She left him there on the floor and went to the bathroom. One side of her face was streaked black with what was left of her dramatic cat’s-eye liner, and her lip was bleeding. All she could smell was tequila – it was in her hair, soaked into her shirt, dripping down her skirt, which was twisted sideways at an awkward angle. She hadn’t been in a fight since before the twins were born, but she was pretty sure this was what her fight face looked like, the type of face that made other women see you as a wounded animal, something to either protect or destroy. For a moment she thought about going home, about taking a long shower, scrubbing herself down, climbing into bed with one of her girls, burying her face in their hair, trying to feel thankful for what she had. Instead she fixed her eye makeup as best she could, wiped the blood from her lips and smeared them with red lipstick from her purse, jacked up her tits in her push-up bra, and headed back into the bar.

Dallas was waiting for her outside the bathroom. As soon as she came out, he pulled up his T-shirt, glaring at her. “Look what you did,” he said. “It’s already fucking bruising.”

“Poor baby,” said Nicki. She reached out and touched the growing bruise gently, then bent her index finger and drove her knuckle into it.

Dallas slapped her hand away. “You’re such a bitch,” he said through gritted teeth.

“You liked it,” she said. “Now buy me more tequila and I won’t tell Finn that you tried to take your shirt off in front of me.”

She made Dallas buy her eight more shots just to make it even, and together they slammed them back at the bar, one after another – salt, shot, lemon – like an assembly line. Then they ordered more. Later, Nicki remembered arguing about what they were going to play on the jukebox: Dallas wanting to put on Dave Matthews Band, Nicki saying he might as well just tell everyone in the bar he wanted them to kill themselves. Then something about walking to Nippers for french fries, how long it would take, and whether they would still be open when the bar closed. Something else about whether or not dogs could see in the dark. At some point she noticed that Jenna and the girls had left; she couldn’t remember if they had said goodbye. At some even later point there was a decision made. A motel room. A late-night talk show on the TV. Blankets and sheets on the floor. A bad taste in her mouth, skin sticky, hair matted in the back. She doesn’t even know if they had sex. She can only remember his hands on her, too rough between her legs, her surprise at the size of his dick, thinking, Ahh, okay, Finn, now I get it.