Page 6 of My First Time Fling

“Small goals are good,” Gabe said. “Remember. No marriage. Just one drink.”

“No marriage,” I repeated. “Got it.”

“Well, in that case, it sounds like I’d better let you get on with it,” he said. “Besides, the guys are gonna finish both pitchers without me if I don’t get back in there.”

“Heaven forbid I deprive you of that,” I snorted. “Have fun with your bro crew.”

“Haters gonna hate, bros gonna bro,” Gabe said. “I’ll talk to you later, man. Glad you’re doing okay. Now go get ‘em, tiger.”

“Will do.” I paused for a second. “Hey, Gabe?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for calling.”

“Any time, man. Really.”

I jumped in the shower after getting off the phone with Gabe and then stood around looking at the clothes I’d packed in the single suitcase I’d brought with me to Savannah. Nothing was particularly nice. I’d packed thinking about manual labor, not night life.

I made a face in the mirror as I pulled a tight green t-shirt over my head. It had a rip in the bottom hem and a hole on the back by the tag, but it did outline my torso nicely, which made it the best of my options. Who was I trying to impress, anyway? The denizens of Savannah were just going to have to be happy that I was clean.

“You can do this,” I said sternly to myself in the mirror. “This is eminently doable. Not a big deal. You’re just going to go out there, talk to some strangers, and charm the pants off of them.” I snorted. “Probably not literally,” I added, raising an eyebrow at my reflection. “So don’t go getting any ideas.”

It had been a long time since I’d gotten any action. But I wasn’t really in a position right now to try to break my dry spell. Too much work to do on myself, first.

And much as I might wish otherwise, I wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of guy. Way more of a ‘lock it down after the second date’ type, if I was being honest. What could I say? I liked stability.

But I was too much of a hot mess to foist myself on a girlfriend right now. Wouldn’t be fair to them. I could barely deal with myself. How could I ask anyone else to?

That was fine, though. Gabe was right. It wasn’t like I was going to ask anyone I met tonight to marry me. This was as low-stakes a situation as they came.

Maybe I’d go to that one bar I’d passed on my way back from the hardware store last week. The Flamingo, I was pretty sure it was called. It had looked loud and tacky and utterly weird. I’d seen a chandelier made of My Little Ponies dangling in the front window, and I was pretty sure there was a real, taxidermied beaver that served as a doorstop.

Not my usual type of spot, but that was probably good insurance. If I had a meltdown in public, I’d never be able to go back. Much better to pick somewhere I wasn’t likely to go to in the first place.

And it could be fun, right?

I grimaced. Did I even remember what fun was? I tried to remember the last time I’d felt carefree and relaxed, and failed—which was probably a sign that it had been too long.

If I didn’t go out tonight, all I’d do instead was lie in bed, wondering when I’d fall asleep and if I’d have nightmares again. In the nightly war between my insomnia and the shit my subconscious coughed up when I finally passed out, I was never sure who I wanted to win.

If I went out, at least I got to avoid that for another hour or two.

I gave myself a final nod in the mirror. I’d run away from Chicago to figure out how to get my old self back. My old self might have felt a little nervous going out, but he’d have known how to hide that, how to put people at ease and make them like him. And eventually, he’d have felt at ease himself.

That was what I was going to do tonight. It was time to get back on the horse.

3

Jesse

“Jeez, Jesse, how long are you going to muddle that basil for?”

“For as long as it takes to make your drink right,” I said, shooting a look at Brooklyn on the other side of the bar. “Unless you’d like to take over.”

“God no.” Brooklyn grimaced. “I’ll stick to coffee and muffins, thank you very much.”

“Baking and cocktails really aren’t that different,” I said, shrugging. “A little science to both, a little bit of art. And both make people happy.”

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