“Two Ruinations. Anything else?” she asks, her dimple poking into her cheek as she swallows.
The table falls silent, but my heart is now somewhere under my chair.
London.
London is our waitress.
Her eyes meet mine, and I can’t tell. I just can’t tell at all if she heard, and if so, how much. Did she hear the part about my apparent penchant for female bartenders? Did she hear what Daniel said? And, oh shit, did she hear me laugh?
“We’re good,” Daniel croaks.
With a little nod and smile, London turns and walks back to the bar.
Daniel bursts out laughing and makes a wry face. “Oops!”
“Dude,” Dylan hisses, shaking his head at me. “If she heard you assholes I’m going to be pissed. London is a nice person, and you guys are dicks.”
“Fuck,” I whisper. “Fuuuck.”
Dylan nods at me, disappointment making his normally happy face more somber before he turns and heads toward the bathroom in earnest this time. I feel like a complete ass.
Andrew shrugs and immediately moves on, saying something about the U.S. Men’s Water Polo team, the Olympics, whether we’re all going together to Tokyo to watch them, but I can’t do much more than stare into my beer.
We came here tonight because you, Luke, banged the bartender where I wanted to go.
Luke banged the new bartender at Fred’s? I was talking about the redhead at Stone at Liberty Station.
She’s hot, in that single-serving kind of way.
Pretty soon we won’t be able to go anywhere without someone crying in the bathroom over Luke.
In the movies this type of moment-of-clarity turns into a montage of all the moments leading up to it. Maybe the music swells above the dialogue. And it’s true that the sound of voices falls away and my heart seems to have returned to my body and is pounding directly against my eardrum. But it’s the anxiety I didn’t expect. The panic that she may have heard, that I may have hurt her feelings. The fear that I just confirmed everything she suspected about me.
The problem is, it’s all true.
Dylan returns to his seat, and looks up at the bar behind me—presumably watching London—his brows pulled down in concerned frustration. Right as he seems to decide to go talk to her, pushing back again from the table, I bolt up, gesturing to him that I’ll take care of it and wiping my palms on my thighs as I walk toward the bar.
It’s a Tuesday and still pretty early; except for the five of us and a few groups standing over near the DJ stand, the club is mostly dead. London seems lost in thought as she opens two beers and sets them on a tray for another waitress, and so she doesn’t notice my approach until I’m right in front of her, rapping my knuckles against the wood.
Startled, she looks up. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I slide one hand in my pocket, trying to seem less like I’m coming over here to defend my indefensible actions and more like I just wanted to say hi. “Having a good night?”
London lifts one shoulder as she dries off a glass. “Sure. You?”
“Pretty good.” I smile but she’s not watching, and the words vanish from my head. It’s awkward, and she knows it’s awkward, and in perfect London fashion, she’s not coming to my rescue. “I didn’t know you worked here.”
She nods as she sets the glass down and lifts another. “Just started.”
“Ah.”
I’m just going to say it: girls are hard to read. Is she pissed? Preoccupied? Does she want to kiss me so bad she can’t even look at me?
“Did you quit Fred’s?”
“No, just wanted some more hours.” London turns, setting a tray of glasses down on the other side of the bar, and begins putting them away on a small shelf.
“So, London—”
“Did you want a drink?” she asks me over her shoulder.
“No, I . . .”
I what?
I have no idea what comes next.
She turns back around and looks at me, waiting patiently. Do I ask her if she heard? Do I tell her that I didn’t really think what Daniel said was funny? The problem is that I didn’t think it was funny but I also didn’t think it was that big a deal, either . . . until I realized he was talking about London, and—worse—that she’d heard. Would I be here talking to her if she had been across the bar, out of hearing range when he’d said it?
This is the kind of thing she would ask me, and this is what I would be unable to answer.
“I just wanted to say hi,” I say, smiling.
Her eyes flicker to my mouth and then she looks evenly back up. “Hi.”
“Do you want to come over later?” It comes out so bare; there’s no buildup, no easing in. My voice even cracks on the last word.
London’s eyes go tight before she slumps a little, giving me a tiny smile. It’s a genuine one: sweet, all-American, dimpled. “Your boys seem to prefer when you don’t bang the waitress, remember?”
Fuck. “London—”
“Luke,” she cuts in gently, as if wanting to be careful with my feelings still, after all of it. “I think I’m not doing that anymore.”
* * *
KEYS IN HAND, I’m halfway across the dimly lit parking lot when I hear Dylan call my name.
“You’re leaving,” he says, jogging to catch up. “You just got here.”
Scratching my neck, I look past him into the cone of light directly over my car. “I have some things I need to take care of before work tomorrow.”
“Look,” he says, leaning to the side so I’ll look over at him. His shoulders slump a little as he repeats, “Look, man. I don’t know how well you know her, but London isn’t like that.” He looks straight into my eyes. “She’s really cool.”
London isn’t like that, meaning: she’s not a girl you can just bang without looking back. I should tell him I figured that out almost immediately, but already this is too much drama for me.
“It’s cool, Dyl, I just talked to her.”
“I hope she turned you down,” he says, and his smile tells me that he means it, but feels bad for saying it.
“She did.” I look back toward the club. “How do you know her, anyway?”
“She’s a friend of a friend.” This is exactly the kind of information Dylan gives. Usually I drop it without thought, but tonight it takes Herculean effort for me to not ask more questions.
“All right,” I say. “I’ll see you later.”
“Later.”
I don’t feel like going home, to the dark empty house, the bright empty fridge. I climb in my car, turn up the music, and drive without thinking back on any of this to my sister’s apartment, letting myself in with my key.
It’s almost ten, so I know Margot is either asleep or in the lab, and her roommate is most likely staying over at her girlfriend’s house. The apartment is blessedly silent, the fridge is blessedly full.
I’m almost done making an epic turkey sandwich when I hear footsteps pad down the hall.
“Pa,” Margot stage-whispers behind me. “There’s a bear getting into our food box.”
I dig in the pantry for some chips. “You have better snacks than I do.”
My sister comes around the counter, and leans back against it. “Because I don’t wait until tumbleweeds are rolling across the barren shelves of my refrigerator before I hit the grocery store.”