“All five bars on a Friday night?”
“With the specialty drinks at each.”
“You’re on, McCavern.”
And with that we cheers and chug our drinks, before ordering the Ray’s specialty: a Long Island iced tea.
The second bar, Loft, is a little hole-in-the-wall dive bar known for karaoke, barrels of peanuts, and some disgusting shot that no one knows exactly what it’s made of. They put a trash can next to anyone brave enough to take it.
“We’re doing the Grecian Urn,” Wes announces as we walk in, aka the shot that no one knows what it’s made of.
“Do you think we should finally ask what’s in it? Now that we’re seniors, I just feel like we should know,” I say, trying to peer over the bartender’s shoulder to watch what he’s pouring in it.
Wesley reaches over to cover my eyes. “And ruin the mystery? No way. I want to die never knowing.”
“Okay, fair.” I laugh.
We’re holding the shots in our hands, and I’m swirling it around with what must be a disgusted look on my face. I’ve done one only once in my time at Pembroke and I did in fact need the trash can they supplied.
“Time to man up, Sloane.” Wes holds up the shot and I clink it with mine. Down the hatch, I guess. I hold my breath when I take it, anything to stunt the taste, which seems to work because it doesn’t come back up.
“Ah.” He sighs like he’s refreshed. “So what are we going to sing?”
“Sing?” I repeat.
“Yeah, we’re doing the rounds, so we have to do karaoke. I put our names in.” He gives me a devious smile that makes me want to put my mouth on his like a magnet.
I look around the bar, which is already bustling with a crowd. I recognize a group of guys in the back who are in the Sig Chi fraternity. One of them being another ex-boyfriend of mine, Bryce Peterson. I let my eyes linger on him for a moment longer, wondering if I should go talk to him about the eulogy but... no, not tonight. Not while I have Wes all to myself. “Oh no no, I’m not singing.” I shake my head. “No.”
He leans in to whisper in my ear over the noise of the bar. “If you do this with me, then I’ll owe you a favor. It can be whatever you want, and you can call it in whenever you want.” Chills, instantly. If I said I wanted the favor to be sex, what would he say then? I open my mouth but our names are being called over the microphone on the small stage. “We’re up,” he says, grabbing my hand and pulling me to the front. Wes says something to the guy and he hands me a mic.
I recognize the sound of the keyboard as “Dancing Queen” begins to play. “It’s your favorite, right?” Wes asks over the sound. If I didn’t have to sing, I’d be speechless. “You requested it like five times at that one bar during spring break freshman year.” Again, speechless.
He looks at me as it starts, ignoring the screen with the lyrics. He clearly doesn’t need it: He somehow knows all the words.
“This song is, like, forever ingrained in my memory,” he says in answer to the shock on my face. “Now, are you going to sing with me or what?”
We put on the best damn concert that I think Pembroke has ever seen, and I hope he can’t tell that the blush on my face is from being so totally and completely enamored by him that it would consume me whole if I let it. But there’s no time, as he’s pulling me out of Loft for the next bar.
Zephyr, one of our less-frequented bars, is on the top floor of a record store. It has a colorful, vibrant atmosphere with disco balls hanging from the ceiling and lava lamps on every surface. There are plush couches that surround a light-up dance floor and we both take a seat on one.
We’re holding the featured lava lamp drinks in our hands, and Wes looks over at me. “You know, I actually really like this bar. I feel like we never go to it.”
I look around, crinkling my nose. “Probably because these couches smell like mildew and the bartenders are all sixty-year-old men with porn staches.”
Wes looks around like he’s seeing this bar for the first time ever. “Well, great, now I can’t unsee it.” He puts his arm around the back part of the couch, almost around me. “So what are you doing after this?”
After this, as in tonight? Is he about to ask me to go home with him? “Um, I don’t know, going home, I guess.”
“I mean, like, after college, what are you going to do?”
My face falls because I realize this is the moment to ask him what he’s going to do about the ski business. Asher would be on the edge of his seat right now if he were here. It makes me wonder if he is. If this whole night was somehow set up by him.
“You first,” I say, turning on the couch to face him. My leg is now pressed up against his and I lean in closer.
“My dad wants me to take over the ski resort,” he says, looking down at his drink.
“And you don’t want to do that?”
