[no smoking]

“I think I fucked up.”
Jake pressed her forehead against the slick bar top. War held his bottle tilted to his lips, not drinking, but letting an eyebrow creep up. She groaned and lightly pounded her head on the edge a couple of times. He took a swallow.
“Feel better?” he asked.
Somewhere from beneath her red hair and cavern of bent arms came a ‘No’.
“What happened?”
He watched the crown of her head shift as she shook her head and capped it with an exaggerated moan. His eyebrow settled back down next to the other one and he drank his beer down to the label.
“Alright, then,” he said.
“I did! I fucked up.”
He decided to wait this time. She obviously had some sort of melt-down between this morning and happy-hour, and rather than question or guess what she could’ve possibly done to warrant this drama, he turned his attention to Quintero blocking a wild pitch on the flat screen behind the bar.
“Tell me something,” she said, lifting her head to level her gaze at him, “If you tell someone you want to be friends for a little bit longer while you get your bearings, and then if afterwards, there’s still feelings there, you’ll go for more, what does that mean to a guy?”
The Cubs shortstop hit a floater into left. He blinked.
“Who we talkin’ about?” he said.
“Is that important?”
He shrugged.
She wet the middle of her lips and exhaled.
“Teddy.”
“‘N why were you tellin’ ‘im that?”
Pence loped like a hunchback on stilts toward the ball, hurling it infield toward home. Bradley tagged up and hurtled down the line. War sipped absently from his bottle.
“Because we made out.”
The Miller didn’t feel nearly as refreshing when it shot up his nasal cavaties. As he cleared the alcohol from his nose, she sighed again and lowered her head back down to rest on her forearms.
“The thing is,” she said, “I didn’t feel anything.”
He let out a few small residual coughs and reached into his back pocket for his pack. He pinched the end of a Pall Mall and slipped it between his lips. The bartender slid over while he flicked open his Zippo, and shook his head at him.
“No smoking.”
He held the tiny, orange flame away from his cigarette and stared at the guy–mid-thirties, balding, short, excellent posture, stacked arms. War mirrored Jake’s sigh and slapped his lighter shut.
“Nothin’,” War repeated, finally, and slipped the Pall Mall behind his ear.
“All I felt was tongue.”
Why the hell did people in Illinois think it was a good idea to ban smoking in bars? War closed his eyes and tried not to bolt up from his stool.
“Probably wudn’t doin’ it right,” he said.
She popped her thumb knuckles.
“He’s my friend, you know? We’re not. . .God, why the hell couldn’t we have just left well-enough alone?”
“He will now.”
“What do you mean?”
“He thinks you turned ‘im down.”
She winced.
“See? I knew it. There’s just no way to tell someone that it’s better the other way and not fuck things up, is there?” she said, paused, “Is there?”
War felt a smile creep over his face. He sniffed.
“If you liked him, Geiger, how would’ju take it?”
“See, but that’s the thing. I do like him! He’s great. I just think we need to slow it down a bit.”
“Why didn’t'chu tell ‘im that?”
“Well, I figured if I said slow down then he’d still be putting his tongue in my mouth and it’s just. . .not good,” she said, scrunching her nose.
Rodriguez threw a curve-ball for strike two against the Cubs left fielder. War whipped his head back to look at her.
“Ya didn’t say that, did’ju?”
“No! No. I didn’t say anything about it. I just kind of eased away from doing it anymore.”
“If y’ain’t int’rested in ‘im, how come ya let ‘im get that far?”
She squinted and examined her hands. Her fingers spread apart, came back together tight, and she tried cracking the rest of her knuckles.
“I wanted to clarify if we were on a date or not.”
“‘N you ne’er thought about askin’?”
“Wouldn’t that be bad, though?”
He polished off his beer and ordered a rusty nail.
“Let’s say it is a date. Then it’s kind of like backdoor rejection. And if it’s not a date, well, then that’s just like me saying I wish it had been, and shit, I don’t need that.”
War concentrated on the sound of ice clinking in his glass as the tea-colored drink swirled.
“Ya want me to tell you what I think, or you wanna keep ramblin’ on?”
“What do you think?” she asked.
He downed his drink like a shot and clapped his glass down.
“You fucked up.”
“Great,” she said, drawing out the ‘a’.
“The good news?” War said.
“What?”
“Ya fin’lly got to first, Geiger.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Go fuck yourself.”
He laughed.