Heads turned when they entered Bar One. Colt was used to this. At six-foot-six, he was often the tallest person around. Except when he was on the court. There, he was just average.
The turning heads made it easy for him to spot Janelle. Among the sea of faces, hers was one of a few that did not turn toward him, but her companion’s did. As he expected, she was with a girlfriend who not-so-discreetly grabbed Janelle by the arm the moment Colt darkened the door. At that, Janelle turned and looked toward him, and their eyes met. She gave him a small, almost-smile and returned her attention to her friend.
‘Ah,’ Colt thought. ‘It’s gon’ be like that?’
But, no worries. He enjoyed a little bit of a chase, even if the outcome was never really in doubt.
“Oh my god,” Sam said from next to him. “This place is trying way too hard. Is this where you hang out? It’s so freakin’ corny.”
Colt turned and looked down at her. “No cornier than that book you were about to spend the night with.”
He steered her toward the bar with a hand on the small of her back, keeping his eye on Janelle.
“D’you see your date?” Sam asked.
“It’s not a date.”
“Oh sorry. D’you see your prey?”
At the bar, Colt elbowed his way to the front then pulled Sam around so that she was in front of him and out of the fray. She was about a foot shorter than he was, but Colt could smell the summery scent of her hair. He knew her habit was to wash it every Friday just after work and to painstakingly twist it into little knots, then dry it. She generally kept the knots in all weekend, then released them again on Monday mornings, so that her hair framed her face in chin-length, kinky coils.
Just before they left her townhouse, she’d made a big stink about releasing the knots early and having to do them again since she had spin class, because she would sweat out the coils and blah, blah, blah. Because of Sam, he knew far more about natural hair care than any man had business knowing. But he had to admit, the coils were cute on her, and smelled even better than they looked.
“Stop sniffing me.”
“What you talkin’ ‘bout? Ain’t nobody sniffin’ you. What you want to drink?”
“I think I can handle it from here,” Sam said turning to look up at him. “Go find Bambi, or whatever her name is.”
“You sure? I don’t want to …”
“I’m fine, Colt. I’ve been to bars before. Granted, usually not bars as pretentious as this one, but I think I can handle it.”
Narrowing his eyes Colt looked at her. “You go to bars by yourself?”
Sam shrugged. “Not often. But, you know, once in a while, yeah.”
“Since when?”
“You want to stay here and interrogate me all night about my social life, or you want to go enjoy your own?”
“I’m not interrogating you. I’m jus’ sayin’ …”
“Goodbye, Colton.” Sam turned her back to him and faced the bar.
Looking at the back of her head for a moment, Colt hesitated.
“My phone’s on vibrate,” he said, “so text me when you’re ready to leave.”
“Same.” Sam was already raising a hand to summon the bartender.
Colt backed away, and before heading in Janelle’s direction gave one last look to make sure Sam was being served. She was leaning on the metal and Lucite bar top now, and talking to the bartender, so he began making his way across the room.
Bar One was one of those new, chic joints that didn’t go in for all the dark wood and solid barstools of yesteryear. It was well-lit, with blue recessed lighting; and everything else was metal and mirrors. The flooring was grey wood, not glossy, but dull, as was the current style. Though it gave the impression of spaciousness, it was small. And Sam was right; it was trying too hard.
It didn’t take Colt too long to get to Janelle and her friend and when he did, they both turned toward him.
Janelle smiled. “Hey,” she said with the arch of an eyebrow. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
There used to be a time when Sam was scared to be alone in places like Bar One. Because who wanted to be the desperate chick, out hunting solo for male company? She wasn’t scared anymore, though. Now she thought of it as boring more than anything else. But Colt had a point when he said she shouldn’t get into the habit of spending her Fridays reading romance novels and drinking alone.
She was only twenty-seven, after all, and as her mother was always telling her, ‘time waits for no woman.’ Of course, her mother had been married by twenty-three and on her second kid by the time she was around Sam’s age, so it wasn’t surprising that she would take that view.
