Chapter 6
Chapter six
Bar Talk
Vand Gabby follow me around all night, the three of us in a blissful mix of longing, reminiscing, and sisterly camaraderie.
But the entire time, as much as I enjoyed the drinking and the banter, and telling every group of guys that hit on us to kick rocks, Manny was always there, his deep brown eyes glancing at me from the back of my mind.
By the time we did get back to the motel, I couldn’t believe I was itching to actually ditch my friends over a guy I barely knew, whose only standout attributes were being a wounded writer with the finest Manhattan recipe in Orlando.
I kept reminding myself not to get attached, not to fall too hard, too fast, like I always did, and yet there he was, his soft smile greeting me every time I closed my eyes.
“Y’all wanna keep the party going or what?” V asked as I pulled up to the motel much later than intended.
I gripped my pants with a nervousness I’d never felt before. Not the tightness or pain of the other nights, but with a mischief I had all to myself. Now was my time to set that mischief in motion. “Actually, believe it or not, I was thinking I could go for a walk.”
“No, come on!” Gabby protested from the passenger’s seat. “We wanna spend time with you.”
“Yeah, you have been. I just figured you two might want to spend some time together.” I give V a knowing look in the rear-view mirror. “Alone.”
V takes the bait like a shark on a baby seal. “If Franky wants to go for a walk, who are we to stop her?”
Gabby, seeing directly through V’s misplaced support, narrows her eyes at her girlfriend. “I am happy to let Franky go. But, ONLY, if that’s what Franky wants.”
“It is,” I say in an embarrassingly eager tone, the trap now closing to make it seem like this was all V’s idea.
“Fine,” Gabby relents. “Just don’t think you aren’t welcome back whenever.”
“Oh, I know.” I smile as I get out of the car.
I wish I could say I was disappointed at how quickly V and Gabby melt into each other, how fast I vanish from their mind as they head toward the room.
At the same time, I don’t think I was the only one reconciling today, so I can’t blame them for wanting a little privacy if I’m the one offering.
The moment the door shuts, I go from a lazy stroll to a stiff speed walk, my heart fluttering as I check the time.
It’s so late, so much later than any of the other times I stopped in.
Surely he’d still be there, I mean, it’s his job, he works there.
It’s not like he would leave before the end of his shift.
I barge into the Shot Glass like I’m storming a saloon out of a western, my eyes scanning behind the counter.
I see a young lady wiping glasses and a tall, broad-shouldered man pouring a drink, half obscured by one of the bar pillars.
I grin at the opportunity to sneak up on Manny, to surprise him with the fact that I didn’t stand him up.
I creep up to the bar, a caricature out of a monster flick, and as I swing my head out from behind the pillar, I tease him with a “Miss me?”
“Sorry, what was that?”
The man looking back at me is tall, taller than Manny, and hairier too. What little color I have drains from my face as I realize that this must be his uncle. Tightness tears at my chest. No, no no no! Did he actually leave? Did he never show? Was I actually too late?
The man looks me over, a spark of something like recognition in his eyes. “Oh, you must be here for Arman.”
He nods in the direction of a booth in the far corner. “You sure know how to keep a kid waiting.”
I look in the direction he nodded, and for a moment, I don’t even register the man sitting in the booth.
He’s alone, hunched over, smaller than I remember, reading a book, wearing thick-rimmed glasses.
He’s traded his Shot Glass tee for a large, navy blue, button-down, but it’s him, it’s definitely Manny.
I saunter over, and in a reversal of the night before, I put my finger to the spine of his book, pressing down so it is no longer obscuring his view of the bar. “Miss me?”
Manny’s eyes slowly trace a line up to mine, as if moving any faster would be a crime against my sudden presence. Then his agape mouth slowly remembers how to curl into a pleased smile. “You came.”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I?” I ask in a breathy tone, trying to emulate the domineering persona I constructed the night before, as I slide into the curved booth opposite him.
“I was worried you were just interested in free drinks,” he teases.
