“Broke?” he guessed, a little too close to truth for comfort.
“Not exactly.”
“Well, this one’s on me anyway. Another round,” he told the bartender, who nodded and headed for the top shelf and two fresh glasses before I could protest.
“Mine wasn’t Tangueray the first time,” I pointed out to the good-looking and fashionable guy, who shrugged.
“Mine was. And I’m treating.”
“Thanks. But…”
“But?”
I wanted to tell him that I had a boyfriend. But I didn’t know how to do it without making it sound as though I thought he was interested in me, which I didn’t. Or, even worse, as though I was interested in him. Which I wasn’t.
I mean, he was just a polite guy politely buying me a drink. To be polite.
Did I mention that in addition to being polite, he was very good-looking? Fashionable, too.
“Never mind,” I told him, and attempted to shift my attention elsewhere. Because he might be buying me a drink, but that didn’t mean we were now a couple.
I mean, he was a total stranger, and I was on the verge of being reunited with Mike.
“Mike,” the total stranger said just then out of the blue, and I looked at him, startled.
“Excuse me?”
What was he, some kind of mind reader?
Or maybe I’d just imagined it. Maybe he hadn’t said Mike at all. Maybe he’d said something similar. Like…
Might.
Or bike.
Oh, yeah. Bike. That made a lot of sense.
“Mike,” he repeated, sticking his hand out in front of me.
“Mike?” I echoed.
“That’s my name.”
No way.
He was Mike?
I decided the coincidence was some great cosmic sign. A sign that meant…
Well, to be honest, I had no idea what it meant. But it couldn’t be good.
“I’m Beau,” I said, because he was waiting.
“Nice to meet you, Beau.”
As I watched the bartender twisting lime into our fresh drinks, I told myself that I had to get out of here. Now. I would pretend I had to go to the bathroom and just not come back.
“Where are you headed?”
Again with the mind reading? I stared at him in disbelief, wondering how he could possibly know.
“To the ladies’ room,” I admitted, starting to slide off my stool.
I stopped when he burst out laughing.
“Hey, I hear it’s great at this time of year,” he said.
“Huh?”
“The ladies’ room. Never mind. Bad joke.”
The bartender set down our drinks. I reached for mine, needing it desperately.
He went on, “I meant, where are you headed from here? Flying someplace on vacation? Or business?”
“Oh! No, I’m just…I’m meeting somebody’s plane.” And I’m head over heels in love with him. So stop flirting.
Are you flirting?
Or is it my imagination?
“How about you?” I asked him, after taking a sip of my second drink. The second drink I shouldn’t have been having in the first place.
“I landed a while ago. My luggage missed the connection at O’Hare so I have to wait for it to get here on the next flight.”
“You’re in New York on vacation?”
“I just moved here a few months ago.”
“Oh.”
He just moved here. Which meant that he lived here. Unlike Mike. My Mike.
“So you live here, too,” he pointed out conveniently.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Upper West Side.” I didn’t want to ask him where he lived because it really didn’t matter because I was never going to see him again.
Then again, it seemed rude not to ask, so I did.
“Lower East Side.”
“East Village?”
“Lower.”
“SoHo?”
“Lower,” he repeated with a shrug. “Chinatown, really.”
“You live in Chinatown?”
“Yeah. But I’m not Chinese,” he said, deadpan.
“You’re kidding. You’re not?” I asked, also deadpan.
“No. People make that mistake all the time, though.”
“They do?”
“Yeah, you know, they’ll ask me for my recipe for kung pao chicken or they’ll want to know how to play piaji, and I—”
“Piaji?” I cut in.
“Yeah, it’s a traditional Chinese game.” He grinned.
“Really?”
“Really. And actually, I really do know how to play. You soak up a lot when you live in the neighborhood, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“Like, I bet you know how to eat Sunday brunch like nobody’s business.”
“What?”
“Living on the Upper West Side. Forget it. I was trying to be funny again.”
“Oh.” I cracked a smile.
“I should probably give up my dream of starring in my own sitcom, right?”
I laughed.
So did he. Then he said, “Actually, I’m serious.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. I really do want my own sitcom someday. Dream big, I always say.”
I honestly couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not, so I just shrugged and said, “Yeah.”
“But for now, I’m working entry level at an ad agency. What do you do, Beau?”
“For a living? I’m a production assistant.”
“What kind of production assistant?”
“You know that show J-Squared?”
“Janelle Jacques? Yeah, I know it. You work for her?”
“Yeah. I’m a production assistant on the show.”
“You’re in the industry?”
“The Janelle Jacques industry? You bet,” I quipped.
He was already reaching into his pocket. “Here,” he said, and pulled out a small pale blue rectangle.
“What is it?” I asked, though it was obviously a card. His card.
“My card,” he said unnecessarily. “So you can get in touch with me if…”
“If Janelle becomes a sitcom producer and is looking for somebody to star in a new show?”
He