A Hell Of Love

ChapterTwo

His words echoed in my head long after he said them.

“You’ll regret sitting here tonight.”

Who even says something like that to a stranger?

I turned to look at him, his face half-hidden in the dim light of the bar, his jaw set like he had no intention of taking the words back. He was just staring into his glass like I wasn’t even worth a second glance.

“I don’t know who you think you are,” I finally said, my voice sharp. “But you don’t get to tell me where I can sit.”

Still nothing. He lifted his glass, took a slow sip, and then set it down with this calmness that almost pissed me off more than if he’d yelled.

My heart was racing—partly from the alcohol, partly from… whatever this was. Who even acts like this?

I should’ve gotten up. I should’ve walked to the other end of the bar and left him to his little corner. But something in me—stubborn, reckless—dug its heels in.

I wasn’t moving.

If I moved, it would feel like he’d won, and I wasn’t in the mood to let anyone win over me tonight. Not when I’d already lost too much.

“Why this spot?” I asked suddenly. “You own the bar or something?”

That finally made him look at me. His eyes were this piercing shade of gray, like smoke trapped in glass. Cold. Distant. The kind of eyes that told you he’d seen too much and cared too little.

“This seat’s mine,” he said flatly.

I let out a dry laugh. “What, they engraved your name on it?”

He didn’t answer. Just kept staring. And the silence between us grew heavier, like the music and chatter in the background had dimmed on purpose to make me sit in it.

I hated it.

I hated him.

And I hated that some part of me was curious.

I turned back to my drink, muttering, “Well, congratulations. You met the one person tonight who doesn’t care.”

For a second, I thought that was it—that we’d sit in silence until one of us left. But then his voice cut through again, low and steady.

“People come here to forget. You came here to drown.”

My stomach twisted.

I froze, my hand tightening on the glass. How the hell did he—

“What did you just say?” I asked, my voice coming out sharper than I intended.

He leaned back against the counter, his expression unreadable. “I’ve been coming here every night for months. Same drink, same seat, same time. You learn to notice things. You—” he nodded at my half-empty glass, “—don’t drink like someone enjoying themselves. You drink like someone trying to make the world shut up.”

My throat went dry.

He wasn’t wrong.

But that didn’t mean he had the right to say it.

“Listen, Sherlock,” I snapped, pushing my glass aside. “You don’t know a thing about me, so don’t pretend you do.”

“I don’t need to,” he said simply, turning back to his drink.

The nerve of this man.

I bit down on my lip so hard I almost tasted blood. Every part of me screamed to walk away, but the alcohol in my system and the storm in my head kept me glued there, like leaving would be admitting he’d gotten under my skin.

And he had.

God, he had.

For the next few minutes, we didn’t speak. Just two strangers at a bar, sitting in the kind of silence that was too heavy to ignore.

But the thing is—when someone rattles your world with just a few words, silence doesn’t feel like silence anymore. It feels like waiting.

And I didn’t know what I was waiting for.

⸻

The bartender came around, sliding Rex—yeah, I’d heard the bartender call him that earlier—another glass without even asking. His “usual.”

Routine. Predictable. Like he’d carved his pain into this place until it became part of the furniture.

I found myself watching him from the corner of my eye, noticing little things—the way his fingers tapped the side of the glass, the way his shoulders never seemed to relax, the way he didn’t bother with small talk or even a “thank you.”

And then I realized he was watching me too.

I whipped my head away, heat rushing up my neck. Why was I embarrassed? I had no reason to be. He was the rude one. The one acting like he owned the damn bar.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s your deal?” I blurted.

He raised a brow. “My deal?”

“Yeah. You sit here every night like some… ghost. You act like the world owes you silence. And you think you can just—what—analyze me for sport? Who does that?”

His lips twitched. The closest thing I’d seen to a smile all night.

“You ask too many questions,” he said.

“And you give too few answers.”

We locked eyes then, and for a moment, it felt like the room had shrunk around us. The music faded, the clinking glasses blurred, and it was just… him and me.

Two broken people with drinks between us and too many walls to count.

I looked away first.

I don’t know how much time passed before I finally stood up, throwing some cash on the counter. My head was buzzing, my heart even worse.

I needed to leave.

But just as I turned, his voice stopped me.

“Next time,” he said calmly, “don’t sit here unless you’re ready to regret it.”

I froze, my hand hovering over my bag strap. My chest tightened, and for reasons I couldn’t explain, a shiver ran down my spine.

I didn’t turn back. I just walked out into the night air, his words chasing me all the way home.

And that was the last thing I needed—because the truth was, I already regretted it.

But not for the reasons he thought.