My favorite kind of bar is an empty one, and 19Hundred20 is almost always dead. It gets an older crowd in the evening, and drunk bachelorette parties at night, but noon til five is all mine, usually. A bad breakup brought me back home, tail tucked between my legs, and Nan the bartender poured me one on the house. I watched the swirling dust in the light coming through the windows, and felt clear-headed for the first time in weeks. I had sworn off romance completely; since Madeleine, pretty girls looked more like landmines, or plague carriers.
So when the door swung open and she took the stool next to mine, I acted like she didn’t even exist.
“Hey man, I’m having a shitty day, can I have a smoke?” I pushed the pack over, set my lighter beside it, and kept my eyes on the flatscreen.
“Thanks,” she said when she came back in, returning my lighter. I grunted in acknowledgement. We sat there silently for a while, and I could feel her eyes on me.
“Hey are you alright?” she asked.
“Just fine.”
“Am I bothering you?”