Addiction

Chapter 30

Chapter 30

The date was not going well, at all. Blaise picked her up in a ratty looking car which had definitely seen better days – and lots of action, if the stains she could see on the back seats were any indication. There was also a helpful pair of hand prints on the ceiling, in case she hadn’t drawn enough conclusions. When they’d belted up, he turned to her, his puppy-like enthusiasm winning a couple of brownie points, which he then squandered by asking, “where to?”

“Ehm, anywhere,” she supplied, surprised and disappointed. It had been a few years since she’d been on a first date, but surely the where was already arranged, by at least one of them, before hand.

“I was thinking we could just chill out at the Bunker for a while.” Deciding that his bright baby blues staring at her so innocently were his best redeeming feature, Sophie nodded and agreed.

The ride was bumpy – the death-trap of a car didn’t seem to have any suspension at all – and by the time they’d arrived at the bar five minutes later, her artfully arranged top-knot had denigrated into an abandoned birds’ nest. Rushing to the bathroom, she tried to re-do it as best she could, and came out with a cross between ‘just out of bed’ and ‘dragged through a bush backwards’. Sighing, she slicked on more red lippy and smiled. “It’s just a date, no biggie.” Her reflection agreed.

Upon finding Blaise with a short glass half filled with amber liquid, she asked, “is that whiskey?”

“Bourbon,” he replied, smiling like an i***t.

Great. She’d be walking home, then. She seated herself before she realized there was only one glass on the table. “I’ll just go to the bar,” she told him, her mouth set in a grim line, which thinned even further when he just nodded, and let his gaze ramble throughout the bar.

Attracting the attention of the bartender was easier than keeping her date’s, she discovered after her third consecutive trip to the bar. Blaise sat like an inanimate object, sipping his first drink, and looking around him as if expecting the bogeyman to pop out from under a table at any given moment. “White wine spritzer?” the bartender asked, with a knowing leer.

“Yes, please.” She took a crisp new ten from her clutch and held it out to him, but he just shook his head and replied, “on the house.”

Oh, great. Even the bartender feels sorry for me. Some date this had turned out to be. Apart from a shop mannequin, she couldn’t think of anyone she’d less rather spend time with, than Blaise. “Hey gorgeous.” An arm snaked its way around her waist and she was pulled into a rather solid chest.

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