"Great. I just closed up so I'll head there now. See you when you get there."
“I can be there in ten,” I say.
Her breath shifts on the line, a small sound she doesn’t try to cover. “Cool.”
“I’ll see you then.”
She ends the call first.
I slide the phone back into my pocket and start walking again, my pace measured, the night opening up ahead of me.
It’s three blocks and one light if I cut the corner the way I usually do. I don’t rush it, letting my stride settle into something steady and predictable, the way it always does when I need my head clear.
The city keeps its own rhythm around me. Music leaks out of an open doorway and dies a few steps later. Someone argues softly on a stoop, the words blurred enough that they don’t mean anything yet. I register it all without taking any of it in.
I replay the end of the tasting without meaning to. Not the room or the wine, but her voice, controlled and precise, carrying across the table without effort. I'm still drawn to the way she didn’t hesitate when she spoke to me, the way she didn’t soften when she thanked me.
I hadn’t expected the call. I had expected silence, or time, or nothing at all. I’d been prepared to carry that. Prepared to leave the door unlocked and walk away from it.
The light changes. I cross with the rest of the crowd and don’t look back.
The lounge sits half a block off the main stretch, its sign understated enough that you could miss it if you weren’t looking for it. The windows glow low and amber. No line. No noise spilling out into the street. The kind of place people go when they want a drink without an audience.
I reach the door and pause with my hand on the handle.
This is the point where I could decide not to go in. I could turn back, call it what it was, tell myself that answering her question was the whole of my responsibility. I could leave this for another night.
The door opens easily. Warm air hits my face, carrying the scent of citrus and old wood. Low music hums from somewhere near the back. The room is dim but not dark, the light arranged to flatter more than it reveals.
I see her immediately at the bar, one stool in from the end. Her jacket is draped over the back, a glass already in front of her. She isn’t looking at the door. She’s watching the bartender measure something carefully, her attention focused, like this is still work even now.
I take a few steps into the room and stop beside her, not wanting to distract her from what she's doing. She looks up.
There’s a flicker of surprise, gone almost immediately, replaced by something steadier. She studies me for half a second, then nods once, like she’s confirming something to herself.
“You made good time,” she says.
“I was pretty close. I'm glad you called.”
She shifts on the stool, turning more fully toward me. “Sit. Want me to order a glass for you?”
It isn’t an invitation. It’s instruction, familiar enough that it lands somewhere between a memory and a dare.
"That would be great. You’re the expert.”
I take the stool beside her. The bar is warm under my forearms when I rest them there. The music is low enough to be ignored, steady enough to hold the room together.
She considers me, then signals the bartender. “He'll have a glass of the same Pinot, please.”
He nods and moves away.
For a moment, we sit without speaking. It isn't awkward. Not comfortable either. Just charged.
“I wasn't sure if I should call you. Didn't know if you really meant it when you offered,” she says.
“I did mean it.”
The bartender sets a glass in front of me before she can answer back. I lift it, take a sip, then look at her.
