Broken Carts ✔️

Aisle 26: Explosions

Being really, truly, legally twenty-one in body, mind, and spirit— and not just via the birth date on someone else's ID— made going to Rock Bottom seem like a whole new experience. I made sure to flash my interim ID at a bartender I hadn't seen before; she wished me happy birthday and offered a shot on the house, which she probably wouldn't have done if she'd known how much I'd drank before coming out. I accepted it anyway and walked away from the bar without feeling a single step I took.

Though my teammates commandeered the jukebox for a while to play unapologetically explicit party hits, eventually they forgot about it, letting Ezra get a queue going. I mostly stayed at the booth to pound pitchers with the guys as their songs played, but it was Ezra's familiar music that brought me out on the dance floor with Lynette and Sonja in tow.

When I remember that night, dancing with the three of them sticks out as the highest point. We were all so drunk, but so alive: I was engulfed by the grungy guitar music, and though I couldn't remember a single lyric, it didn't stop me from singing along; Lynette was grabbing our hands and forcing us to jump around with her; Sonja dropped it low no less than fifty times; Ezra was smiling wide, and whenever he looked at me, I thought he was going to burst.

Over the din of the music and our scream-singing, I barely heard Sonja tell us that she was going to get another drink. When she'd been gone for more than two songs, I scanned the room to find her, only to see she'd been caught up at the bar with Bud talking her ear off. Her shoulders were tense and she was nodding politely in a way that screamed please shut up.

I rolled my eyes. "Jesus Christ, he can't let a girl be alone for two seconds..."

Ezra stopped me when I tried to make my way to Sonja. "Want me to handle it?" he asked.

"Be my guest," I encouraged him, enticed by the devious glint in his eyes.

To the tune of a rock ballad that had been undoubtedly queued by one of the single dads that lurked around the fringes of the bar, I watched Ezra slink up beside Sonja and hang his arm around her shoulder. She looked relieved to have Ezra there, and broke out into giggles when he gave her a friendly kiss on the cheek before pulling her away from the bar. Meanwhile, Bud stared at them, silently fuming. His peeved expression made me grimace.

"Thank you," Sonja told Ezra as they returned. "It's not that he's not nice, he's just... uh... overbearing."

"Don't mention it," replied a smug-looking Ezra. Part of me wanted to warn him that he'd just angered a ticking time bomb, but the other part wanted to give him a well-deserved high five.

"Hey, is that guy prone to dealing out ass kickings?" asked Lynette, who was peering over my shoulder. "Because he looks straight-up pissed right now."

I stole a glance at Bud. "Straight-up pissed" was an accurate description. "Shit," I mumbled as I trudged over to the bar, on a mission to save Ezra's ass from being kicked.

"Who does that guy think he is?" demanded Bud immediately upon my arrival.

"Uh, who?" I asked, feigning ignorance.

"Your friend. The old one. He's a fucking prick."

"He's a good guy," I tried to tell him. "Just give him a chance—"

"What a creep, what a goddamn creep. Is he fucking her or something?"

"Why, are you trying to fuck her?" The words leapt out even though I already knew the answer.

Bud pointed his fiery stare at me. "No shit," he grumbled. "But not when your dumb friend is such a fucking cockblock. Who the fuck kisses girls on the cheek anyway? That's just gay shit."