I could see the glow of the bar’s windows from here.
My phone read 7:47 p.m.
I had more work to do. Files to review. Prep for Monday.
I should go home.
I kept walking toward my car.
Got in.
Drove home.
By 10 p.m., I’d exhausted everything decent on Netflix, scrolled through every other streaming service I had, and was staring at the ceiling wondering why I was the way that I was.
Diego’s words kept echoing in my head.
“You’re going to work yourself to death and wake up at forty realizing you missed your entire life.”
My phone was on the coffee table, taunting me.
I could text Finn. I could ask if the bar was busy, see if he wanted company.
Or I could just . . . go.
I could show up and take a chance.
The spontaneity of the idea made my skin crawl. I wasn’t sure whether that was an OCD reprimand or excitement born of hearing an Irish accent again. Both felt foreign.
“Fuck it,” I said to my empty apartment.
I changed out of my work clothes.
“Goodbye, dress shirt. Hello, skinny jeans.”
I laughed at myself. Talking to clothes . . . I was losing my mind.
I grabbed a tight black T-shirt that Diego had told me made me look “like a person who has funsometimes” and looked at myself in the mirror.
I looked ridiculous.
Like some party gay headed to a bar.
Which, I supposed through another sardonic laugh, I was.
I grabbed my keys before I could change my mind.
I could hear Barbacks before I could see it.
Not the music or call of a game or the general bar noise I’d gotten used to.
Singing.
Loud, enthusiastic, off-key singing.
I crossed the street, pushed open the door, and stopped dead.
The bar was packed.