“Free drinks and poetry,” I fire back. “So, not working tonight?”
He pulls off his glasses and sets them on the table, his face shifting back into the roguish shape I remember. “I was going to, but I have a date.”
“I hope she’s interesting,” I tease, throwing his own words from last night back at him.
“Enthralling,” he says, his eyes lingering. Everything about this guy in front of me is every bit the challenging wall of man that’s been grabbing my attention. Yet, there’s something else, something in his posture, in his outfit, even in his attitude, that suddenly seems so different.
He blinks, breaking the drawn-out stare between us, as if to hold it any longer would cause his solid form to shatter to a million pieces. “So, how was your day?”
I roll my eyes, involuntarily, at the comment. “Sorry, it’s just, I hate that question. Don’t you ever get tired of boring platitudes?”
“I’m a bartender, all I have are platitudes,” he replies in a joking tone.
Somehow, forgetting his part-time occupation makes me blush in embarrassment, and this crack in my facade seems to be what finally gets him to relax, his shoulders loosening a little as we both fall into an easy chuckle. As if to punctuate the change in mood, Manny’s uncle stops by with two drinks.
“Highball for the man and a Manhattan for the lovely young lady.” He sets the drink down, and then his eyes trace a line from Manny towards me in a sentiment I can only describe as, Don’t mess this up, Manny, before leaving.
The moment he’s away, I take my chance to dive back in. “So is he why you’re such a smooth talker?”
He blushes a little before hiding behind his highball, surprising me with how much this confident, charismatic soul can squirm under my attention. “Someone had to teach me.”
“Were your parents busy?”
He bites his lower lip in an awkward act. “Kinda, they passed when I was very young. Car accident.”
I practically choke before even getting to touch my drink. “Sorry, jeez, I am so sorry. We talked about this yesterday, The Colossus, right!”
He puts up his hands in a placating act. “No, I don’t mean anything by it, just usually easier to nip that question in the bud sooner rather than later.”
I take a desperate drink of my Manhattan, savoring how it tastes almost as good as last night's, almost. I collect myself before trying to pivot to something a little more pleasant. “Was it nice? Having your uncle?”
“Yeah, I mean, he always says he’d do it again in a heartbeat, and we’d but heads plenty, but I’ve always been grateful.” Manny laces his fingers behind his head, his large biceps straining the fabric of his shirt as he leans back. “Made me the man I am today.”
“Yeah, I was wondering about that,” I say, eyeing his arms. “You don’t strike me as a fighter, but you look like one.”
“Oh God no,” he chuckles. “I have a hard time chasing away the rats in the stock room.”
I continue to eye his form, hoping it doesn’t come off as leering. “Then how’d you get so…” I gesture to all of him before hiding behind a sip of Manhattan.
He finally notices how I’m taking him in before slumping his neck a little in embarrassment. “Wrestling. My uncle’s idea. I was a big kid, a little chubby. Said it would toughen me up.”
“Did it?”
“Not even a little. I was ‘too soft,’ as my teammates would say. Plenty of muscle, no killer instinct. Coach always joked that if he could put his best wrestler's brain in my body, we might actually win a medal.”
There’s something so familiar about the self-deprecating way he describes his own disdain for combat sport, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s because I see myself in him.
At first glance, he’s just what anyone would expect of the ideal macho man, big, muscular, confident to a fault, but under it all, he’s soft, and the world doesn’t have the patience to see it.
It reminds me of my own struggles, all the times people put me in the box of monster or fetish object, all the times I’ve been reduced to my most surface-level attributes, gawked at, mocked, chased, and threatened, without anyone really taking the time to see me.
“You’re staring again.” His words hit me like a truck, the way his attention lingers on me.
“No, I wasn’t!”
“Yes, you were, it’s hard not to notice when a pretty girl is burning a hole through your chest with her dark eyes.”
“That’s not fair! You can’t use cute writer talk on me!” God, this guy is so annoying. Does he have a quip for everything? “I was just curious why the sudden style change?”
