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I had even shown up.

Six
     
    I watched Cody with this beautiful professional lady and felt a lump rising in my throat. I willed them not to see me. They didn’t. As Cody led the way he chatted and laughed with her. They took a seat over in the far right hand corner of the big open bar space. It was a table for two. I could see them in profile, and I shifted a little on my Chesterfield so that a painted column would obscure me from their sight, but I could still see them.  Cody had a folder with him, and opened it, splaying the contents across the table so that the lady could lay a hand on the papers and read. She was quiet for a time, then she looked up and spoke with enthusiasm.
    “That’s powerful stuff,” I heard her say. As she passed the papers back to Cody I saw her lay a slender hand on the back of his, just for a moment. Cody didn’t fight it. I guessed a lot had happened since I last saw him. He’d won some kind of literary competition and was in line to get published, and he’d met a mystery brunette who was older than him, but way attractive and clearly liked him a lot. What the hell was I doing here? I was due more pain and shame... Screw it. I decided to stay out of sight and wallow for a while. The truth of the matter was that I wanted badly to be wrong about their relationship – I wanted some sign that this classy woman and Cody were not an item, despite all the evidence to the contrary. I stayed in my seat and sipped on my drink, and as the crowds of students and older-aged book fans began to slowly congregate around me, I became even more invisible to Cody, and yet more obvious to the strange guys entering The Great Stag. I guessed I would have to leave soon, or else some guy was going to crack on to me at the worst possible time. If that happened I would either make a horrible mistake on the rebound, or I would torch the guy down to the ground. Nobody else deserved my unfettered temper yet.
    I saw Cody was getting nervous, keyed up for his reading. The sexy woman drew round the table in some kind of gesture to help Cody prepare, but I saw through all that.  A girl knows how another girl plays this game. She was moving in for the kill and I could only watch. They read the papers and laughed. She put an arm across his shoulder and squeezed him and left her arm lingering there way too long. Then Cody stood up with their empty glasses and gestured to the bar.
    “But just one more, or I am going to be a write-off…” said Cody above the growing din of chatter.
    He threaded through the crowd, and I tried to sink deeper into the Chesterfield. The guy next to me looked over with a mix of curiosity and predator about him. Sooner or later he was going to ask me if I wanted a drink. I did, but not from him.
    As Cody segued between the tables, his head became angled my way. He looked up from his feet and my face was directly in his line of sight. His eyes found mine. His mouth opened into a capital O, and then he grinned and started laughing. He actually looked happy to see me. My heart did a triple somersault as he approached and I felt the ambitions of the guy beside me crawl under a rock.
    “Ashley! What the hell are you doing here?!” he said.
    I stood up. “Well, it’s good to see you, too, Cody.”
    “Wow! That’s what I meant, of course. It is so good. Come here.” He pulled me to his chest and wrapped his arms around my back. I had been cool and didn’t even know it until he touched me, but in his arms I felt warm and safe, and I didn’t want to let him go… but eventually we parted and I looked up into his eyes. Why the hell hadn’t I seen how handsome he was before? He had a finely chiselled face, sculpted even, with freckles on his cheeks, and his wild sparkling eyes were green and brown, though much more brown than mine. Our eyes locked onto each other, but our gaze went much deeper than the surface. It was as if we were seeking meaning in each other… I know that sounds crazy, but