BEAR JOHNSON

“Hey Geoff, can I have another one of these?” I ask, beckoning towards my empty shot glass sitting on the bar right in front of me.

Geoffrey nods and comes towards my side of the bar before he pours me another shot of vodka. “It’s your fourth one in almost ten minutes. Are you okay?” Geoffrey asks, placing his hand on my shoulder and looks at me worriedly.

“Of course everything’s okay.” I reassure him before I pick the shot glass up and putting it to my lips. I lean backwards and let the alcohol run down my throat, but I nearly choke on it after Geoffrey throws me off guard.

“Does this have something to do with Raya’s engagement?”

My eyes widen at the sudden question and I shake my head at him while trying to keep the alcohol down instead of me spitting it all over his clean bar.

“Of course not! I’m really happy for her and Ezra.”

Geoffrey shakes his head at me like he doesn’t believe me. But he gives my shoulder a squeeze anyways. “You know, it’s okay to be sad, Bear.”

“Fuck, Geoffrey. You sound like my mom. I am not upset at all.” I chuckle. “I’m perfectly fine, but I’ll be much better if I can get another shot of this.”

He lets go of my shoulder and walks over to the other side of the bar again. He leans down and takes a bottle of unopened vodka and twists the cap before he pours me yet another shot into the shot glass, but instead of me taking it first, someone to my right beats me to it.

Geoffrey chuckles and shakes his head before he went to the other side to help other customers while I turn to whoever took the vodka from me.

“Fancy seeing you here.” She says and I immediately growl.

Her black hair tickles my arm when she takes my shot of vodka and swallows it all down in one go, the glare remains on my face but she just ignores it like taking shots from strangers are a normal thing to do in a club.

“What do you want, Raven?” I ask through clenched teeth.

“I want a good time.” Raven says, tracing her cat-like claws across my arm but I shrug her away, shaking my head at her.

“Go bother someone else.” I tell her. “I am not in the mood for any company. Or better yet, I am not in the mood for your company.”

My words didn’t have any effect on her at all because she still smiles at me. It was an infuriating smile. One where the corner of her lip curved upward in some sort of smirk.

I absolutely loathed it.

She uses her free hand and tucks a strand of her long lock of black hair behind her ear. She then beckons for Geoffrey to refill my shot glass with the damn audacity she has.

He walks over to us and pours the vodka into the glass, but I quickly take it from her hand and guzzle it down before she gets a chance to do so.

Geoffrey walks away again and I sigh when Raven makes no move to disappear from my side. I just wanted a damn peaceful night alone; I sure as hell didn’t need her to ruin it for me, but she already did the second she sat down next to me.

“I know about Raya. It must suck really, your long-life crush is getting married, and you’re here swallowing down your sorrows. When’s the wedding again?”

“You received a wedding invitation, didn’t you?” I ask in the most sarcastic tone I could muster.

“I did. I’m just here to ruffle some feathers.”

“You have a lot of nerve coming here, Raven. You were the one who broke this place down in the first place and now you’re demanding a drink?”

She rolls her eyes at me and her infuriating smile finally disappears from her mouth because she sets it into a firm line, but even without her smiling, her dimples still showed.

Freckles cover the most upper part of her face and both of her ears are pierced and is filled with two ravens on either side of her ears, hence the name.

“I thought we were over that.” She sighs, her warm vodka breath mixed with mint washes over my face when she exhales.

“You might be over it, but I’m not. This was my only go-to place before your crew decided it was a good idea to break it down until there was nothing left to recover.” I spit, trying so hard to keep my composure.

“Well as you can see it’s perfectly fine now and it’s even better than it was.” Raven says, turning so she can take the entire club in.

She was right about one thing, though, it was better than it was. But the small things, like the jukebox early in the mornings and the kitchen wasn’t here anymore.

I liked eating a burger with my beer, but after it was broken down, Geoffrey decided that it wasn’t such a good idea to spend a lot of money on a kitchen again because the Ravens were unpredictable, and even with Raven sitting right beside me; I didn’t trust her one bit.

She was the epitome of a wolf hiding inside sheep’s clothing.

She couldn’t be trusted.

Raven was—just like me—somewhat of an orphan.

Her family didn’t care much about her presence and they never really cared about her absence either, so she called herself Raven, after the gang that made her feel like she was a part of a real family for the first time in forever.

“Don’t look at me like I’m the bad guy, here.” She says, inhaling deeply. I saw her chest rising and falling.

Raven had a scar right below her collarbone. I think she sensed me staring at it because she swung her hair over her shoulder to cover it up, out of anyone’s sight.

She then looks at me, paying with a strand of her black hair. “Your crew was the one who crossed the line, the last time I checked.”

“Your guy didn’t want to play fair.”

“Well,” she lifts her shoulders and shrugs, “we can’t take back what we did, but you can forgive us so that we can move on from it.”

I click my tongue at her. “I will never forgive you for what you did.”

“Then there will never be peace.”

I turn to look at her. “Who said anything about me wanting peace? If you don’t bother me and stay out of my way, we don’t have to cross paths and then there’s no need for there to be peace.”

“Get over yourself, Bear.” She says, shaking her head at me. “You’re moping over a girl who never noticed you before. It’s pathetic, really. You were never this nasty before.”

“You know what’s pathetic?” I ask her. “It’s pathetic that you’re sitting right beside me and flirting with me when your boyfriend’s out there screwing another girl.”

My head turns by the force of her slap and I immediately taste blood in my mouth.

I smile because I hit a nerve and she looks at me with such disgust that se barely could even look at me a second longer.

“You’re such an asshole, Bear.”

“Nobody ever said that I wasn’t.” I smirk at her.