It didn’t help that Sam’s baby sister, Leah, was already married and a mother herself. Sam came from a long line of enthusiastic homemakers—women who saw marriage and children as the work of their lives, and everything else as just a lead-up, or sideshow.
Sam was the dark horse of their family. The one with her head in the clouds, and seemingly agnostic about things like relationships. She only wished that were true. What was true was that, aside from her handful of girlfriends and her family, the only relationship she cared much about was the one she had with Colt.
Occasionally there were guys, of course, but for some reason, lately all they did was make Sam tired. She had no patience for the ‘getting-to-know-you’ phase and expected of those men either nothing at all, or things that were impossible for them to give. Familiarity, comfort. The kinds of things that could only come with time. And yet she found it difficult to power through the preliminaries and let things build and develop. She wanted the impossible. For familiarity and comfort to just … be there.
Turning to press her back against the bar, Sam sipped her drink and surveyed the room. Washington DC’s beautiful people were out in full force. This wasn’t the stuffy, self-important ‘I-work-on-The-Hill’ crowd, this was the largely Black and brown expat crowd. Lots of African men, South American women, and homegrown minor celebrities.
These were the people who worked in embassies, at the World Bank or USAID. They were self-important, but in a different way. These were smugly cosmopolitan types, who had a broader worldview than the average American, and knew it. They loved living in America for its creature comforts, but equally delighted in sitting in judgment and scathing criticism of it.
“Hey, beautiful.”
Sam looked up, bemused by the greeting. Did men still say that?
The man who had, was directly next to her, and while she had been taking in the room, he apparently had been taking her in. Wearing a beige suit with white shirt underneath, he had no tie, and the two top buttons at his neck were unfastened.
“Aidan,” he said extending a hand.
“Samantha.” Sam took the hand and shook it briefly.
“That wasn’t just a line, by the way,” he said. “You are, beautiful I mean.”
“Thank you,” Sam offered him a smile.
“Glad you didn’t try to talk me out of it,” he added.
“Talk you out of …”
“You know when you offer someone a compliment and they do the whole ‘aw shucks’ thing and say something like, ‘it’s nice of you to say so, but …’. That whole mess.”
“Oh, I never deny myself compliments,” Sam returned. “In fact, I collect them. So, what else you got? I’m beautiful, and …”
“Funny,” Aidan said grinning at her. “You’re definitely funny.”
“And …?” Sam teased.
“I don’t know what else. But if you’ll join me at my table, maybe I’ll find out.”
Sam’s eyebrows lifted, and she turned fully toward Aidan. “Oh, now that was smooth. I think I will join you.”
Aidan indicated one of the long-legged spindly tables near the center of the room, and a guy sitting on one of the stools circling it raised his glass in their direction.
“Who’s that?” Sam asked.
“My cousin, Rich. We’re here with his fiancée. She’s ‘round here somewhere.”
“Okay, cool. I’d be happy to join you.”
When they were sitting across from each other at the table, Sam got a better look at Aidan. He was good-looking enough, and obviously capable of amusing repartee, so she decided he would make decent company until Colt was done. If he was going to be done.
Until just that moment, it hadn’t even occurred to Sam that he might want to go home with the woman he was here to meet. Stupid. Of course, he might want to go home with her. Wasn't that the entire point of his solo prowls on Friday nights?
She looked around, spotting him in a corner with not one, but two women. One was clearly the wing-woman because she stood close by, but with enough distance that Colt and the other woman could speak privately.
The other woman, the one Colt was clearly interested in, was slender and athletic. Her arms were bare in what looked like a simple silk top, and her jeans were dark and very tight. Her hair was long and auburn. Sam could not tell from this distance whether the woman was truly pretty or not, nor whether the hair was real. But she moved with smoothness and grace, occasionally making a slight motion with her neck and shoulders that caused her hair to swish to one side. Not a hair-toss exactly. More like a half-toss.
