Chapter 3
Billie
The Pour House buzzed like someone had turned life up half a notch too loud. A jukebox wheezed out classic rock, cheap neon signs threw sickly color across cracked leather booths, and everything smelled faintly of spilled beer and memory.
Hannah slid in first, all grin and sparkle. Her earrings swung like tiny disco balls when she waved at the bartender.
“Place has character,” she said, which meant it was a dump.
I tugged at my sweatshirt sleeve. Too soft, too safe. She’d wanted me in something tight and glittery; I’d settled on jeans and an oversized sweater over the cute shirt. I wasn’t here to meet anyone. I was here to stop feeling anything at all.
We picked a booth near the back, away from the biggest crowd. A hockey game flickered silently on the TV above the bar. Of course it did.
Hannah flagged the bartender without looking. “Two tequila flights,” she said.
“Make that one,” I murmured.
She rolled her eyes, audible even through the noise. “Fine. Whiskey, neat,” she told him, like she’d ordered it for a condemned man.
The glass came slick with condensation. I smelled the burn before I tasted it. Swallowed anyway. Every nerve screamed why as it went down.
Hannah was already clinking shot glasses with the couple at the table beside us. Her laugh cut through the din, bright as tinfoil. She thrived in chaos. I envied that.
I checked my phone. Blank screen. No message from Nate. Not even one of those pointless apologies he specialized in—half words strung together to sound like remorse. The quiet hit harder than any explanation.
My chest ached in a dull, pulsing way. Like bruise pressure. Like something under the surface still trying to breathe.
I set the phone facedown, stared into the amber swirl inside my glass. “I feel like my skin doesn’t fit right anymore.”
Hannah stopped talking to the strangers long enough to look at me. Lipstick smudged red on her teeth, defiant. “Then let’s drink until it doesn’t matter.”
She wasn’t joking. That was the terrifying part.
She tilted back a shot and winked at the bartender, a tall guy with tattoos crawling up his forearm like vines. He grinned back without hesitation. Of course he did. Couldn’t blame him.
I slouched lower in the booth, half listening, half floating. The noise blurred into one long hum: glasses clinking, low laughter, the muted cheer from the TV. Someone behind us dropped a cue ball, the sharp crack jolting through me like thunder from a storm I didn’t know was coming.
Another sip burned my throat raw, and I thought of Nate’s smirk when he told me not to be dramatic. The sound of that woman’s laugh still ghosted somewhere behind my temples.
Hannah touched my arm lightly. “You’re not there anymore,” she said, words softer than usual.
I nodded, even though the room tilted a little, and stared at the amber in the glass until it blurred into nothing.
The hum of The Pour House settled into a low, steady throb. Conversation blurred into meaningless noise, and the air thickened with that sour mix of whiskey, sweat, and someone else’s heartbreak.
I tipped what was left of my drink down, the burn settling deep where the ache used to be, and let my eyes drift past Hannah’s clatter and laughter.
I wasn't going to drink, but…
It hurt too much not to.
I heaved a sigh and glanced around until my eyes locked on a man.
He sat two booths over by the far wall, just under the glow of a busted neon beer sign that blinked unevenly against his shoulders.
Broad frame. Stillness that didn’t belong in this place.
He wasn’t performing drunk the way everyone else was; he was studying the room like someone waiting for it to make a mistake.
A glass of something dark rested near his elbow, untouched for a long time.
He held it like a habit. His fingers—scarred knuckles, thick wrists, veins like faint roadmaps—wrapped around the rim without hurry.
His arms, bare to mid-forearm, carried the kind of tattoos that didn’t feel decorative.
They looked earned. Every line seemed to tell someone’s bad idea.
He didn’t smile.
A group of college kids crammed into the bar just then, loud with bravado and cheap cologne, bumping into his table on their way past. I waited for him to snap, some part of me counting down the seconds before the blowup—this place fed off small disasters—but he didn’t move.
His jaw flexed once, slow as a clock turning, and then he looked away. Controlled, deliberate.
That restraint felt unreal in a room full of noise.
I caught myself staring longer than I should have. Something about him held weight, and that weight steadied the space around him. Which only made the air in my chest turn brittle. I didn’t want to notice how calm he seemed, or how his silence made everyone else’s laughter feel thinner.
Hannah leaned in close, catching me looking. “You scope-checking the lumberjack, or just zoning out?”
“Neither.” My voice came out hoarse.
She smirked. “Could’ve fooled me. He’s built like the kind of mistake that doesn’t text back.”
I tried to laugh it off, but my throat stayed locked. He shifted slightly, and the light hit the side of his face—a jaw lined in shadow, a faint scar near his temple. His expression didn’t change. Still no smile. Still that damn quiet.
I turned back to Hannah, forced myself to fiddle with the straw wrapper, something to do with my hands. But my skin prickled like I could still feel his presence across the room.
He wasn’t looking at me. Not once.
The bartender came by, started clearing empty glasses. Hannah ordered another round. I shook my head. My pulse hadn’t slowed down enough for more whiskey.
I glanced back across the room before I could stop myself. He was still there, same position, same stillness, eyes tracing the crowd like a man keeping count.
No focus on me, no recognition.
I didn’t know why that mattered.
Maybe because everyone else in the bar was loud enough to prove they existed, and he didn’t have to. Or because he hadn’t looked once, and that alone made me want to know what he’d see if he did.
