I managed to survive my time at work, even when Austin was around. He wasn’t dating anyone else, and neither was I. In June, he told me he wanted to take me to the Marc Broussard concert that I’d bought him tickets for when we were still together. I liked Marc Broussard, but I wasn’t sure how good of an idea this was going to be.
The concert was an hour away, so Austin wanted to stay the night—he said since I bought the tickets, he would pay for the hotel room. I told him to make sure he got a room with two beds.
He showed up at my apartment the afternoon of the concert. I came out of my bedroom, wearing a pale yellow sun dress and wedge sandals.
“You didn’t have to dress up,” he said.
“Just tell me I look nice or shut the hell up,” I said.
This is when my hostility for Austin started setting in. Austin thought it was funny, but I was being serious. I drove us to Lafayette, where the concert was. We stopped at a nice restaurant for dinner.
Before we went inside, Austin threw a fit that the clock in my car wasn’t set to the right time. I told him I didn’t know how to set it, so he needed to get over it. He figured out how to set it, but he needed an extra set of hands. So I helped.
“See what happens when we work together?” he said.
I went into the restaurant. Throughout the dinner, he kept asking me why I hated him so much. I told him he was an asshole. When the check arrived, the waitress put it in front of Austin.
“See? Why do the waiters assume the guy is paying?” he asked.
“Because you are paying.”
We walked to the concert venue, and waited in line for the doors to open. Austin was wearing a straw fedora that made him look like a colossal douche.
Inside, we proceeded to get sloppy drunk. I thought I’d reached my limit when Austin came back from the bar holding a double drink for me, with a huge grin spread across his face.
We made it back to the hotel. There was only one bed.
The Bitter Lemon 