Instinctually, Aubrey waves. Noreen and Ella wave back. Kai pauses, seemingly unsure after last night. Aubrey turns away from them, wishing she’d sat on her hand. She’s here waiting for Ethan and she’s not supposed to interfere with the universe.
But then again, the universe must be busy. She should meet it halfway, shouldn’t she? She has Ethan’s full contact information. She could send him an email, less urgent than a text, but maybe if she is at the wrong bar, it’ll prompt him to ask where she is. She starts a new message with a casual “Hey,” realizes she needs an actual reason to be emailing him, and invites him to the gender-reveal party, after drinks, if he’s free.
There. Perfect. Right?
She finishes her drink just as a server sets a second glass of wine in front of her.
“Consider it a thank-you,” Kai says, sliding onto the barstool next to her. “For finding this.” He wiggles his wrist with the tigereye bracelet, but then his face goes slack. “Maybe that crosses a line? Or is patriarchal? I should have asked. Sorry, yeah, I should totally have asked.” He pops off the barstool. His flurry of nerves makes the ones she’d expected to have in his presence again lie dormant.
“It’s nice. Thank you.” She takes a sip.
“Cool.”
“Yeah, cool.” She never says “cool.” She never feels cool enough to say “cool” for real, or hipster enough to say “cool” ironically, or to even know when to say it which way, or even if hipsters are still a thing. Kai lingers behind the stool, as if it might bite him if he gets too close. “You can sit,” she says, the words sliding out before she can stop them.
“That I can. Learned when I was a wee babe.”
Her brows scrunch together.
“To sit.” He runs his hand through his hair. “This isn’t like me. I’m not normally such a cornball. No, sorry, that’s a lie. I am. Truly, I’m a cornball. Dad jokes all the way.”
“Dad jokes?” she says.
“You’ve never heard of dad jokes?”
Heat creeps up her neck. Aubreyisms alive and well, Ethan would say if he were here. Then she remembers, Ethan issupposedto be here.
Kai grins and dimples indent his cheeks. “They get a bad rap. Highly unwarranted. I challenge you not to laugh.”
“I’ll warn you, I’m not the hugest laugher.”
“You don’t laugh?”
“No, I mean, I do, just not like at things other people do.”
“Like animals dressed like humans and grandmas tearing down Slip ’N Slides?”
“Do people laugh at those things?”
“Oh,peopledo.” Kai’s eyes widen in innocence.
She laughs.
“Are you lying to me, Aubrey? Because that sounded like a laugh.”
“Just go already.”
“Okay.” Kai rubs his hands together. “What did the drummer call his two daughters?”
Aubrey stares at him.
He rolls his hand. “It’s funnier if you participate.”
“Oh, okay, then. What?”
“Anna, one, Anna two.” Kai mimes hitting a drum and cymbal. “Badumtsh.”
Aubrey smiles indulgently.
