You Belong to Me

[daddysgirl87]

I was dragging my feet, reluctantly making my way down Main street to FUBAR's the little corner bar that generally comprised my Friday nights. My room mate Alyssa tends bar there and I had some how fallen into the habit of wasting my time at the end of the bar with the rest of the miserable townies who had the misfortune of nothing better to do on a Friday night. I always rationalized it with the excuse of driving Alyssa home from work, but the truth is, I really didn't have anything else going for me.

However, on this particular Friday night I was coming to terms with my situation. I should have been more cheerful. No I should have been excited. The weather was beautiful, and there was a great band playing at the bar that night. The bar owner was a cheapskate, and rarely hired bands that would want more than free beer for their time and talent. However, it seemed that this particular band was worthy of a meager three hundred bucks for three original songs and all the covers they knew. Since this is the kind of stuff that typically peaks my interest, I should have been happy, but I wasn't. Was it because the only parking space was three blocks up the street, or was it because I decided to quit smoking two days before? Actually it was infinitely more simple and silmoutaneously vastly more complicated than a small inconvenience and nicotine withdrawal. I was lonely, and bored. So I yanked open the door, waved to the bouncer and trudged across the bar to my usual spot at the end of the bar without taking my eyes off of the floor.

Had I bothered to look around me, I might have noticed that the bar was unusually crowded, or the fact that the patrons were all facing the stage at the back of the bar. As I hopped up onto the barstool despondantly I caught the first glance of my surroundings. I was shocked to notice that the typical crowd seemed to be replaced by a mix of grungey dreadlocked hippies and tattooed and peirced punks with raggedy tight black clothes and patchwork vests. I started to perk up thinking that this was a sign that the band wouldn't be a group of over-forty hair band enthusiasts twanging out renditions of "Free Bird" and "Stairway to Heaven". I turned back to the bar and was startled to see Alyssa standing in front of me with both hands gripping the edge of the bar, blond hair hanging closely around her face, and a crazed look in her eye that meant only one thing. Come hell or high water, one of us wouldn't be going home alone tonight. 
Before she opened her mouth to speak, I held up a hand and demanded a drink. Growling, she snatched the bottle of Absolut off of the shelf and slammed my glad onto the counter. "I know what you're thinking, but this is bigger than fresh meat." She blurted out as she mixed my drink. "Have I got a surprise for you!" I warily accepted my drink, which I had noticed had been mixed to be mostly vodka with a splash of cranberry for coloring, and she skipped the ice altogether. Looking from my glass to her, I opened my mouth to speak. "Drink up!" She practically shouted "You're gonna need it" I shrugged my shoulders and tipped back my glad. Alyssa was more than my roommate, she was my best friend since kindergarten. If she says I need a drink, then I can bet my ass she's right.
I set my empty glass on the bar while  felt the liquid courage surge through me, burning its way down. The crowd cheered, and for a split second I thought it was for me. That's when I heard his voice. I planted my feet on the rungs of the stool and hoisted myself onto the bar for a better view. The shock of what I heard drove away any sense of propriety as I literally stood on the bar and craned my neck to see what I had believed impossible.
The band had launched into their first song, and were playing a great rendition of 'Paint it Black' by the Rolling Stones. However, it wasn't the voice of the singer that had me beside myself with shock and awe. It was the man whose voice had briefly graced the microphone immediately before the band had begun to play. It was a voice that was hauntingly familiar to me and carried such a significance that I had hardly believed what I heard. Until I finally saw him, stand in near the men's room, arms crossed and a scowl on his face, nodding his head to the beat. That's when I fell off of the bar, and landed directly at Alyssa feet. In my idiotic stupor of amazment, I had taken a step in the direction of the men's room, completely forgetting exactly where I was standing, and had stepped right off of the edge of the bar and landed in a tangle of limbs to my horror. I looked up and grimaced. Alyssa had her hands in the air as if she had mean to catch me, and her jaw was slack as she stared down at the disheveld pile that I had become. I attempted to straighten myself out as she worked on hoisting me off of the floor. Someone then cleared their throats in the space above us, and I found myself for the second time that evening In a heap,  on the floor. "C-can I help you?" Alyssa stammered out at the patron. Her nerves would have struck me as odd if I hadn't assumed she was still shaken up at seeing me nearly break my neck a moment earlier. I stood up and began to brush myself off, the next thing I heard had me freeze like a marble statue. "I will have a beer Ally, and she looks like she needs a drink too, vodka and  cranberry on me." I slow lifted my chin and met the gaze that belonged to the voice that had caused me so much greif in the last ten minutes. His sparkling hazel eyes were as mesmerizing as they had been two years ago. His crooked grin firmly in place, made my heart skip a beat. "Hey"I meekly whispered. "Hey yourself" sweetly replied.


