[drunk]

“We always end up here. You notice that?”
Though it broke one of his unwritten rules about not being a tool, he kept his sunglasses on inside. The neon radiating from every corner, wall, and window burned his eyes. War couldn’t remember ever getting as plastered as he did last night. Two in the goddamned morning and he was still hungover.
“Only place open,” he said.
“Other than Denny’s, you mean.”
His ears pricked at the synth wail of late David-Lee-Roth-era Van Halen. Jake’s fingers started to drum to the beat on the edge of their table. She stroked her hair back with her free hand and wet her lips.
“That’s quiet,” she added. “Man, I’ve got a fucking headache.”
His swallow went down rough. He rolled his eyes back in his head and sighed.
“You look like you’re about to die, though.”
War inhaled slow through his nose.
“Trying not to hurl,” he said, through grit teeth.
The left side of her mouth lifted.
“That’s what a girl likes to hear.”
“When one comes in, you let me know.”
The right side followed and she slapped the table.
“Fuck you.”
“Number 57, your order’s up,” a crackling voice said over the P.A. system.
“Can’t do that with you over there,” he said to her back.
She hung her middle finger behind her and shook it at him.
“Tease.”
“Bastard,” she said.
His head tipped to one side when it was safe to watch her go. The weight of her steel-toes started faint impact quakes in her peach, toned calves and round thighs. And under her breath, she sang along:
I’ll wait ’til your love comes down. I’m coming straight for your heart. No way you can stop me now, as fine as you are.
No shit, he thought. Not for the first time, he wondered why he’d never done anything. From the get-go he’d been. . .His eyes narrowed. The word Ash used all the time. What the, yeah–spellbound. That was it. Goddamned entranced. She had miles of leg, small, but beautiful tits, burning red hair that looked like it’d be soft if he touched it, and these eyes. Gray, she’d told him, but the truth was somewhere between blue and green, switching around with the light.
“You there?” she said.
He blinked. The steam of fizzing fry grease fogged his glasses. He slid them off and wiped the lenses on his shirt. A sweat broke out on his back. He forced his eyes shut and took a breath. He even managed to keep them shut, too, when he felt cool, gentle fingers on his temple.
“Damn,” she whispered, “It feels like you’re coming down with something.”
War stopped himself from shaking his head. Her touch slid up to his forehead to press her pulse-point against him.
“Too much Jack,” he said.
“No kidding. I woke up drunk,” she said, “Still. You feel hot.”
“I run hot.”
She tugged on his earlobe with the four-leaf clover stud and sniffed.
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
Once his glasses were back on, he dared to look at her: her smirk, the glint in her eye. The way she slid into the booth and leaned over her arms to give him a good once over, maybe deciding whether to force him into bed or not.
“You know, you passed out last night,” she said.
“Yeah, I figured. Did’ju?”
“No. I was pretty out of it, but not that out of it.”
He nodded.
“I do anything stupid?”
“Define ‘stupid’,” she said.
Though the thought of eating made his stomach cringe, he forced down a couple potato skins along with a slug of coffee. He pretended he didn’t burn his mouth doing it, either.
“I wasn’t going to say anything,” she said, pressing her lips together and twisting them.
“‘Bout what?”
She sighed and downed a few fries herself, rasping her fingers against the oil and salt.
“Well. You kept yelling about how the government is watching us. Then you punched out the bouncer, ran across the street, and knocked over a bank.”
“How much did I make off with?”
“Two dollars and fifty seven cents. The Harris decided not to press charges, seeing as it was from your own account.”
“Nice o’ them.”
“Yeah.”
He pushed up the falling sleeves of his red plaid flannel shirt.
“That all?” he said.
The fries had started to settle his stomach enough that the restaurant didn’t seem as if it rode on the high seas anymore.
“And we made out.”
One fry slid down his windpipe.
“War?”
He smacked himself in the chest while he coughed. She started to get up but he held up his hand and shook his head, gulping more, thankfully cooler, coffee. Still red, he leaned over to get his pack out of his jeans and start up a cigarette.
“Fuck,” he said, hoarse, “Gimme some warning next time.”
She nodded and examined her fingernails. Her lips pursed, and he could see her tongue brushing over her teeth just under the surface. His eyebrows lifted.
“You were being serious,” he said.