The second drink hit harder than I planned. Warmth crawled up my neck, and the air inside The Pour House grew heavy, sour with other people’s breath. Hannah had moved on to karaoke with the college kids, yelling the wrong lyrics, which gave me cover to slip out of the booth.
I told myself I needed air. Truth was, I needed distance.
The narrow path between tables felt like a gauntlet—beer-soaked floor, laughter biting at my shoulders. I ended up at the bar before I realized where my feet had taken me. The stool beside him was empty.
I stared at the spot, at the scuffed wood, at the ring his glass left behind. My pulse wouldn’t slow. He didn’t glance over right away. He finished his drink, thumb running along the rim as if thinking hard about something too far away. Then, quick as a blade flash, his gaze lifted.
Just once.
Dark eyes, assessing, neither friendly nor cold—just seeing. I forgot how to breathe for a beat. That single look held more quiet than I’d handled in months.
Then he turned back to his drink, and the room kept spinning like nothing had happened, except I couldn’t unfeel it.
“You look like you’re trying hard not to unravel.”
I blinked. The voice came from my right—low, smoky, carrying the scrape of too many cigarettes and too little sleep.
I turned.
“And you look like you already did,” I said.
His mouth twitched—almost a smile, almost not. He tipped his glass and swallowed the rest of his drink. No toast, no words. Just movement, crisp and unbothered.
I exhaled slow. “That was supposed to sound clever.”
“Didn’t need to,” he said, setting his empty glass down. “Truth does the job fine.”
The bartender drifted over, wiping the counter with the kind of indifference only years of drunk strangers could build. The man pointed to my half-empty glass left behind at the booth. “She’ll have another,” he said.
“I won’t,” I muttered.
“Humor me,” he replied, eyes still on the shelf of bottles. The bartender moved away, and he pressed two bills to the wood. The muscles in his forearm rippled slightly when he did, faint scars running pale beneath the ink.
I couldn’t tell if he was being kind or stubborn. Maybe both.
The whiskey arrived before I found my answer. I stared at it. Didn’t reach for it.
“You don’t have to drink it,” he said.
“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.
“You alone tonight?” His voice came low, rumbling past the music.
I met his stare over the rim of my untouched glass. The noise of the bar dimmed, like the world was waiting to see which one of us would blink.
“Does it matter?” I traced the condensation circle on the counter. “I’m here. With you.”
That earned me a slow tilt of his head. His eyes, dark under the fading neon, warmed—not soft, exactly, more like heat through smoke. “You’re young.”
“You’re old.” I smiled, a sharp curve at the edge of my mouth.
He gave a sound that wasn’t quite laughter. “Experienced.”
“Is that what they call it now?”
His gaze dipped briefly to my hands, resting on the bar, then back to my face. “Experience isn’t always a bad thing.”
“Depends on how you use it.”
He leaned closer, elbows on the counter. “You planning to test that theory?”
I shrugged, heart pounding too hard to keep the movement casual. “You talk like someone who’s failed a lot of tests.”
“Passing’s overrated.” He reached for the bottle between us. “Sometimes the fun’s in the retake.”
I met that heat and didn’t look away. The air between us felt charged, alive in a way that made my skin itch for movement.
Hannah’s laughter rose somewhere behind me, blurred by the music. The bartender shouted an order. Glasses clinked. Everything faded again.
I didn’t say “let’s get out of here.”
I just grabbed my jacket from the stool, knocking the empty glass over as I moved.
His hand caught it before it hit the ground. He didn’t smile—just stood up, tossed cash on the counter, and followed. Quiet. Respectful. No pressure.
Outside, the night air bit cold enough to clear my head. City lights smeared against puddles on the pavement; the smell of rain and gasoline filled the space between breaths. My boots scuffed against wet concrete as we walked toward the parking lot.
He didn’t ask where I was going. I didn’t slow down.
The silence wasn’t awkward. It was needling, electric. Like language would ruin it.
He stopped by a black truck that had seen better years but started immediately when he hit the fob. The headlights blinked once, bright against the slick asphalt.
He opened the passenger door. Didn’t look at me, just waited.
“This is a bad idea,” I said, voice softer than I expected. "I don't… I don't do this."
He looked up, eyes catching a flash of streetlight. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
I stared at the open door. The seat inside looked clean, leather cracked a little from use. The dashboard smelled faintly like oil and pine air freshener.
Everything in me screamed no—too soon, too raw, too dangerous.
But standing there, with the night humming just outside my skin and that unspoken challenge hanging between us, I stepped forward anyway.
The door shut behind me with a solid thud, sealing the noise of The Pour House out.
The seatbelt burned cold against my collarbone as the truck rumbled onto the street. City lights flared past, ghosting across his face. I didn't know his name. He didn't know mine. It was better that way.
I tugged out my phone, thumbs clumsy.
Caught a ride, back in the morning
The screen’s glow washed my skin in pale blue.
Hannah’s reply popped up so fast it felt like she’d been waiting. Make bad choices.
A shaky laugh slipped out before I could stop it. I locked the phone and let it drop into my lap. “Too late,” I murmured.
He shot me a sideways glance but didn’t press. The wipers squeaked rhythm against the windshield, slicing through drizzle. I watched his hands on the wheel—steady, quiet power there, veins shifting like the city’s pulse itself.
Every turn pulled us farther from the noise of the bar, from Nate’s ghost. My reflection stared back in the dark glass, eyes hollowed and alive all at once.
I pressed my forehead to the window’s chill. The road stretched ahead, empty and fine-tuned for regret. Hannah didn’t need to remind me. I already knew what this was.