Chapter 5
Chapter Five
The Byron was, somehow, the classiest dive bar that Max had ever been in.
Or maybe it was the most-divey upscale bar?
It had a certain vibe: String lights hung unevenly over the bar, neon lights advertising beer brands all over the walls.
The red vinyl cushions on the stools at the bar had seen better days.
But also: It smelled fine, none of the tables were wobbly, and it had fancy cocktails and a bunch of craft beer on tap.
And there were the portraits. When Max and Sloane walked in, they spent a good sixty seconds studying one, standing close enough to see the textured brush strokes.
It was of a man in a gray, old-fashioned suit complete with a vest and watch chain.
He was angled toward the camera, with one hand in a pocket, the other touching a button on his vest, and had what Max could only describe as a come fuck me expression on his face. Max would’ve.
“Are all the portraits—okay, yes,” Sloane said, breaking off and looking around the room. It was maybe one-third full, which wasn’t surprising for a Tuesday night in October. “All the portraits are doing that thing where the eyes follow you.”
“Try to behave, I guess,” Max said.
“Or what, they’re gonna snitch? Isn’t there a James Bond movie where there’s a painting with the eyes cut out so someone can look through without it being suspicious?” Sloane asked, still glancing around.
Max tried, and mostly failed, to imagine that. “And it wasn’t the creepiest thing ever?”
“Oh, it was,” she said, giving him a smile that was somehow…conspiratorial? “It wasn’t the kind of movie where any of the characters noticed, though.”
“Or,” Max said, and leaned in a little. He was a few inches taller than Sloane, and then corners of her lips twitched when he got close. “It’s the ghosts in the walls, watching the humans to make sure we’re not about to disrespect Belle’s memory.”
“By doing what? Belle wasn’t exactly a nun.”
“No, she was a respectable widow.”
“Sure,” Sloane said, and grabbed a menu from the bar.
Five minutes later, they were seated at one of the high, non-wobbly bar tables with two Death in the Afternoons and a giant pretzel between them.
The drinks were a little weird—in Lord Byron’s dive bar, you drank what were apparently Lord Byron’s drinks, and Max wasn’t sure how he felt about absinthe and prosecco as a cocktail—but the pretzel was good and the company was better.
“So,” Sloane said, dipping a chunk of pretzel into mustard. “You’d get me a bear?”
She popped it into her mouth and chewed, both elbows on the table, watching Max so intently he wondered if she could see through his skull. Sloane had wavy dark brown hair and light blue eyes. It was striking. Startling, even, despite the fact that Max had been looking at her for hours now.
“What do you need with a bear?” he asked, spinning his champagne flute between his finger and thumb.
“What does anyone need with a bear? Companionship, obviously,” Sloane said. “Earlier you said if I wanted a bear, you could get me a bear in five minutes. And I would like a bear, please.”
“Right now?” Max asked, and leaned back in his chair, grinning. “You want a bear right now?”
“Well, in five minutes.” She took a sip of her own cocktail, and Max watched her swallow. “More like four minutes and thirty seconds now.”
“What kind of bear?”
“Up to you. Whichever kind you can get in a little over four minutes.”
“I think the best I can do in four minutes is a ghost bear,” Max said as seriously as he could. “If I get some salmon, a Ouija board, and an assistant who can let go of her skepticism and open herself to possibility for a few minutes, I bet I could call upon the ursine spirits.”
“Oh, so it’s my fault I don’t get a bear,” Sloane said. She was leaning further forward now, and Max was not going to look down her tank top.
Well—he was, actually. Just for a second.
“Bears are for believers,” he said, and waved his other hand in a gesture that probably communicated I am one with the spirit world. Or…something.
“Just admit you can’t get me a bear,” she said, tearing off more pretzel.
“It’s for your own good,” Max told her.
“Deciding what’s good for me is my job,” she said. “Getting me a bear is yours.”
“If we were in Last Chance, I could get you a bear,” Max went on, tearing off his own pretzel chunk. “Maybe not in five minutes. But by tomorrow morning for sure.”
“That barely counts. All you’d have to do is leave the lid off a garbage can.”
“Which was exactly my point.” Max pointed a chunk of pretzel at her. “Bears up in the Sierras are a dime a dozen. Here I’d probably have to steal one from the San Diego Zoo.”
“I think the mountains here have bears, too,” Sloane said. “At least, the ones outside LA do, and we’re not that far.”
“I think it’s ghost bear or nothing. Sorry—I never said what kind of bear.”
