I strutted into the bathroom and strutted back out, took a stool, twirled my beer and tried emitting a level of self-assurance I knew I’d never possess, eyes slightly slanted while feigning indifference to everything around me. Quiet confidence, I’ve heard it called. Natalie was being flirtatious, laughing beyond politeness, touching the man’s arm or shoulder and blushing at all the appropriate times. Her ass perfectly framed in dark pinstripe pants, shiny hair past her shoulders gathering the light around her. I burned for her as I sat and stared and tried recalling what she had looked like naked that night and, when I couldn’t remember, I wondered if I’d even seen her in the first place, that perhaps she was the shy type who refused to undress until beneath the covers with the lights off. I knew damn well she wasn’t the shy type.

The bar quickly filled. Two servers worked the floor and it was clear that if I didn’t do something soon, then the opportunity would be lost. I panicked. I couldn’t very well walk over and interrupt; a stronger, more confident man could have, but not me, that wasn’t me anymore, and when the server passed I impulsively reached for her and nearly knocked the drinks off the tray she carried.

“I want to send a drink across the bar.”

“Tell one of the bartenders,” she said with a curt nod.

“I don’t mean the bar, to the woman in the corner.”

She looked to the corner, sighed, rolled her eyes.

“What do you want?”

Laid was the first thing that came to mind. Maybe a thousand bucks. Hell, I’d settle for a blow job. But then said, “A vodka and tonic.”

It was a ten-dollar drink and I tossed fifteen on her tray, which of course was stupid of me, but I was drunk and in possession of the carelessness that typically comes with it. She walked away. I shook my head in disgust. What did I really expect to happen, that Natalie would accept the drink and rush over and fall headlong into me while claiming unbridled love and asking herself how she’d survived these past five months without me? No, of course not. It was a weak ploy and I was burning through cash and still in New York.

I counted what money I had left but was too drunk and arrived at three different numbers, none of which I found very encouraging. I put my wallet away and spied the server marching toward the corner. A rush of nerves. Why didn’t I walk by and casually bump into her, act just as surprised to see her as she’d be to see me, make small talk until I could weasel my way into the conversation? I was being a reckless idiot and upon this realization my face grew flush.