Five

I slid into my seat next to Ron that Monday night.
“Hey compadre, what’s new? I hear you and Jen are firing it up,” Ron grinned at me and waved his martini at me.
“Ron, the past three days have been insane and I think I’ve met a woman who takes the prize for craziest ever.”
“Hey now, Jen isn’t that bad, I mean, she’s pretty stable for a woman.”
I signaled to Eric for a whiskey and a beer. He raised and eyebrow and poured. “I’m not talking about Jen. Remember the girls we were playing pool with the other night?” I thanked Eric for the drinks and held the whiskey between two fingers and gestured gently at him.
“You scored that Erin girl?” Ron asked and lifted his glass, “Damn man, she had a great rack.”
“You moron, I’m talking about the other one, Dawn.”
“Her? She spoke all of what, two words the whole time?”
“Look, after you left her and I chatted for a while. Then she shows up at my studio this morning. I thought she was hitting on me at first, but it was more like watching a video on fast forward. She’s moodier than Rachel.”
“Um, well, so you’re running like hell in the opposite direction?” Ron asked, still holding his glass in the air, “because you know Jen is pretty excited about the idea of you and her again.”
I rapped my glass of whiskey against Ron’s glass and tipped it down my throat, “Fuck, I should be running, I should be happy about Jen being back.”
“But you’re not, are you?”
“I’m happy that Jen is back in town, and I’m, I don’t know, happy to be around her again, but I’m fascinated by this girl.”
“You want my advice?”
“Fuck no, I just want you to drink with me and smile tolerantly as I make a jackass of myself. Then I want you to see that I get home safe.”
Ron grinned, “Now that is the sort of friend I am excellent at being,” he called to Eric for another whiskey, “This dumb bastard is getting drunk.”
I trashed Ron on the table that night, at least for the first few games. After a couple hours I got lost in the jukebox and never seemed to recover.