Carver didn’t look him in the eye. He finished his drink, then tapped his Amex on the bar like an asshole.
The bartender came back over, raising her eyebrows at them again, hugely this time. Great, she’d overheard them. “Another vodka soda?”
“Yep,” Carver said.
She walked away again.
“This is a crazy way to be drinking, just so you’re aware,” Scott said. “And I don’t even think you wanted the better vodka, honestly. I think you wanted to hide out down here so people wouldn’t see you drinking like this.”
“You’re half right,” Carver snapped. “I came down here because I wanted everyone to leave me the fuck alone for five seconds.”
“Including me?”
“No,” Carver said, surprising him. “I wanted to talk to you. I wanted to see you. But then I see you and you make me fucking crazy.”
“Because I know you.”
“Because you’re soconvincedyou know me!” he hissed. “Based on what? I haven’t seen you in eighteen years!”
“I don’t care,” Scott said, shaking his head. “I don’t care, man. I saw your soul. I know who you are.”
“What I am is a piece of shit.”
“I don’t think that.”
“You have bad taste. No, actually, you have this romanticized idea of me because I was your first good fuck and then we split up and you wrote all these bullshit songs about how you’re Juliet in the tomb.”
Scott winced. “You listened tothatone?”
The bartender came back again, handed Carver his drink and speed-walked back down to her spot at the end of the bar. This time Carver only drank a third of it in one sip, as ifcompromising. It pained Scott to look at him right now. It was like he was at the bottom of a well.
“They aren’t bullshit songs,” he said softly. “I’m not saying they’re good, I was twenty, but I meant them. I never romanticized you, I know who you are.”
Carver breathed out a laugh. There was a little bit of a twinkle in his eye, a little bit of warmth in the laugh, and this gave Scott the faith to keep going.
“I’m serious,” he said. “I probably wouldn’t like you if I met you on the street today, I have no problem admitting that. But I see you in a different way.”
Carver absorbed this in silence, his gaze lowered, his lashes fanned low.
“And I always have,” Scott said, feeling irrationally tender toward him. “And I think you know that.”
“I don’t know about that,” he muttered. “I don’t know what I know.”
“Yeah. I know that about you too. Look, I’m not gonna push it further right now, I’ll leave it there. I just wanted to say that.”
Carver nodded and sipped his drink again. “Okay.”
“And if you want to talk more, I’m around. You come find me.”
“Okay.”
Scott nodded and walked away from him toward the stairwell, letting out a ragged exhale. He noticed the couple in the corner was still making out, still in their own world.
When Carver emerged from the underworld and rejoined the party upstairs, Lillian found him and seized his arm.
“Good timing,” she said. “Marcus just texted me, they’re about to call.”
“Okay,” Carver said, attempting to mask his complete disinterest.
