Page 20 of Alexander: Alexander's Story

A bartender with a man bun drops two menus on the bar top, letting us know he’ll come back for our order in a couple of minutes. He looks slammed, so I focus on the menu, making sure I’m ready when he returns.

Blanks doesn’t even bother to look.

“Already know what you’re getting?” I ask.

He laughs. “Nope.”

“Umm, okay.” As soon as I pick out an entreé, I ask Blanks the question that’s been on the tip of my tongue since yesterday, “So why a mustache? It seems like a statement.” He stares at me. “Or a cry for help.”Or attention.

“Alright, what can I get you two?”Thwarted by the bartender.

Blanks doesn’t wait to let me order first. He just says, “The special and an old fashioned.”Liar, he did know what he wasgetting.“And for myself, also the special and an IPA, any kind is fine.”The fuck?

The bartender knocks his knuckles against the wood top before walking away with a nod.

“Rude, that wasn’t what I wanted. At all.” He gives me a wayward glance.

“You don’t even know what it is,” he quips back.

“Youdon’t even know what it is!” He smiles at that.

“Don’t need to. Anyways, Angel, the mustache is because I can. I pull it off. Not many can. So it’s a fuck you to the non-mustached, of sorts.”

“Well, being a non-mustached human myself, I take offense.”

He shrugs. “Jealousy doesn’t become you, dear.”Dear?He’s worse than Dina.

“You confuse me,” I have to say a little bit louder as the crowd surges and the volume inside the bar does, too.

“How?” He raises his voice back.

“I can’t tell if you like me…or hate me.”

“Well, why can’t it be both?” he says with a smile twisting off one side of his face.

He might be unsure about his feelings towards me, but I’m pretty sure I’m firmly on the hatred side of feelings towards him. Rolling my eyes, I avert my attention in time for my drink to be delivered.

Unfortunately, our enthralling banter halts —joking— and we sit there in silence. I watch the crowd, and people, and the bartender. And he watches a football game on TV. Though it’s technically not silent at all, it’s loud. Between the people talking and shouting and the constant rotation of banjo-heavy country music, you can barely hear yourself think.

When our food comes, it’s shepherd’s pie, and I don’t let on for a second that this is exactly what I wanted. We both eatwithout talking, and then he excuses himself to use the little boy’s room.

A woman laughing loudly with a group of men draws my attention, and I watch the slim, dark-haired siren twirl around, dancing to a melody no one else can hear. When she stands beside me, in the spot Blanks just vacated so she can order a drink, I look at her again.

That’s right, she’s the woman from the stairs this morning.

I’m about to say as much when she interrupts me.

“God, you’re just sooo pretty. You know that?” she says, looking at me, leaning against the barstool with a slight, telltale inebriated sway.

“Umm, thank you?” I respond. She laughs, tipping her head back, exposing a long neck of flawless olive skin. As her chest rises and falls, the red pom pom fixed to her chest bounces. She would be the type of girl to pull off an ugly Christmas sweater like it’s couture.

Turning away from me, she motions for the bartender, who swaggers over slowly.

“What can I do for you?” he asks her.

She motions back to the three men she was just standing with and proceeds to order, “Four — no!” Looking at me, then pointing a finger, she says, “Make that five! Shots of Patron! Por favor!” The bartender glances at me, and I try my best to shake my head subtly,no. If he pours her a shot, I think I’ll be tempted to take it myself so she doesn’t find herself passed out or hanging her head over a toilet at the end of the night.

I watch Man-bun make the shots, pouring water into one that he sets aside.Smart man.