2.

They sat around for a few more beers, plotting their night before stepping out and making a left towards downtown. Vance and Eddie immediately lit cigarettes, walking a short ways behind Gabi and Marcus, who didn’t smoke. 

“Look at her. My god, I wish she wasn’t a lesbian.”

“She’s quite the specimen, no doubt.”

“Just watch the way she walks.”

“It’s that very reason, Eddie, that I don’t think she is entirely lesbian. She knows what she is doing.”

“Yeah… she might be the devil. She’s wearing the red for it.” 

“I think she just tells us she’s lesbian because we are co-workers. Or ugly.”

“Speak for yourself” Eddie winked, coughing up his cigarette over the jab. They both fell silent, watching Gabi grace the night with her walk and elegant, but no doubt sarcastic laugh at whatever joke Marcus was telling. She turned to them all of the sudden, producing a bottle from her purse and waving it in the air.

“Are you guys done yet?”

“…Am now!” Eddie tossed the remainder of his cigarette into the street and ran for the bottle. Vance took another drag, then another, maintaining his pace and trying not to laugh at how eager the other guys looked around Gabi.

“Don’t act like you don’t want none” She said, turning to catch him staring again.    

     He finished his cigarette and caught up to the others, who had slowed their pace a little, waiting. He took the bottle of vodka from Eddie and took a long drink, catching a glimpse of the stars in the process. They were shining more brightly than usual for the city sky.

     “Don’t drink it all, A*s!” Gabi jerked the bottle from his grasp, spilling some down his face and his shirt in the process.

     “Thanks for that.”

     She wiped his face with her hand.

     “You needed a shower.”   

     “Thanks Mom.”

     The neon lights of downtown slowly grew larger, and closer together; Music faint in the air. They crossed the bridge over the tracks and made for the sound of Irish music. Rounding the block, they were at McMasters’ Pub, fighting through the crowd for a table at the back. Shortly after, they found themselves each with a shot and a beer, their waitress being familiar to their needs. Gabi shouted some sort of cheers, to which Vance pretended to hear and raised his glass.

He particularly liked McMasters, because while being another loud restaurant and bar, the music was tolerable and discouraged the effort and vanity of small talk. Even the talkers found themselves tired of shouting after a few minutes at the place on a Friday night. This kind of noise provided a sort of silence for him, and he could people-watch or otherwise drift off without having to explain himself or be a part of a stupid conversation.

He took the opportunity to do just that. He slowly looked around the room, considering all the different groups that were gathered for the same reasons- wondering what they were talking about without actually having to hear them. There were all of the usual clicks; construction workers, suits, musicians, loners, stoners, 40-something singles with a drunken spark of youth in their eyes, greys too old to be out at this hour and place without a sad tale, and the undefinables were all represented. Eddie was on his phone. Marcus was trying, and failing, to not stare at Gabi; Gabi was yelling something at Eddie. Vance finished his beer before the others and passively sought the waitress’s eye. She was a pretty, tastefully tattooed girl of college age, but he gathered that she too, had a taste for women. He often wondered why she and Gabi had never hooked up.

She brought them their drinks and Gabi yelled something at her that was likely an immediate re-order.   

“May the gods keep the wolves in the hills and the women in our beds” toasted Eddie over the fading end of a song.  

“What do-“ the silence was over as quickly as it set, but Marcus finished anyways.

“What?”

“F**k it” he mouthed back to Vance.

Vance again felt an odd satisfaction, leaning against the wall and observing undisturbed in the chaos. He found himself allowing his gaze to fall on Gabi, who had also taken to searching the room. She was beautiful in all the right ways, and she, to back her claim, did radiate ‘independent woman’ in an entirely lesbian yet still hopelessly-attractive-to-men fashion, but there was something else that he hadn’t ever been able to put a finger on; something mysterious. It was the sort of mysterious that was beautiful because of the fact- the sort one might wish not to solve for the sacredness. She caught his gaze and he quickly switched it to the waitress, who was coming with more shots. He nodded to Gabi as if he were trying to bring her attention to the drinks in the first place. Marcus raised the salute with his middle finger, and everyone responded in kind.

At this point, each of them had a pretty good drunk going and found themselves watching the room for whatever their purposes. Vance searched for his previously identified groups and wondered which friendships of them would be ruined, which romances ignited. He wondered which lives would be changed for better or worse for the course of the unsober hours in their too-good-to-be fashion, when honesty and bravery were acquired and brought to fruition, just to be forgotten again come Saturday morning. He laughed as he imagined which parties would fight over a woman or misspoken word, and placed bets with himself on the outcome.

“What the f**k are you laughing at” Eddie shouted at him, barely audible.

“Your face.”

“F**k you.”

“F**k both of you. Take these shots” Gabi shoved another round towards their end of the table.

“Where is Marcus?”

“Over there” Gabi pointed. Marcus had gone over to a group of girls at the bar, and was quite noticeably to everyone but himself annoying them with whatever he was saying. Vance laughed and turned back to the table.

“To Marcus!”

They had a few more drinks and broken conversations before retrieving Marcus and making their way outside once again, headed deeper still into the belly of the neon beast. A train rolled by in the distance behind them.