“Good, because I wasn’t planning on it.”
That earned the ghost of a laugh—quick, real, like he hadn’t expected it.
The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It settled in, heavy but comfortable, the way good music does when you stop trying to listen.
He looked down at his hands. Big hands. Work-worn. The kind that fixed things by force, not patience.
“You come here often?” he asked, voice rougher now.
I huffed out a breath. “That’s dangerously close to a cliché.”
“Wasn’t hitting on you,” he said. “Just wondering what made you pick this place to fall apart.”
“Did I?”
He leveled me a look. Calm. Nonjudgmental. Like he’d seen worse. “Most people don’t stand in bars with eyes that empty unless they’re trying not to cry.”
“Maybe I’m just tired.”
“At this hour? Everyone’s tired.” He turned back to his drink. “Different kind of tired, though.”
The heat from the whiskey glass bled into my palm when I finally wrapped my fingers around it. I didn’t lift it. Just held it between us, an anchor against doing anything dumb—like letting him see more than I wanted to show.
“You always analyze strangers?” I asked.
“Only when they look like they could use the distraction.”
“And what do you get out of it?”
He looked at me then—really looked. Eyes dark, unreadable. “A break from my own shit.”
The honesty caught me off guard. Most men I’d met were performers. Polished. Careful. He didn’t seem built for pretending.
A song changed on the jukebox. The shift in tone wrapped the room in a lazy hum. Somewhere nearby, a glass shattered. Neither of us flinched.
He reached for a napkin, slid it closer to me like it meant something. The edge brushed my hand—just enough to make every nerve beneath my skin pay attention.
I wiped a meaningless ring of condensation on the counter, buying time before the air started to hum again.
“You strike me as someone who doesn’t lose control often,” I said.
“Sometimes that’s the problem.” His lips twitched again—humorless, a flick of self-recognition.
I wanted to ask what that meant, but the words dissolved before they hit my tongue. Instead, I smiled thinly, pretending my pulse hadn’t changed tempo.
“You’re not drinking,” he noted.
“Neither are you.”
“Maybe we’re both smarter than we look.”
“Or worse off.”
He smirked. “Could be both.”
The silence returned. It stretched between us, taut, familiar, almost generous. I didn’t feel like I had to say anything to fill it.
I let the whiskey sit untouched and felt his presence beside me shape the noise of the bar into something softer. Maybe it wasn’t peace, but it was close enough for now.
