Brooklyn’s rules were running on a constant loop in my head, but still, I was undeterred. I needed to know what went wrong with Beckett. I had made up my mind; I was going to confront him.
Stringing my purse across my chest, I skipped right back down the stairs and headed to the bar where I had left Beckett singing his heart out. The moment I walked through the door, I noticed the music was no longer blaring, the lighting was a little brighter, and there were at least fifteen more people at tables and at the bar itself. It had become a completely different place in less than thirty minutes. Buckley was crooning softly from the speakers, and Beckett was nowhere to be found.
A moment later, my phone pinged with a text from him:
Beckett: Sorry about tonight. I don’t know what came over me. It was like I was stoned in that bar, pullin’ a total Jerry. I’m really am sorry.
Me: It’s cool.
But really, it wasn’t cool. Pulling a Jerry? Seriously? Speak English. I didn’t know why I was back in that stupid bar looking for him anyway. I was currently ignoring Brooklyn’s rule number four: TAKE A HINT! But it was hard to tell what had happened between us. Maybe Beckett was too cool to cut our date off in a respectable way. After leading me on, he’d made a spectacle and then acted as though he’d been roofied. I was only twenty-four but already over dating games. My domestic future was looking bleak.
“Need a drink, sweetheart?” came the bartender’s voice. I focused my attention on the bottles of alcohol.
The only available stool was next to the guy Beckett had said was wasted. He was now slumped pathetically in the same stool he had been in earlier. I pulled the seat out and noticed the guy stiffen as I moved around to sit.
“Something strong,” I said to the male bartender.
I had been in that bar enough times to know it was the kind of place where you could say, “Something strong,” and the bartender would pour two ounces of Basil Hayden’s into a highball glass, and then slide it across the oak. The barstools were cracked and ripped, red vinyl that no one had bothered replacing in thirty years, but the bar top was meticulously polished to perfection every night. It’s called knowing what’s important when you own a dive bar.
I sipped the bourbon and glanced at the drunken man to my right. He didn’t look particularly wasted. He was looking at me out of the corner of his eye, his expression was one of moderate fear. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. I swiveled my stool so that my entire body was facing him. He continued facing forward, his posture rigid.
“Hello.” I was not a particularly social person, but I was intrigued by the strange comment he had made to Beckett earlier and by his bizarre music choices.
He turned only his head toward me, slowly, with painful caution and mouthed, “Oh shit.”
My eyes locked with his. I leaned in a fraction of an inch. Is that possible? Was it possible for a person to have hair that dark and eyes the color of blue phosphate, like a glacial depth with no end and no beginning? His hair was a longish mess combed back by his black Wayfarer sunglasses sitting askew atop his head. His lips were full and parted enough that I could tell he was breathing in and out through his mouth, his chest heaving. He was wearing a black T-shirt, black pants, and black boots. His face was all narrow sharp angles with two or three days of growth.
“Hello,” he said wearily.
He smelled faintly of Mentholatum and baby powder, as though somehow his breath, although completely pleasant, was thicker than air. Everything about him was intoxicating. I was already intoxicated enough.
I stuck out my hand. “I’m Evey.”
Without moving his body a smidge, he glanced at my hand and stared at it long enough to make me uncomfortable, and then suddenly his eyes were back on mine.
“Lucian,” he said, offering his name but still refusing contact.
“You a germophobe or something, Lucian?”
“Yes,” he whispered, absently as his eyes stayed fixated on my lips.
“My friend who I was with earlier said you were wasted. You don’t seem wasted to me.”
He jerked his head back and scrunched his eyebrows together as if I had wounded him.
The bartender interrupted. “Oh, I assure you, he’s thoroughly sauced. He’s had a fifth of Jameson in two hours. I’m about to cut him off.”
“One more,” Lucian said, pushing his empty glass across the bar. His voice was silky warm. He showed no signs that the alcohol had affected him.
The bartender opened a new bottle, arched his eyebrows, and said, “Same as before?”
“Please,” Lucian said.
“Okay, man. I don’t know how you’re doing it, but you’re not causing trouble, so I guess it’s your call.”
“Thank you,” Lucian said as the bartender filled the entire tumbler up to the top with brown liquid. My eyes went wide as Lucian lifted the glass to his beautiful mouth and took four large gulps.
“Jesus Christ!” I mumbled.
He turned back toward me, startled. “Where?” He didn’t sound angry but surprised.
“Nothing.” I felt strangely comfortable next to him but equally tongue-tied.
I didn’t think I had ever met a guy so uniquely good-looking. He could have been a print model, but his teeth were slightly imperfect. I looked down his long, lean body and tried to picture what was underneath his clothes. He swallowed nervously, and I realized I was making him uncomfortable.
“This place is pretty old,” I said, trying to make conversation.