Gabrielle would have guessed the lady to be in her late twenties, but now she'd say she was well into her early thirties , at least.

Gabrielle wondered for the first time if the woman had children or if bartending was her only career. She hated that she had to take in to account the lady's feelings, but she couldn't help but feel sorry for the woman. She looked really beat down.

Then all at one She noticed the bartenders wrinkled, old , mouth beginning to quiver. From Gabrielle's vantage point, she seemed to be on the brink of tears. Oh dear god, Gabrielle whispered to herself. The woman was now on the verge of a total breakdown.

Gabrielle swallowed a hard lump in her throat as she glanced back and forth from Mick to his ex lover. Things were escalating quickly here. The bartender was now shaking so hard that another coworker had to run over to console her while Mick on the other hand, was living his best life, At this very moment he was in the middle of laughing at his own off colored jokes and resting his  hand on her bare knee.

A million thoughts raced through her head while she stared at his rugged hand, which felt strangely good in her lap. What had she been thinking even allowing herself to associate with this dumpster fire of a person? Mick was awful ! What was worse, was that she knew he pulled this sort of shit with women all the time. She wasn't blind to his behavior. It was sick. Yet she still chose to hang out with him. Didn't that make her complicit? But hot damn. His hand felt sooo freaking good.

Glancing back at the now completely deflated bartender, Gabrielle suddenly felt like the world's biggest traitor to not only this poor unlovable wretch but to every woman Mick had ever mistreated. Gabrielle figured his number was probably in the high hundreds.

By her count, Mick had to be a text book sociopath or at the very least a sex addict. He was garbage! He was trash! He'd probably triangulated this whole a scenario on purpose. Most likely he'd flirted with the bartender to make Gabrielle jealous and then did the same to her in reverse order so as to pit both women against one another. This dude was manipulating the whole room! he had to be stopped. But how?. Feeling emboldened, Gabrielle grabbed his hand from her leg and pushed it away with a hard shove. God she hated him...

As she gazed out at her pathetic date one last time before getting up to excuse herself to the ladies room , Gabrielle wondered just how many people he had hurt in his life. Probably thousands, she figured. He'd probably destroyed a whole generation of twenty something girls with just one swoop of his shaggy brown hair. How dare he fuck with vulnerable middle aged women, she fumed. Playing with the hearts of women in their mid twenties was one thing but , but toying with less desirable older women was another. It wasn't right!. There was no way she was going to let this sort of bullshit behavior go unchecked. He needed to suffer. Someone needed to put him in his place. If it had to be her than so be it. She'd make him pay for this. Of that she was sure...

Thanks for reading ! It's part of our dna to be competitive or feel moments of jealousy when pursuing romantic relationships in the early stages. But my hope is that any young readers out there be be wary of a love Interest who triangulates or intentionally manipulates others to make them compete for their affection or feel insecure.