“That’s a lame bullshit excuse and you know it,” Sloane said, but she was leaning even further in and grinning, like not getting a bear was the best thing that had happened all week. Given that a wild bear would be a bad pet, it probably was. “Next time, you owe me a corporeal bear. In the flesh.”
“I know what corporeal means, Sloane.”
“Then you know what kind of bear I want.” She drained her drink, and slid off the chair. “Next round’s on me. Do you have a request, or should I surprise you?”
She was standing close—closer than she needed to. There was plenty of room, and the bar wasn’t even that loud. She had one elbow still leaning on the table and her hips cocked in a way that made Max’s lizard brain start buzzing. Those see-through-your-soul eyes were locked on his.
“Surprise me,” Max said, and downed the rest of his drink.
“I guess I’d kill Death Valley,” Sloane said. She was frowning a little, her chin in one hand, staring off into space. “It’s too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Also, it’s called Death Valley—you kind of have to.”
“If you say so.”
“I think… Wait, I can’t fuck whichever one I marry, right? Like it’s a celibate marriage?”
“And you can only fuck the fuck park once.”
Sloane nodded very seriously, as if this not only made total sense but was a matter of great importance. Max wasn’t sure how you’d fuck a national park—or marry one, for that matter—but he’d already said he’d marry San Francisco and fuck Los Angeles, so they weren’t going for realism.
“I’d fuck Yosemite and marry Joshua Tree,” she finally said.
“Wow.”
“Yosemite’s got too many people. You have to make reservations a year in advance, there’s a lottery, it’s a whole thing. Sorry. We could have a wild, passion-fueled one-night stand, but that would be all.”
“I think I’d fuck Joshua Tree and marry Yosemite,” Max said thoughtfully. “I feel like I need trees and water for a long-term relationship.”
“Fair,” Sloane agreed. “Okay, my turn?”
“Your turn.”
“All right. Fuck, marry, kill: that guy, that lady, and that guy.” She pointed at three of the huge, gilt-framed portraits on the wall, including the one by the door they’d come in.
Max leaned back in his chair, sipped his second cocktail—this one was some sort of gin concoction that also had absinthe, since this was apparently some kind of absinthe bar—and studied them.
“I’m pretty sure that’s Lord Byron, so I’d probably kill him,” he said, pointing at the first one.
“I don’t think we’d get along, and he seems like he’d be bad in bed. ”
“Even though he got around?”
“Yeah. He looks like he wouldn’t reciprocate, just lie back and tell you to get yourself off.”
Sloane took a long, thoughtful drink. “And complain he couldn’t breathe if you sat on his face,” she said, and Max had to take a careful breath in and let it out slowly, his eyes locked on Lord Fucking Byron so he didn’t do anything weird or inappropriate.
Such as, for example, tell Sloane that his face could double as a chair, if she’d like.
“Unconscionable,” he said after a beat. When he could, he looked over at her. “We agree about that one, then?”
“For sure. Okay, would you fuck her and marry him or fuck him and marry her?” She pointed at the other two portraits currently up for the game: a woman in perfectly respectable Edwardian garb, with a less respectable little smirk on her face, wearing a huge hat piled with birds, and the come fuck me smokeshow they’d seen when they walked into the bar.
“How do the birds figure in?” he asked.
“Wow, kinky,” Sloane said. Max grinned. “I bet if you asked nicely, she’d leave the hat on. And he’s willing to perform sex acts that include the pocket watch,” she went on, nodding at the man’s portrait.
“If he’ll perform sex acts that include the mustache, I’m in,” Max said, and he could feel his heartbeat kick up a notch as he took another sip of his drink. “He’s hot. Fuck him, marry her.”
Sloane sighed, leaning her chin in her hand, and contemplated this very seriously. Max watched her and didn’t think many thoughts.
“Yeah. Same,” she finally said. “I’m curious about the birds, but I think she and I could have a long, happy, celibate relationship filled with gossip and hats. I don’t know what Lawson and I would talk about.”
“Lawson?” Max asked, and looked over at the portrait again. Finally, it clicked. “That’s Belle’s dead husband?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what it said.”
“Shit,” Max said, and then looked up at the ceiling. “Sorry, Belle. I meant all my thoughts respectfully.”
“I get why you mourned so hard,” Sloane added, laughing.
There was a moment where they both drank in silence while Max watched her from the corner of his eye, trying to gauge if he should go ahead and mention—
“You know I’m bi, right?”
“Yeah, everyone knows that,” Sloane said, like he’d just told her that water was wet.
“Not everyone,” Max said. “My Uncle Dale still thinks meeting the right girl will knock the gay part out of me.”
Sloane, mid-sip, nearly choked.
“Sorry.”