Page 25 of The Girl with No Name

We clink our glasses together again. “You need to get out more, bro—Samantha or no Samantha around. That’s what I’m here for. Mission this weekend is to get you out of your shell. Something seems different with you.”

“I admit, it gets you down in a certain way, I think, working a job that doesn’t light up your soul.” The alcohol is definitely greasing the wheels of my psyche, easing my disciplined approach to life and unearthing some questions I’ve perhapskept buried. “I love my 401K projections, but staring down the barrel of working for some corporation for the next thirty years doesn’t exactly set me on fire. But that’s life, right?”

“You don’t like your job?”

“I do. It’s a great job. I mean?—”

“Shit, you make how much a year, and you just sit in a cubicle clicking buttons? Humanity has worked like hell to get us to this point.”

I nod. “I try to be grateful, but that’s just the thing. My job’s got no life to it. I just sit in a cube all day—or at home in my room, locked in. There’s nothing sensory about it.”

“I get that. Maybe you should get a job as a bartender. I mean, the scenery is fucking epic here.” He glances in the direction of a cute server walking past with a tray.

“Maybe I should.”

I snap a photo of the beach scene behind us for Sam and send it to her.

“What?” Dunn asks.

“What?”

“Why are you looking at me like that? Because I notice other women are alive when I’m married with a kid on the way?”

I laugh. “No, dude, I’m not judging you. I wasn’t even thinking about that.”

He shrugs. “I can look at the menu. That’s allowed. I sure as hell won’t be eating from it. Adultery is a punishable offense in the military, and not only am I not a dumbass, I’m also loyal. This is my last hurrah, my friend, before my freedom is done. And you know what? I’m okay with that.” He takes a long pull of his wine and points toward the beach. “There’s a time in a man’s life when you want all this. But at some point, you have to grow up a little.”

As if proving his point, a voluptuous girl with wavy, dark hair in Levi jeans and a tank top walks by. She’s the kind of hot that makes us look at each other and start laughing.

“That’s the thing a lot people don’t get these days, man. Life really begins with marriage and a life with your wife. Having kids. That’s what life’s fuckingabout,man. That’s epic. Aw hell, the Malbec is getting to me. Don’t give me that look, you fucking Puritan. We’re gonna have fun this weekend, whether you want to or not.”

“What should we do tomorrow?” I ask. “There are some cool golf courses around here. Maybe after I’m done with work we could play a round.”

Dunn gives me a blank stare. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Yeah! I know Chicago’s not really known for golf, but we have some pretty epic courses. There’s this one club Sam’s dad belongs to in the south suburbs. I could see if we get in for a couple of roun?—”

“What thefuck,dude?” He actually seems agitated. “What don’t you understand about Zach Bryan and the Red Lemons playing at Railfest? Sheryl Crow is playing at noon on Saturday. If we don’t leave until Saturday we’ll miss the majority of the artists.”

“Bro, you really need to get off this Railfest train. Work, man. I have work. In the office. Downtown.”

“Did you not just say you hate your job?”

“Hateis a strong word.”

“Work will always be there.” Dunn smacks a hand on my shoulder. “Zach plays Saturday night. It’s about seven, maybe eight hours to Lexington from here. Plus we’ll have to eat and check into a hotel. I don’t want to feel rushed, and I want to see those other artists. We leave tomorrow morning. We’ll be nice and relaxed. We’ll have a day to chill, and then we’ll enjoy the concert.”

“Awww, West Point, that’s cute. You can’t enjoy a concert after driving during the day?”

“I’m about to have a kid. I’ll be getting no sleep for the next eighteen years. I want to see Zach Bryan when I’m fresh. Not rushed.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see that the raven-haired girl who passed us a moment ago is standing at a table nearby, and one of the girls there just somehow spilled three glasses of wine at once, with one swipe of her arm.

I grab a fistful of cocktail napkins and run over to her table, where she and her two friends are still standing in shock.

“Oh! Thank you for that,” she says as I contain the mess. “You just saved us.”

“No worries. We were about to switch to Bacardi and coke anyway.”

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