I could feel her fingerprints being imprinted into my skin. It’s going to leave a mark, for sure.

That slap sure as hell was hard and well deserved too, I guess.

It wasn’t her fault her boyfriend was a liar and a cheater, but I was pissed and I needed to get the anger off of my chest.

She sighs and for the first time tonight, she actually looks like she regretted slapping me, if that was even possible. “I wasn’t flirting with you.” She says, ignoring my previous statement. “I just wanted a decent conversation because I saw you sitting alone when I came in.”

“Maybe it’s because I want to be alone?”

She glares at me and gets up from the stool right beside me. “If you ever want to get over Raya, you know where to find me. I know a good thing or two about forgetting the pain.” She says before she walks away from the bar and disappears into a dancing crowd.

“Is it just me or did she really just offer to sleep with you right after she slapped the living shit out of you?” Geoffrey asks me while his eyes were trained on Raven’s retreating back.

“I think she just did.” I nod, letting my hand fall to the table, it was no use trying to hide the slap imprinted on my cheek now, I’m sure the entire club heard it.

Geoffrey smiles wickedly at me and I immediately know what it means. “What do you have to lose?”

“I’m not sleeping with her just because I want to forget about Raya.” I tell him simply.

“Well, maybe it doesn’t just have to be about Raya.”

“Raven has a boyfriend.”

“And she clearly doesn’t like him.”

“And I clearly don’t like her.”

“Like I said, you have nothing to lose.” Geoffrey says, winking at me.

I turn to the dancing crowd. I spot Raven immediately and see her dancing all by herself. My heart burns inside my chest.

A few months ago it was Raya dancing like that, swaying her hips to the music and drinking shots of vodka. She rejected me that night and I never felt shittier.

Geoffrey pulls me out of my trip to memory lane. “Who knows, it might not even end with sex.”

I shake my head at him and get up from the stool too.

“Put it on my tab, Geoff.” I smile at him and make my way out of the bar without another glance at Raven.

I felt her eyes on my back when I pushed the doors open.

The night air washes over me, letting me take in a deep breath of relaxation.

It was only now when I realised that Raven was the cause of the disruption, but even as I stood on the sidewalk right in front of Geoffrey’s Club, I wanted to turn around so badly.

Geoffrey was right, after all, what do I have to lose?

Raya was expecting and she was getting married soon, so what do I have to lose?

My pride for sleeping with my enemy?

Right when I wanted to turn around, I hear the doors to the Club opening and Raven stepped outside, her hair whooshing in the wind.

She tucks it behind her ear and stops in her tracks when she notices me still standing in front of the Club.

She looks down at the dirty sidewalk.

“Why me? Why did you want to talk to me when you know that I hate you?”

She chuckles so softly that I actually think that I misheard her, but when she looks up from the ground to look at me, she has a smile on her mouth. “I really just wanted to get over everything.” She shrugs. “I hate this hostility between us.”

I hated the hostility between us too and the conflict between the NC and the Ravens happened a long time ago.

I think it’s time to get over it.

I was the one who clearly still held a grudge against them while everyone else forgot about it.

Fuck it. I thought.

“You know if they find out about this, they’ll freak out.” I tell her.

She steps forward, her heels clacking against the hard sidewalk. “Who said that anyone had to know?” She steps forward again and runs her hands up my arms before they finally land on my shoulders.

She leans in, standing on her toes before I feel her warm breath wash over my face yet again.

In that moment, all I wanted to do was kiss her, even when it was so wrong, and even though I still hated her with every fibre of my being.

What can you honestly lose? My thoughts remind me. A little fun never hurt anyone.

I cave and let my lips close the distance between us when I place them against hers. Her hands snake around my waist as she pulls me closer. She opens her mouth and I take that as a sign so that I can let my tongue dance with hers.

It seems to work because she moans into my mouth and I feel her fingers lift my shirt up so that she can trace her fingernails over my lower back, making sure to leave some kind of mark onto my skin.

I pull away, earning a whimper coming from her and she stares up at me with confusion on her face.

“What’s wrong?” She asks.

“You know I still hate you, right?”

Did I though? Did I really hate her?

She smirks at me before digging her fingernails into my skin. “Oh, I know.” She nods. “Who said I didn’t hate you, too?”

I chuckle and close the distance yet again but before I can deepen the kiss, I feel my entire body being pulled backwards by some unforeseen force.

I land on my back with a thud against the sidewalk, my head hitting the pavement. My ears ring and I immediately feel a headache coming along.

I look up to see Raven’s boyfriend standing over me with a glare on his face, and he sure as hell looked pissed off that he just witnessed me kissing his girlfriend.

“And what the hell do you think you’re doing with my girlfriend?”

“Your girlfriend?” I question. “Your girlfriend came here because she tried to forget about her lying, cheating asshole of a boyfriend.”

He growls before he slams his foot against my cheek. My head flew sideways at the impact and my eyes landed on Raven’s. She mouths ‘I’m sorry’ before she stands next to her smoke-huffing boyfriend.

She links her arm through his and leads him away.

“This is not over, Johnson!” I hear him yell. “You’re going to get it now.”

Well, kissing the enemy didn’t feel as wrong as I thought it would.

It actually felt good because in the briefest second my lips connected with Raven’s, I completely forgot why I was drinking my sorrows away in the first place.

To forget about Raya.

I was still lying on the sidewalk when Geoffrey stood beside me, looking down at me with a grin on his face. “I take it the boyfriend showed up?”

I nod, spitting the blood out onto the sidewalk beside my face.

“Well, did it feel good at least?” He asks.

I sit up straight onto the sidewalk and I run a hand through my hair. “It felt good doing something a little bad.” I smile at him.