With all that excessive hair action, it was clear to Sam that if Colt wanted to go home with her, she would be more than willing.
“So, what d’you do Samantha?” Aidan’s cousin asked her.
“Policy work. You?” she addressed the question to both men.
“Lawyer,” they both said in unison.
Sam laughed. “You, and everyone else in this town.”
“You keep looking around,” Janelle said, leaning her head to one side. “Are you on the run from the law?”
Colt grinned. “Nah. Just …”
“Looking for your … friend?”
Colt looked at her.
“I saw her with you when you walked in.” There was the hint of a question in Janelle’s tone.
“Yeah, that’s my homegirl, Sam.”
“Well, she seems fine,” Janelle said.
“You see her?”
“Yup. Right there.” She pointed to the center of the room.
Sam was at one of the tables with two men and a woman. That’s why Colt hadn’t spotted her. He kept looking over at the bar where he’d left her, scanning from one end to the other. For some reason, he thought she would still be there, and still more than likely alone.
He’d actually been worried that he was neglecting her for the past hour-and-a-half while he stood here with Janelle, engaging in the verbal foreplay that was effortless, meaningless and sadly, also second nature for him.
But Sam looked fine. Actually, she looked more than fine. There were several glasses on the table and she was leaning toward the brother in the beige suit as they talked. Their faces were really close. Colt wondered how many of the glasses Sam had been responsible for emptying, and thought about Sam’s revelation that she sometimes went to bars alone.
How the hell hadn’t he known that? Seemed like something he should have heard about before she sprung it on him out of nowhere. They would have to revisit that later.
“Have you known her long?”
The question drew his attention back to Janelle, and from the edge in her voice, Colt realized he had to have been staring.
“All my life. She’s like a little sister.”
Janelle took a sip of her wine, as though trying to stop herself from saying something, then took a breath. “Patrice and I are probably going to check out this tapas place near Metro Center for a late bite to eat,” she said. “You want to come?”
Colt licked his lower lip, thinking. “Sam rode with me, so …”
“Bring her,” Janelle said, looking him directly in the eye. It was a look that said, ‘I’m not afraid of a little competition. Bring it on.’
Colt met her gaze and it held for a few moments. Self-confidence was sexy.
“A’ight. Cool. Lemme see what she’s talkin’ ‘bout and then …”
“You do that.” Janelle took another sip of wine and without even waiting for him to leave, turned away from him and toward Patrice.
Just as he was approaching the table, Sam started laughing at something with the guy in the beige suit. She touched his sleeve as she did and put a hand to her throat like he was so doggone funny she was positively choking with amusement.
He was standing right next to her before she even noticed he was there, and even then, that was because Beige Suit noticed first and looked up at him, narrowing his eyes in confusion and then opening them wider in recognition.
“Colton ‘Money Man’ Green,” he said.
At that, Sam turned, and the other couple both looked up. The woman clapped a hand over her mouth and the dude she was with grinned, then stood, offering a hand.
“Number 27,” he said, pumping Colt’s hand.
“Hey,” Colt said, looking at Sam. Her eyes were glittery and bright. She wasn’t drunk yet. Maybe slightly tipsy.
“C’mon sit down with us, man.” The other guy started looking frantically around for a vacant stool.
“Nah. Thanks. I just came to check in with Sam here. See if she’s ready to bounce.”
Sam looked up at him then glanced at the face of her cellphone. “It’s only …”
“Me and … We were thinking about going to get something to eat somewhere,” Colt told her, feeling Beige Suit’s eyes on him. “Tapas in a spot in Metro Center.”
“Who’s ‘we’?” Sam asked. “You and Bamb…”
“I’m about to leave, Sam. You in or out?”
She wrinkled her brow as if considering.
“He your ride?” Beige Suit asked her.
“Yeah,” Colt answered. “So, when I go, she goes.”
“I’m more than happy to take her.”
