I sat on the high-backed stool in an irritated huff, blowing a strand of ginger hair away from my face and raising the fingers of my right hand to grab the bartender's attention. Not that I needed a lot of help getting noticed in my sleeveless, body-skimming sheath dress with a hem that stopped a few inches north of my knees. The garment clung to my hips and butt, and the red and grey squares of the wide gingham pattern warped as they rode the large double swells of my breasts. I set my delicate clutch on the bar and opened it as the bartender - a fit, good looking guy in his early twenties whose nametag read "Harold" - approached.
"Seven and seven, and if you could turn the Pittsburgh Regional game on this screen, please." I handed Harold a twenty, thanked him, and told him to keep the change. He quickly returned with my cocktail, then left to wait on two men a few seats down, leaving me alone to watch my game. My argument with Dan in the hotel room upstairs had caused me to miss the first four and a half minutes of action, and my team was already leading by six as the game went to its first commercial break.
I held the straw of my drink delicately between my thumb and forefinger and pursed my lips to suck in a mouthful of whiskey and soda. My heart, still beating rapidly with the adrenaline of the fight, pumped the alcohol into my bloodstream and I felt a faint tingling in my face and fingers instantly. My mouth tightened in a slight grimace with the sting of the booze and unpleasant thoughts of the spat.
We (my boyfriend, Dan, and I) were in town for the weekend for an industry conference at which he had been invited to speak. He had asked me to travel with him a few weeks ago, making it sound like it would be a "fun" trip and we'd be able to spend time together, save for a few mandatory short events. Instead, I had spent all day Friday reading alone by the hotel pool, and Friday night sitting by myself in this same hotel bar watching the tournament. Meanwhile, a cheery Dan was ushered from panel to panel, none of which I was permitted to attend. Saturday had been worse, as torrential rain had kept me inside, reading and watching TV in the room all afternoon while Dan gave his speech on looming regulatory changes.
The importance of this weekend to Dan and his career was obvious to me and I wouldn't have minded, had I not felt he'd mislead me when inviting me along. I was further miffed by the fact that I'd traveled with him rather than going to Pittsburgh with friends to watch our alma mater play the first two games of what we were sure was to be an historic march through the tournament. It was tonight's game that had set off the argument.
"You've been away at meetings since we woke up Friday morning, and now the only two-hour block of the weekend that I want to do something is the time you're adamant about spending together?!" I'd held back a lot in stating my case, but my frustration was threatening to boil over.
"I'm sorry that I had more work to do at this conference than I expected." I couldn't tell whether to believe him. "This weekend is really important for my career. I thought you'd want to be together when we could, but instead I guess you want to watch basketball." I should have smelled this cheap play coming, but he wasn't the only one who could lay a trap.
"Why don't you watch the game with me? We could spend time together, have some drinks. The bar menu is pretty good, and after the game you could tell me about your presentation." Sitting on the bed in my underwear, part of me wanted him to agree, but another knew it would be more pleasant to watch alone - and that he would never accept anyway.
"You know I hate basketball!" he spat. Dan's peculiar disdain for sports bubbled to the surface as I'd expected. "And I'd rather have a nice, quiet dinner, just the two of us, if I'm going to discuss my work from this afternoon." He reached out and touched my arm, his fingertips brushing softly across my smooth, pale skin. Dan sat on the bed and inched closer to me, kissing my bare shoulder. "Then maybe after dinner we can see what this hotel mattress can do..." The night before I'd been asleep before he returned to the room and this morning had awakened to the sounds of him getting out of the shower and dressing in the bathroom.
"Dan, if you want to have dinner together, make a late reservation at the restaurant." I stood from the bed, took my dress from its hanger and slid it over my head, straightening the clingy garment as I checked in the mirror that the blue lace of my bra and thong didn't show through the fabric. "I'll be down in the bar watching my game if you want to find me." With that, I grabbed my clutch and left the room as quickly as my four-inch black patent heels would allow.
The entire elevator ride from the tenth floor, my irritation simmered, and as I marched across the marble tiles, past the entrance to the hotel restaurant the muted background soundtrack of strings further annoyed me. By the time I reached the bar, my pulsing aggravation was punctuated with each click of my heels on the polished wood floor.
Now I sat at the bar, having nearly drained my first beverage as my blue-clad boys clung to a three point lead in the waning minutes of the first half. My phone buzzed inside my purse with a text; Dan had made a reservation for us at nine. He hated eating that late, but that was still earlier than I expected the game to finish and I smugly decided that it would do him a bit of good to wait alone. On the screen above the bar, the teams trotted into their locker rooms tied at halftime, and I reached the bottom of my cocktail.
Without the preferred distraction of the game, I composed my reply to Dan. "Ok. I'll see you when I'm done." There was a little over an hour before our reservation, and I thought my phrasing sent a nicely ambiguous message. His refusal to do something so small as to sit at a bar with me - after abandoning me for the last day and a half - pissed me off all over again. I pictured him alone at the table at quarter after, agitated and checking his watch every thirty seconds, and my lips bent into a mean-spirited grin.
The second half began and I leaned forward on the bar, setting my elbows and forearms on the counter with my heavy breasts resting atop my arms. The fabric of my dress tightened around my lower back and glutes, and I swung my legs - crossed at the ankles - bouncily beneath my stool as I tried to enjoy the game. A panning shot of the crowd almost spoiled that effort, as I caught a brief glimpse of the friends with whom I should have traveled to the game. I sucked the last water from the bottom of my glass in annoyance at their contrasting good time.
Harold appeared with a fresh drink, calling my attention to the pair of guys at the end of the bar who had bought my cocktail.
"They want to know which team's costumes you think are prettier." He said, trailing off and backing away from the intensity of my scowl. I turned to face my approaching benefactors and sized up the soon-to-be assault victims. They were both tall, well-muscled and clean shaven, dressed in button down shirts and slacks. As they arrived at my stool, they split to either side of me, but I returned my gaze to the television while irritatedly sipping their drink.
"Are you wearing red because you're rooting for the Eagles?" The one on my right asked with a patronizing tone. I looked at him from the corner of my eye as he set his glass down on the bar and pulled a stool within a closer-than-friendly radius of my bare legs.
"No, but thank you for the drink. The Eagles' big men are too young and inexperienced to counter the Dogs' size down low, and when their wings have to collapse in to help it's going to free up looks for our outside shooters." I wrapped my lips tightly around the straw and turned to stare him down as I took a long sip for emphasis. He was impressed and slightly taken aback by my show of competence, but the guy on my other side chimed in to keep the play going.
"Uh huh. Well, don't look now, but your shooters aren't exactly lighting it up from three. I'm Adam by the way, and the guy sitting in your lap in Greg." Adam pulled up his own stool and sat only a hair further from my bare thighs than his partner. I unenthusiastically shook their hands as they explained they were in town for the convention as well. I mentioned Dan's name and they replied with a ringing endorsement of his speech, but didn't give me any extra room to my visible irritation.