“Mm.”
“You ‘n I. . .”
“Mhmm.”
He looked her over, seeing all the things he’d memorized a while back and then some. The sharpness of her collarbone through her baggy black metalhead shirt. The freckles on the driver’s side of her face. The pale flush she always had.
“We have sex?”
“No! Jesus.”
Was I smart enough to try? He thought, smart enough not to ask that question. He didn’t know how he, even as gone as he was, couldn’t remember getting to first base with Jake. That should’ve been burned somewhere in his brain. He hunted for it, desperate for the memory of a touch, or tongue, or anything. Nothing. Whiskey erased everything.
“How far’d we go?”
He could feel her foot tapping against the post that held the table up. She cracked her thumb knuckles in the grasp of her hands, before gripping the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes.
“Second.”
And letting go so she could rest her cheek on that hand.
“You sure?” He hoped she couldn’t hear his disappointment.
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said to the Formica, “You were going for third but I told you not to because–”
She swallowed and shook her head.
“‘Cause what?”
Jake forced a smile and rolled her neck.
“Because I’d never done that before.”
“‘Cause you’d nev–” he repeated, stopped, blinked and regrouped, “Whoa, wait.”
“Yep. This is fun. I’m glad we’re having this conversation,” she said to herself.
“You’re a virgin?” he said.
She shifted to cross her legs and uncross them a second later.
“How?”
“My hymen’s still intact?” she said, and shrugged, “It just never happened.”
“Not even third. What kinda third? what have you done?”
“Not much,” she said, “Do we have to talk about this? I mean, what difference does it make? Really.”
“You were with Markowitz for, what, four years?”
“He was on the road a lot.”
“Not that much.”
“I don’t know, War. I already told you. It just never happened, okay?”
“Polk,” he said.
“Broke up with me because I wasn’t ready. Regardless of what he told you.”
Worse than trying to remember, he couldn’t wrap his head around this. It didn’t make a lick of sense. Jake was beautiful, cool, in her twenties, and had never had a guy tap her? Not once? And she knew about things that he didn’t. Like the promise of, with the right touch, his own multiple orgasm.
“I read a lot,” she explained, when he couldn’t help but ask.
“This is in-fuckin’-credible.”
“Can we talk about something else?”
“Nothing to be ashamed of,” he said.
“Great,” she said.
“You’re a unicorn.”
“Can we move on? Please?”
“Can ya tell me something, first?”
“Fine. What?”
He had a fleeting fantasy of getting away with writing over last night with a new memory from tonight. That he could reach over the table between them, nice and slow, and kiss her lower lip. And with a little tender pressure, have her give it back, part her mouth, and let him in. Except he knew it wouldn’t go like that. More likely she’d catch him in a kneecap with her boot.
He tapped the trail of ash out onto the edge of the plate and replaced his Pall Mall at the corner of his mouth.
“Did I make the first move?”
“Honest?”
“‘Course.”
“No,” she winced.
War looked from side to side. The walls plastered with posters for restaurant memorabilia, a Vienna Beef sign, and a sticker that said in black caps “JOIN THE DARK SIDE”. The fry cook watching a small black and white television behind the counter. The flickering ‘r’ in the blue neon ‘Order’ sign. All still there and real.
“Do you like me, Geiger?”
“I thought we were going to talk about something else, now.”
“Jake–”
“I was drunk! It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Why you yelling, then?”
When she lifted her eyes, she bore into him.
“Because you’re going to fuck this up.”
“Fuck what up?”
“This,” she said, switching her hands back and forth in front of her, “Our friendship.”
He shook his head and shrugged.
“What if we had more’n that?”
“Are you kidding? Oh my god. This is because I’m uncharted territory, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Do you want me to go have sex right now? Will that help?”
“You’ve lost it.”
“You-” she sighed, “Listen. We’re friends. Good friends. And it’s been that way for a long time.”
He sucked the smoke into his chest and tried to keep quiet. For some reason, he had a problem with that tonight.
“But I don’t want to lose you because of some stupid attraction,” she said, “I mean. I’m your ‘guy friend’. You know that.”
No.
“Sex screws things up. So, why take the chance?”
Down to the filter, he stubbed out what was left of the embers.
“What if we’re drunk again?”
“I don’t know.”
He did. He just hoped he could remember then.