Bar Crawl (2 page)

“D
id you just strike out with that girl, Ceej?” Lex hoisted a full pitcher of beer over my head and held it in his thick hand as if it were simply a pint.

I shrugged passively, avoiding looking over my shoulder to where I knew she stood with her friends. “Whatever. Wanna talk about striking out? Let’s take a look at your birth certificate,
Lenox
,” I mocked his birth name—which is why he always went by
Lex
—bracing myself for what was sure to be a pissah of a shoulder punch.

Once feeling returned to my upper arm, I continued. “Nah, she’s just some girl I know.”

That was a massive lie. I didn’t know a damn thing about her aside from her name and those freckles. That, and I’d never seen her at the same bar twice except for tonight. And, this was only the second time I’d seen her at Finnegan’s. She was different. She seemed to spend most of her nights out watching people just like I did, though I doubted her motivations were the same.

The scanning. The guessing. The piecing together of stories only shown in the bar for a few hours a night. It might get old for some, I guess. But, I couldn’t help but find people completely fascinating.

A few months ago when she’d turned me down. I’d forgotten what she’d looked like by the next morning when I kissed Tanya goodbye and sent her on her way in a cab I’d paid for the night before. That lasted until the second time I saw her, at Dunes up in Provincetown.

Not only did she stick out because she wasn’t a local, and only locals too drunk to know better or too license-restricted to go anywhere else patronized Dunes, but her flippant rejection of me from earlier stuck out as plainly as those freckles that speckled her nose and cheeks. She didn’t wear a ton of makeup.
Nice
, I’d thought passively as I mentally thumbed through the catalogue of “mornings after” I’d had. Sunrise is not always a magical experience. And, tan face makeup shit doesn’t wash easily out of pillowcases.

“Yo, CJ.” Lex snapped his hands in front of my face and pointed to my pitcher of beer, which was still three-quarters full.

“Yeah?” I tried.

He rolled his eyes. “Get over her, man. Look at all the skirts in here tonight.” He held out his hands and took a deep breath, as if he were in a flower shop.

Gross, dude.

“You’re right,” I said, feigning agreement, allowing my eyes to resume scanning.

I was well-versed in the bar scene. From an early age, I was able to sneak gigs at local pubs, bars, and dives. My parents were pretty cool about letting me play during open mic nights when they were there to supervise, and I quickly figured out how to sneak out of my third-floor bedroom window for those times that were outside my curfew.

The attention drove me wild. It pumped adrenaline through my veins each time someone clapped or cheered for something I had played. It was hard for me in those early days to tease out if it was the drums that I wanted to master, or the crowd. Sometimes it’s still hard, but I’ve aligned my passion with the craft. The attention is a major perk, though.

Before I could say anything else, Lex elbowed me and pointed out a pair of blondes walking our way. They had intention in their eyes as they licked their glossed lips. It was go time.

I never understood what it was about girls and musicians. For the most part, musicians are underemployed, keep awful hours, and hang out with a shady cast of life’s characters. Maybe that was the intrigue. Whatever it was, it helped me play my cards after my sets were done. Girls wanted to touch my arms, run their fingers over my tattoos, and ask me all about how long I’d played the drums. They didn’t care one ounce how long I’d played the drums; they just wanted to seem interested in order for me to get interested. I’d always played along with their questions and fake-fandom because the sex was good and it clearly meant something to them to keep up the appearance of having a conversation before allowing me to take them home.

“Ladies.” Lex held out his arm, welcoming them into our conversation as if he’d been waiting for them all night.

At the sound of their giggles, I found my eyes searching for Frankie. She didn’t look like a giggler to me. I watched her and her guy friend walk over to a group of people they hadn’t arrived with. Her back was to me, but I paused my eyes long enough to study the group. They were clean, if not slightly reserved, and wore slightly tired looks around their eyes while they laughed in between animated conversation. Some of them tried a little too hard to be sexy, as if they exploded out of their clothes at the end of a long work week.

Teachers. I’d bet money on it.

The girls in front of me, though? If they were out of college—and I couldn’t be sure of that without hearing them talk—I’d put them in corporate America. The kind of place that doesn’t mind the cleavage I was sure they showed on a daily basis.

Finance. No. Real estate.

Girl number one tilted her head to the side. “You guys looked great up there.”

Definitely real estate.
She paid attention first to how we looked over how we sounded.

“Thanks.” I grinned suggestively as I snapped myself out of my little game. “Are you girls from around here? I haven’t seen you in here before, and I know I’d remember faces like yours.”

Before I knew it, I was sucked back in. Same script, different actors as my supporting roles. The bat of an eyelash and the innocent touch of my hand to her arm—Leslie was her name—and I was “that guy” again. Funny, sexy, repeating the last few words she said to let her think I was paying attention, when really I just wanted to know how her breasts might feel in my hands. Or against my tongue.

Minutes turned into hours, and before I knew it, it was time to close the deal. Leslie would be going home with me, and Lex would take her friend. It worked out for them, they’d murmured between themselves, since Lex and I were roommates and they could still “keep an eye on each other.”