OKAY FOLKS TO BE CONTINUED....
Gotta love cliffhangers ;)

[daddysgirl87]

There I was, standing on the wrong side of the bar, hands gripping the edge of the sink, unconsciously leaning in toward the man whose attention had me frozen. Our eyes locked, mine blatantly displaying shock, his clearly sparkling in amusement. "Ahem" I snapped out of my daze at the sound of Alyssa politely clearing her throat. I nodded dumbly, my earrings jangling in a way that made me consider if thats what people meant when they referred to 'jangling nerves.'

I carefully made my way around the bar and down to the mysterious individual who had turned my night upside down. The individual in question, was one Derick Flannigan. A sandy haired hazel-eyed Irishman, who had somehow landed himself in my end of the world about five years ago. We had a passionate yet woefully short lived fling the winter after my twenty first birthday. He taught me how to drink, and I taught him how to love like an American, which is something we both had come to regret.

My inner monologue was interrupted by my arrival at the bar stool directly adjacent to Derick. I took a deep breath and carefully slid into my seat. Derick continued to stare at me with a smile plastered across his face. "So...." I began nervously.
"Have a nice trip?" He offered cheerfully. My nerves evaporated as I scowled into the drink that Alyssa had silently placed in front of me the moment before. "What are you doing here?" I demanded of him.

"What kind of man would I be if I didn't greet the poor girl who fell for me?" He exclaimed in a mock serious tone. Knowing that our previous affair ended with more than one broken heart, I could tell this was less of an insult to my broken heart and more his inability to resist teasing me for taking a dive off of the counter top.
I dramatically rolled my eyes and took a long sip of my drink while I waited for him to get it out of his system.
"Did it hurt?" He continued, a false look of concern knitting his brow. "Did what hurt?" I asked in a monotone, nodding along with his obvious response. "When you fell from heaven?" He cheekily responded before taking a swig of his drink.
"Are you done?" I huffed, feigning impatience.

All cheer drained from his face and he grabbed my stool turning me to face him directly. "Oh no m'darlin' I'll never be done wit'ye" he breathed out, laying thickly his Irish brogue onto the words I thought I'd never hoped to hear. "H-how long will you be around this time?" I asked, kicking myself for asking.
"Well, It seems I've got responsibilities to my new place of employment here in town, now I've just got to find some poor lass who'll make an honest man outta me and I'll have me self a good old green card to tie me down." He chirped jovially, taking another swig of his drink, ice clinking against the glass.
I had hardly believed a word he had said, or the implications behind them, so I chose to go with the easy part first. I used my meager powers of introduction to assume he just might be working at my favorite local watering hole. This being gathered from his previous use of the mic to introduce the band, which was currently launching into a grunge ballad that I would typically be howling along to in my delusion that I sing better when I'm drunk.
Rather than fueling his ego by playing into his guessing game, I turned to Alyssa who had been conspicuously lurking within earshot, and called out in my most obnoxious British accent much to Derick chargin "Oi! Why didn't you tell me about your new international exchange program for busboys?" Alyssa shrugged helplessly as she scurried off to assist a patron that had been attempting to gain her attention for several minutes already. I mumbled a curse under my breath as the Irishman snickered under his breath.

Influenced by my unusually low blood alcohol level for a Friday night, a recent fall from a medium height, and the sudden re-entrance of the last man to have successfully scorned me, I felt a sudden surge of anger race through me. I slammed down the rest of my drink, snatched up Dericks, and downed his. Fighting back a cringe from the alcohol and gave him my best punk rock sneer. " I hope you and your green card are very happy together." I snarled before I stalked off towards the ladies room. What I didn't expect was for him to follow me.

I never would have guessed him to not only chase after me, but to follow me right into the ladies room. Never has Derick bothered to chase after me for any reason. This was the least of my shock considering what was to immediately follow.

Derick grabbed a old of my arm dragged me to the furthest stall and shoved me inside. He squeezed himself in behind me and locked the door. He stood nose to nose with me, chest heaving, with my breath catching in my throat. Just when I thought he was going to kiss me he...

To be continued.

[daddysgirl87]

Just when I thought he was going to kiss me he began yelling at me merely inches from my face, and in the locked stall of a crowded bar. I was sure someone was going to assume some sort of abuse was going on. That is, until I began to register what exactly it was that he was yelling about.

