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NOT TIMMY

H e’s getting drunker in the Irish bar, and I’m not even sure how—he doesn’t have any money. I only bought him one drink. He must have sweet-talked someone in line to buy him a shot, or maybe he’s found a way to scavenge drinks from patrons distracted by the live music or overhead TVs. I’ve seen him drunk before, of course, but this is the first time we’ve been in a bar and he’s behaving this way. In any case, he’s a mess.

The pub isn’t one of those trendy, modern bars. It’s old-school Irish, tucked away on a quiet street, filled with heavy wooden tables, low ceilings, and dim light that casts a perpetual amber glow. The air smells of stale beer, damp wood, and the faintest hint of cigarette smoke crossed with BO and aftershave. Football highlights flicker on the TVs mounted above the bar, while a group of regulars sing along to live music with raspy voices. The bar is essentially packed, and it’s not the place for Timmy’s antics.

Yet, here he is, in the middle of it all, doing his version of a shuffle dance, arms flailing, legs writhing like they’re trying to escape from underneath him. But we’re not at some EDM rave or a club where they’re playing house music. The speakers are blasting the band’s old Irish rock songs, and Timmy’s out there trying to shuffle like he’s in another world entirely. He weaves and sways, narrowly avoiding toppling over, and every few seconds he knocks into someone, their drinks sloshing up the sides and over the edges of their glasses as they glare at him. But Timmy is blissfully unaware, enjoying himself in the moment, the king of his own chaos.

The bartenders are too busy to notice, three deep with people calling for drinks the whole way around the bar. The bouncer, a hulking guy with tattoos running down his neck, doesn’t seem inclined to intervene, even as Timmy’s dance threatens to spill over into someone’s pint. Instead, he just laughs. Timmy has bragged about knowing him, although I can’t tell if the bouncer actually knows him or just finds his stupidity entertaining.

A woman sitting at the bar with her husband beckons me over, a vision of expensive surgeries and high-maintenance glamor. Her soft pink lipstick and perfectly sculpted cheekbones belong in a different setting—maybe a yacht club or a high-end casino—but here she is, slumming it in a dive bar with the rest of us. She winks at me.

“How do you know Timmy?”

“He’s my fiancé.”

Her eyes widen in disbelief, her heavily mascaraed eyelashes fluttering as she processes my words. “Your fiancé ?” Her tone is incredulous. She glances at him, then back at me, like she’s trying to solve a puzzle that doesn’t make sense. “What’s your name?”

“Margaux.”

“Margaux,” she repeats it like she’s trying to convince herself. “He can’t be your fiancé. Not Timmy. He can’t.” She looks at me and then at him. “No, for real. You can’t be serious. He’s not, right?”

I nod, unsure how else to respond. “He is.”

“Margaux, sweetie,” she shakes her head and trails off as he almost topples into a group of regulars who are clearly not amused. “Him? Really? Really, Margaux?”

I want to melt into the floor. But instead, I just offer a tight smile and a nod, pretending none of this is happening. Inside I’m screaming, how did I get there? How is this my life?

He’s making a fool of himself and being a problem, a menace, but I don’t know how to stop him. I’m sure if anybody else acted half the fool Timmy is right now, they’d have been kicked out half an hour ago. He’s seriously destroying the fun of all the patrons around him who are simply trying to move around on the dance floor and enjoy their drinks. But here Timmy is, creating problems, and the staff seem to be just fine about it.

Suddenly, Timmy makes a wild dash for the door, nearly colliding with a barback carrying a tray of empty glasses. Without a word, he’s gone.

I blink at the spot he disappeared from. I look for him, but can’t see him on the street. A few minutes later, I turn to the nearest group. “Has anyone seen my fiancé?” I ask the crowd around me.

Three guys immediately raise their hands. “I’ll be your fiancé!” one yells, as the others laugh and join in. “Forget that guy, I volunteer to replace him.”

I can’t help but laugh, even as part of me wants to cry. Timmy’s chaos is exhausting, but here I am with strangers, still holding onto the hope he’ll somehow get his act together and we’ll go home quietly.

Eventually, he comes back, just as drunk if not worse. His shirt is untucked, and there’s a fresh stain on his pants that I don’t want to think too hard about. He swaggers up to me, his eyes glassy.

“Let’s go to the strip club!” Timmy announces loudly, like it’s the best idea in the world.

Rebecca and Jetson and I exchange glances. We shrug and follow him out into the humid night air. The streets are damp, the occasional flicker of a streetlamp catching on the wet sidewalk. Palm trees sway in the warm breeze, the smell of saltwater mingling with the sound of waves crashing in the distance. Sunset Cay never sleeps, but this isn’t the vibrant nightlife scene advertised in glossy brochures—this is gritty and real.

Timmy leads us down a nondescript alley and up some stairs to a poky little strip club—a small, dingy little spot with neon lights flickering over the door .

“That’ll be a forty dollar cover per person,” the cashier says, barely looking up from her phone. Timmy looks at us expectantly.

“Did any of us actually want to come here?” Jetson asks, deadpan.

Rebecca and I look at each other and shake our heads. Just another of Timmy’s terrible ideas that he expects others to fund.

“Me neither,” says Jetson. “It seems like Timmy is the only one who did, and he can’t afford the cover for one, let alone four.”

Timmy frowns as we traipse back down the stairs. “Well, I thought that would have been fun,” he says, sulking. His disappointment is palpable, his shoulders slouched, his slightly wobbly pace slowing.

“Yeah, if everyone else was paying for you.” I roll my eyes, shaking my head. “And you were the only one who wanted to go.”

As if on cue, a nondescript woman in a sheer shirt walks past, her lace bra on full display. Timmy spins around like a compass drawn to magnetic north, his eyes wide as he watches her pass. He just about drools on the sidewalk.

“What?” he says, catching my irritated expression. “I get to look at girls, and say ‘yeah you!’ if I want! I won’t touch any of them, just look.”

“Can you at least pick an attractive person to drool over then?” I snap, my patience wearing thin.

He’s pouting because he didn’t get to see some half-assed strippers, and trying to start an argument by being disrespectful.

I’m putting this sloppy behavior down to his level of intoxication, which seems to be getting steadily higher even though I haven’t seen him drink anything in quite a while. Maybe he’s in stealth mode. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he’d been going around taking sips out of random people’s drinks. There’s no other real explanation for it.

At one point, we need to share the sidewalk with a family headed in the other direction. “Watch it!” Timmy shrieks at them for no apparent reason.

“What the fuck, dude?” Jetson says under his breath, and the three of us exchange glances as Timmy charges on ahead .

His behavior is more than over the top, but I try to shake it off. I’m enjoying spending time with Rebecca and excited to have a new friend here on the island. It’ll be nice to plan girl outings and do fitness classes and restaurant stuff together. And she and Jetson seem like a solid couple, so we can do double dates. I glance at them and they offer me a sympathetic look. This isn’t what I had in mind when I thought of a night out.

But I shake it off. I’m not going to ruin what could still be an enjoyable night out with friends because Timmy decided to have three too many drinks, or whatever this is.

This has to be a one-off, him stumbling around this way.

Nobody behaves like this all the time.