I nod. “What would you do differently?” I’m pushing it. I know I am, but I’m in the grip of an idea, and it’s making sense of my desperation, that fierce furious desperation I feel all the time now.

“Be home more. Talk more. Tell her how I feel more openly. She was always after me to open up, but I couldn’t figure out what the fuck she meant. And I think I get it now. I think I could do that better, now. I’d do things for her. So she’d know.” A gruff clearing of his throat. “I’d treasure each moment, because we ain’t guaranteed a single goddamn one of them.”

Fuck, that hits me like a javelin. It punches into my chest so hard my breath whooshes out like he physically punched me with his giant cinderblock fist. Might as well have. Hits me so hard I get nauseous.

He notices. “Dude, Adrian, you okay?”

I nod. “Yeah,” I rasp, hoarse. “Swallowed wrong.”

“Bullshit.”

I glance at him. “I’m sorry?”

He eyes me. Eyes somewhere between brown and gray, deep, serious. “That was rank bullshit. You didn’t swallow wrong.” He clenches his fist, taps a knuckle on the bar. “Adrian, why’re you asking me this shit?”

“Curious.”

He nods. “You’re lying.”

I laugh, but it’s bitter, morbid. “Yeah.”

He lets out a long breath. “All right. Keep your lie. You got your reasons, I guess.” He tugs a card out of his hip pocket, hands it to the bartender. “On me.”

“Nathan, let me—”

“On me.”

“Okay,” I say. “Thank you.”

He shakes his head. “No, thank you. I needed this, man. More than you know. Getting home today, to that home, alone, it just…it hit me and I couldn’t be alone. And you were the first person I thought of.”

“Honored to be, buddy. Honored.”

The bartender hands him the black plastic tray with the receipt; he tips generously, totals, scrawls a sloppy signature. He stands. Claps me on the shoulder, gently, but it rocks me forward with a jolt. “You want to unburden yourself of whatever it is you’re carrying, Adrian? You let me know.”

I want to, in that moment. So damn bad. “Some burdens can’t be put down, my friend. But thank you. I know you mean it.”

“Yeah, I guess I get that.” He stumbles a bit.

“You’re not driving are you?”

He shakes his head. “Nah. I knew I couldn’t go home tonight. So I got a hotel a couple blocks away. Bottle of Blanton’s waiting for me. I’ll deal with going home tomorrow.” He juts his chin at me. “You’re not driving either, I take it. You had as much as me, and you weigh probably a good buck less.”

“I got an Uber here. When we sit down to drink, we don’t mess around.”