"I treked my arse all the way across the Atlantic after having safely hidden myself from you and all the heartache you've caused me just to see you; and this is the welcome I receive!?" he exclaimed, eyes blazing in all their Irish fury. I opened myself to speak and was swiftly interrupted. "Oh no ye don't! ye dannae git tae come back at me wit yer quick wit when I am standin'ere wit ma 'eart on me sleeve and my hopes in the air! Yer gonna listen tae me naeu darlin', I love yeh, Ah always have and god help me I always will. There ain't a woman on this planet that makes me burn like yeh'do and I'll be damned if Ill let another man try'n take my place in yer 'eart! Naeu I came back from me home, the land that I love wit all me Irish 'eart and pride, to live in this miserable joke of a place to call home only tae be closer to yeh. Open yer eyes woman! I'll make yeh the happiest woman on eart if only ye would let meh!"

Throughout this whole cacaphony of noise, I could only see fit to do one thing, which was to stand there with my jaw clenched and my fists curled tightly into balls at my sides. When he finally finished his screaming tirade of a love confession, I waited while he stood there chest heaving, and watched all the red rage drain from his face. I stood silently while he waited impatiently for a reply.

Then it was my turn.

"You better think long and hard before you open your mouth again. I want you to take one long look at your surroundings, and I mean your literal physical location at this very moment. I want to consider who exactly you're talking to, and what exactly you were hoping to accomplish when you decided to shove me into a bathroom stall and scream at me from a distance which made it literally impossible to avoid every decible and every glob of spit that emitted from your gaping maw. Now I want you to understand, and I mean really understand exactly what is going to happen to you if you dare to say one more word to me on this subect in this particular venue. What I am gathering at the moment, and I'm sure a court in the world wouldn't convict me, is that you are about to become a grease stain on the floor of this bathroom, because you in all your infininite wisdom decided that it was perfectly acceptable to shove the love of your life into the bathroom stall of the seediest bar in America, and scream out a marriage proposal from within one inch of her face."


At some point during my speech, which was ground out from between my teeth, at a perfectly acceptable volume for any polite conversation, all of the self-righteous anger and cocky pride drained from his face, along with the color and gave way to a cold sweat and pure fear. Without turninging his back to me, he fumbled for the lock, fell backwards out of the stall, and scrambled out of the bathroom, back into the bar disappearing into the crowd and a really awesome rendition of Rage Against the Machine's "Wake Up".

I took a deep breath, counted to ten, took two more deep breaths, and counted my steps as I made my way over to the bathroom sink. I examined my reflection, as I carefully thought about my next move. Somewhere out there in the crowd is the love of my life, who told me exactly what I wanted to hear, in the worst way imagineable. I made a conscious decision not to base the potential happiness of my entire future on one singular, however major, error in judgement. So I turned on my heel, and marched out into the crush of people. Somewhere in the back of my mind realized that I needed to beg Alyssa's boss to book this band a second time so that I could fully appreciate their talent. Judging by the crowd, I somehow doubted that would be difficult. I scanned the room, heart racing when I laid eyes on Derick, sitting at the bar, withhis forehead against the bar, and his arms wrapped around his face. I cooly sauntered over to him, sleekly sliding into the empty stool next to him, and in the sexiest voice I could manage, I leaned in and asked "Buy me a drink?"
He jerked his head up, and gripped the rail that lined the edge of the bar. His mouth set in a hard line, his eyes searched my face. I didn't know what he was looking for so I just looked back, eyes wide, hoping that he didn't take my rage for rejection. I faintly heard lyrics to an unfamiliar tune "weee aree yoouunnggg...So lets set the world on Fiiirree!" Whatever he was looking for he must have found because he jumped off of his stool and scooped me up in his arms, burying his face in my neck. Without hesitation, I mimicked his grip on me. I couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't come off as another one of my smart ass comments, so I said the only thing I could think of that wasn't cheesey or gimmicky and was full of more truth than anything else I could manage at the time. "I will never, ever let you go again. You belong to me."
Without letting go or moving an inch, he whispered into my neck "Thank you m'darlin'." After he scooped me up, and carried me over the threshold of the bar to the fading melody of an original song by the band , I realized the irony of the lyrics  that I heard as the door closed behind us "I'll carry you home, toniiigght." I decided two things, the first being I wanted that band to play at my wedding, and two, that I probably wouldn't be spending my friday nights holding down a bar stool anymore.

*****

and they lived happily ever after.

[daddysgirl87]

Okay folks please let me know what you think of my story, you can reply here or pm me, what did you like, what should I work on, did it give you any ideas, did you even read it etc.,etc. :-)

[TaurusBeresford]

if ever there was a fiery relationship destined to burn hot and heavy for a few short lived years of great passion, this would be one of them, heh. Honestly the relationship could last for a lot longer, but the heated arguements wouldn't be too far in the making.  Great story though, it was surprisingly unexpected.

[VexaVenom]

wonderful read, thank you for putting the time and effort into it. Men with accents....mmmm, and Irish to top it off, gods have mercy on my poor black soul.

[Zandra]

Really enjoyed the story. Loved the tensions and passions! Fun read!