He looks down at his outfit, confused by the comment. Before he has time to react, I snatch his glasses off the table. “And what’s the deal with these?”
He scoots around, trying to snatch them back, as I put them on, and suddenly everything is ten times closer. “Jesus, are you blind?!”
“No! It helps me read small print!”
I look at him, his face a distorted mess of black hair hiding sharp lines, and yet even here I can still make out his eyes. “Do you even know what I actually look like?”
“Yes!” he says defensively. “I just told you I’m not blind!”
Suddenly, the ease with which he confused me for a haunted house employee the other night makes a little more sense, and yet, something is still off. “Oh, really? Then shut your eyes and describe me.”
“What?”
“Do it! I wanna know you actually know what I look like. If you do, I’ll give you back your glasses.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll crush them in my hand, and I imagine the last thing you wanna do is gamble if someone like me is stronger than a pair of dollar store specs.”
At first, I see reservation before it gives way to something more mischievous. He turns his head away and closes his eyes. “Fine.”
I scoot a little closer. “And no peeking. Now, go on, what do I look like?”
I watch his eyes shift behind his eyelids as he struggles to recall details. “You have black hair, long legs, a cute smile, scars-”
“A blind man on the other side of the country could have told me that. I want specifics.”
He pouts at my interruption before collecting himself. “You have this beautiful scar running along your mouth where your lips meet that makes it look like you have the biggest smile, even when you frown.”
I touch the scar, a scar I’ve lived with for ages, not even thinking about how someone might find it “beautiful.” I scoot closer, eager to hear what he says next. “Go on.”
“The bolts of white in your hair make it look like you carry your own personal thunderstorm around with you.”
His words cut deep, an observation that actually makes me feel sorry for myself, wondering whether it is because of how I look or how I act. I keep my eyes fixed on him, so curious how much of this is insight or imagination. “Go on.”
“When you’re curious about something, you have this look on your face, the way your lips part, the way your eyes glitter behind your long lashes, like you want to dive into it with abandon.”
He opens his eyes, and only then do I realize how much I’ve inched towards him, the fact that we are almost nose to nose in the booth. His eyes catch mine, and I notice how stunning his lashes are for the first time since I met him.
“Like that,” he says in a breathy baritone voice, as if we both don’t know I’m sitting too close.
The words hang in the air between us, fragile and loaded.
For the first time, I acknowledge what I’ve been denying up until now, a genuine yearning in him that desperately mirrors my own.
But I also see something else—a hesitation.
A flicker of a shadow, a guardedness that pulls him back as he swallows in what I imagine must be a very dry throat.
I pull back as well, heat burning my face as I hand him the glasses. I don't press. I, of all people, should know how dangerous it is to rush into things, so instead I search for a path back, a way to cool the heat between us before I hurt the gentle creature hiding in the man across from me.
I slide back towards my drink and rest my chin on one hand as I collect my drink with the other. “It's okay, you know. To be scared. Or confused. Or just... not ready.”
I sheepishly turn my gaze back to him, not hoping to emulate some domineering vixen, but instead coming from a place of empathy. “I want you to know that. I didn't come here tonight to pressure you into anything. I just... I couldn't stay away.”
My fingers reach for the book he was reading, seeing it was his copy of The Colossus.
He was reading Mushrooms, probably because of what I told him the other night.
My lips curl into a hopeful smile as I savor the longest I think he’s ever been quiet since we met.
“Whatever does or doesn’t happen tonight, I just want you to know that this tells me you see me.
Maybe not all of me, not yet, but it’s a part of me I think few people have even bothered to unearth. ”
“And I thought I was the writer,” he says, finally managing to break his trance. He collects the book, his fingers brushing mine, the heat I thought I had dismissed now an electric shock between us, before turning his toothy grin on me. “Wanna go for a walk?”
A broad, radiant smile spreads across my face. Somehow, that little question feels more confident and courageous than anything Manny has done since I met him.
I don't hesitate. “I thought you'd never ask.”