I roll my eyes at myself. Another Los Angeles resident, traveling, not using her phone, and making internal proclamations about wire cutting, feeling proud of how analog she is. How original.

Oh, and my phone is dead anyway.

The little village road takes me around a bend, where old streetlamps light the way.

It’s late enough that most of the businesses are shut. A knife sharpener, a little grocery store, what looks like a very cute wine shop called Dinner Party. I’m noticing a bookstore when I see an old woman coming out of its door.

When she sees me, she says, “Have a good night, love.”

“Oh—goodnight,” I say back.

She locks the door behind her and bustles off down the road in the direction I’ve come from.

It strikes me as odd, but then I remember that things are different in different places. People in LA don’t talk to each other. LA is basically a bunch of private residential pods strung together by freeways, and no conversation between strangers isn’t tinged with the unspoken puzzle of each person trying to figure out who has more power and if they’d be willing to share some of it.

I hear the place before I see it. I wind around the corner and see Cairdeas, a pub that is open and cheerfully busy. I’m glad to have found it, as I’m getting a little too chilly. It’s June, but it’s nearly midnight and the air is cool and crisp. My jean jacket and crewneck are barely enough to be comfortable.

When I pull open the door a gust of sound washes over me, resting on my cold cheeks like hands that have been warmed by a fire. It’s a lively atmosphere—people are chatting and talking, possibly arguing, and everyone has pints of beer or cups of coffee.

In a corner, sitting around a table, there are musicians with different instruments, playing what I can only, ignorantly describe as extremely Irish music.

I squeeze through the crowd to get to the bar.

There’s only one bartender, a tall, lean guy with dark blondish reddish hair. He’s in a black T-shirt and blue jeans. He nods to take someone’s order, then reaches up to a high shelf at the back bar; my eyes travel of their own volition to the sliver of bare abdomen that’s exposed when his shirt lifts. He’s got that lean, V-shaped muscle that disappears into the unbelted band of his jeans. I happen to know that’s called an Adonis belt.

As in, Oh, no, I can’t have truffle butter, not if I want an Adonis belt.

That is a direct quote from Grayson Gamble to the server at Nobu Malibu whom I would go on to tip an extra hundred dollars after he also requested a new, chilled glass halfway through his martini.