ONE
Maya
The guy next to me at the bar is grinning at me intimately, as though he knows all my secrets but likes me anyway. It’s a little unsettling, mostly because I’m damn sure I’ve never seen him before in my life, and I’m good with faces. It is the sort of grin that’d instantly win over anyone with the ability to trust a man with a charismatic smile, though. I’ll give him that.
It’s a pity I’m not one of those people.
But as it happens, I want something from him, so I shamelessly mirror his silken smile, and wait. “I’m trying to figure something out,” he says as an icebreaker after a few seconds, raising his voice over the music. It’s a bass-heavy remix of a pop song, played about a dozen decibels too loud.
“What might that be?” I glance at the bartender as I speak, but he’s just started serving someone else. We’re gonna be here awhile.
Good.
“Why is it, do you think, that someone decided all the best-tasting cocktails on a menu were girl-drinks? What even makes a drink a girl-drink or a guy-drink? It’s a drink.”
When movies and TV shows told me to brace myself for guys to ask me a flirty question at the bar, this wasn’t exactly what I expected. Although, that might be because those bars are usually at an exclusive club or obscenely expensive restaurant. Maybe when you’re standing at a bar inside a quirky bowling alley where the balls are neon, the tables are decorated with newspaper clippings of various dogs, and the signature drink is served in a soup bowl, you have to expect things to veer off the beaten track. Pickup lines and all.
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