As they wandered off to the restroom before we left the bar, I found myself looking over my shoulder. It was only then that I’d remembered the object of my look back. Frankie. And she was gone.

Damn it.

I had no idea how long ago she’d left, or what she saw of me before she did. Whatever it was, it was highly unlikely to help my chances with her should I be lucky enough to see her a third time.

As I led Leslie to my car—not having to plan the rest of our evening, since it was pretty much on autopilot—I thought about what my next move with Frankie might be. I couldn’t leave seeing her again up to chance. And, for some reason, I couldn’t let her think that I was actually the guy she saw play acting in the bar. Maybe it was her blatant disregard of me that had me excited initially—an old fashioned game of cat-and-mouse was always fun. But, more than that, she seemed to always be
paying attention
while I was playing with the band. Sure, most people bop along to songs—especially to their favorites—but I’d caught her noticing changes we’d made to certain songs. She’d grin at an extra solo or widen her eyes at a complex drum solo we’d thrown into an otherwise simple or well-worn song. She noticed.

But what was I willing to tell her about who I
really
was?

A
week later, I was at my post amidst the stacks of the public library. Working in the quiet solitude of my mecca was the best way I’d found to unwind after a stressful week. Teaching English was hard. Really hard. However, I was thankful my teachers had done what they did to open my eyes to the beautiful world of this language, and I always aimed to pass that down to my students.

Language is powerful, and walking among millions—maybe billions—of words as I re-shelved books was far from overwhelming. Quite the opposite, actually. It was comforting. Words were my people.

I liked slightly dusty hardcovers that had threads in their binding the best. While my e-reader allowed me to carry all of my favorite books at once, no matter where I went, there was something to the feel and the weight of an actual
book
that couldn’t be replicated by technology.

“Hey!” A loud whisper startled me as I ran my fingers across the worn, embossed title of
The Other Boleyn Girl
.

“Shit!” I loud-whispered, whipping around as my heart pounded.

There, in the early light of that Saturday morning that streamed magnificently through the stained glass window, stood CJ. The drummer. The pig. The drummer pig.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” He put his hands in his pockets and gave a little shrug.

I cleared my throat, scraping together equilibrium as I went along. “Didn’t think you could come out in the daytime. Doesn’t the light hurt your eyes?” I brushed past him and wheeled my cart to the next set of stacks, wondering what in the love of God he was doing in Hyannis, and at the library.

My
library.

“Funny.” He kept his voice respectfully quiet as he followed me. “Told you I’d see you next week.”

That he had. The determination that had swaddled his voice in the bar the last time I saw him replayed in my ears.

“You’re late,” I quipped.

“Huh?”

“You said you’d see me next week. That was on a Friday. Today is Saturday, so you’re a day into the second week.” I took a deep breath, tucked my hair behind my ears, and resumed my task.

CJ reached above my head and took down a book. While I could typically navigate around the library blindfolded, with him around I suddenly had no idea which section I was in. I kept my focus on the tiny numbers printed on little white stickers to guide my movements.

He spoke again when he returned the book to its place. “You’re dressed the same as you were the last time I saw you.”

I scrunched my eyebrows and eyed him up and down. “So are you,” I said, motioning to his worn, but not tattered, jeans and a t-shirt, snug in the shoulders with a faded design. A shamrock maybe. “What’s your point?”

CJ crossed one arm over his abdomen and rested his other elbow on it, scratching his freshly shaven chin. His face never held more than a days worth of scruff. “I don’t know that I have a point, other than pointing it out. I thought you were a teacher.”

“I am.” I scrunched my eyebrows and faced him. “How did you know that?”

He sighed comically. “You’re really going to make me work for this, aren’t you?”

I stopped what I was doing and rested a hand on my hip. “I’m trying to keep it short to get you out of here faster, just in case, you know, the ceiling crashes down around you.”

CJ covered a rough snicker with an exaggerated cough. “This isn’t a church.”

Picking up a book of Emily Dickinson’s earliest poetry, I held the yellowing paper to my nose and took a deep breath, grinning on my exhale. “It’s my church. How’d you find me here, anyway?” In the whirlwind of his towering presence and impossibly good smell, I’d glossed over important details. Like how the hell he knew I’d be here.

“Middle school English teacher from Albany, New York. Graduated from UMass, completed your graduate work during your first two years teaching…”

CJ rambled off facts about my professional life as he ran his hands over my blessed sacraments, stopping at Frost, plucking it from its spot. He paused his factoid spiel long enough to flip to the middle of the book, as if he’d been looking for that page all along. His lips moved, but no words came out, then, suddenly, he closed the book and put it back exactly where he’d gotten it from. A satisfied smirk perched on his lips.

I was growing more flustered by the minute, running out of snarky material to repel him with. “I’ve never given you my last name. How’d you know how to look me up?”

CJ waved his hand in the air. “The internet is idiot proof, Frankie. Hyannis isn’t that big, and, luckily for me, you work for a public school. I’m not interested in all that stuff, though.”

“Oh,” I snipped. “You’re not interested in what I do for a
living
?”

His smirk turned into a full smile. “Now I am. I just wanted to make sure you were passionate about it. Defensiveness is a good sign.”