Page 6 of If This Was a Movie

“Hey, Tyler, how’s it going?” a deep voice asks, getting closer with each word.

“Eh, you know, I’m working New Year’s Eve, so it could be better.”

The man laughs from behind me, getting closer before a tanned hand and gray sweater are stretched next to me, giving the bartender a manly handshake. I can't lie and say I didn’t check the hand out, noticing a few small scars and calluses on his hands, implying he works with them and no ring on a certain important finger.

The bar is nearly empty, maybe half a dozen patrons in all taking up various seats, so I jump a bit when the stool next to mine is pulled, the legs scraping on the floor.

A tall man settles next to me, ordering a beer and bullshits a bit with the bartender, taking a look at the menu that is passed to him before turning to me.

“You come here often?” he asks. It’s so bad, an overused and cliché line, but it makes me laugh out loud without thinking twice. “That bad, huh?”

“It wasn’t great,” I say as I take him in.

He’s cute.

Really cute, with light brown, almost blond hair that screams he spent a lot of time in the sun before winter kicked in, pushed back with his fingers rather than some kind of product, a fitted dark gray sweater on, paired with a pair of worn jeans.

“Not really great at this whole thing,” he admits, a light pink flush on his cheeks that I tell myself must be from the cold outside.

“This whole thing?”

“Talking to a pretty girl.” He smiles, and that’s good too.

“I think step one is telling her your name,” I say, giving into the fun of flirting. My best friend, Ava, is the queen of flirting. She’ll flirt with anyone if she’s bored enough, and while I’m not on her level, I can’t help but want to flirt with this stranger. This is how all of the best romance movies start after all: a lonely woman meets a man at a bar, and they begin their journey to forever.

My mother tells me at every chance she gets I’m too much of a hopeless romantic, that I need some realism before I get really and truly hurt. I know she’s just projecting because when I was five, my dad left us to start a new family with someone half his age and never looked back. That was her reality check, and she tells me every chance she gets. Him starting over was the moment she realized she needs a man for stability, security, and status more than anything.

But I want nothing but true, all-consuming, movie-worthy love.

I know down to my bones, one day, it will find me.

“Nate,” he says, putting a hand out for me to shake.

“Jules,” I smile, taking his hand. It’s rough and calloused, much bigger than my own, and after we shake, he holds in for a moment longer than necessary. “Are you from Evergreen Park?”

He nods. “Yeah, I was born and raised here, never left. I know nothing but this town.”

“That must have been nice. I grew up a few towns over in Spring Hill, utter chaos at all times. Moving here was a nice change of pace.”

“It’s a great place to be,” he agrees before we fall into a comfortable silence.

The bartender brings Nate over his beer and takes his dinner order. The entire time, I try to figure out how to comfortably and casually keep talking to this man. My belly is in knots, a slew of butterflies beating around my stomach, and it could be that I’mjust single on one of the most romantic nights of the year, but I feel…something. Something I can’t explain, a voice in my head that is screaming,talk to him, get to know him.

His fingers move over and over on something, and I look closer, eyeing it to notice a small matchbook. “Do you smoke?” I ask, because that’s a deal-breaker for me, something I won’t fuck with.

“What? No,” he asks with a confused chuckle.

I tip my chin toward his hand where he’s flipping a matchbook over and over in his hands, opening and closing it, fidgeting away.

“No, I’m just inexplicably nervous, and it’s keeping my hands busy,” he admits, a shy smile on his lips as he drops the matchbook.

I reach over and grab it, playing with it myself now. “Nervous?”

“Again, pretty girl, not something I do often…it might be a line, but I’m telling the truth. I feel very much out of my wheelhouse.“

Something is refreshing about that, a man being nervous and embarrassed but not trying to play it off like some macho idiot. Because of it, I give him a wide smile, slipping the matches into my pocket.

“If it helps, I don’t do this either. Sit next to a handsome man flirting with me, trying to flirt back.”

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