Colt gave a tight smile. “With all due respect, man, I don’t know you. So …”
Beige Suit leaned back a little and looked Colt over.
“I do want to stick around for a little more,” Sam said. “And I’m not really hungry, so it’s fine. You can go and I’ll take a cab or something.”
“A cab? You think I’d leave here and let you take a cab?”
“Okay, Colton. Uber. Something. I don’t know. But I’ll be fine.”
“I thought you said this place was corny.”
“It is. But as luck would have it, I met the three least corny people in here.” Sam indicated the general company with the sweep of a hand.
The woman at the table made an ‘aww’ sound.
Colt stared at Sam with hard eyes, telling her without words that he wasn’t in the mood to argue, and especially not in front of a bunch of strangers.
“C’mere a sec,” she said. Sliding off her stool, she held him by the arm and pulled him a few feet away.
Colt looked down at her.
“I’m fine,” she said, emphasizing both words. “It’s not like I’ve never been out to a bar before, Colton. What do you think happens when you’re on the road? I don’t spend every Friday reading romances, y’know. And also, why would I want to go be a third wheel with you and whatever-her-name-is?”
“Her friend is coming too.”
“Okay, well I don’t want to go, okay? I’m glad you invited me out, and I’m actually not having a sucky time. So, you go do the same. It’s fine. I promise.”
“Be ready in five,” Colt said, turning to walk away.
“Colton …”
“In five, Sam,” he said over his shoulder.
Janelle spun to face him when he returned to her and listened with an impassive expression when he told her that they probably weren’t down for tapas after all. After two beats, she managed a smile that was paper-thin.
“Another time then,” she said, her voice ice-cold. She faced her friend once again.
“Colt.”
He looked over his shoulder. Sam had followed him over to Janelle.
“Let’s all go,” she said.
“All …”
“Aidan, Rich, your friends …let’s all go to get tapas.”
Colt looked at her for a moment through narrowed eyes.
“It’s Friday,” Sam continued. “They want to have a good time. We want to have a good time. Let’s do it together.” She shrugged.
Colt said nothing, considering.
“Go ahead,” she prompted. “Tell her.” She nodded toward Janelle’s back. “Then we can all head on over there.”
“Is this a habit with y’all?”
Sam looked up at Aidan. “Is what a habit? And who’s ‘y’all’?”
Inclining his head toward the other end of their table, he indicated Colt and Janelle, apparently deep in conversation.
“You, and your boy. Hooking up with folks and making a group date out of it.”
“Oh, are we on a date?” Sam asked. “I thought we were all just hanging out.”
Aidan shrugged. “I guess I just wish we were someplace quieter and more private. So you and me could get to know each other better.”
They had all left Bar One and met up again at the restaurant in Metro Center. It was larger, and noisier than the bar, and they had ordered a feast—ten small plates—with two pitchers of sangria, and a bottle of white wine for the table.
“We can do that some other time,” Sam suggested.
At that, Aidan grinned. He had been brazenly monopolizing her since they were seated, staking out his claim to the chair next to hers. His cousin Rich, and Rich’s fiancée had Janelle’s friend occupied; and Colt and Janelle were talking with heads close together at the other end of their table. Janelle’s hand had been resting on Colt’s arm, not moving for what had to be the past half hour. But who was counting?
“Lemme see your phone,” Aidan said holding out a hand.
Sam reached down and fished into her purse, pulling it out, and unlocking it. Aidan took it from between her fingers and entered his information before handing it back.
“Because I have a feeling you’re going to disappear like Cinderella at midnight.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because your boy down there? He’s not really into ol’ girl.”
Sam glanced in Colt and Janelle’s direction. To her, it looked like very much the opposite. The way they were leaning in like that, the whole thing. It was all very … cozy. She reached for her wine and took a long sip.
“What makes you say that?” she asked when she put it down.
“He’s looking down here. Out of the corner of his eyes. Been doing it since we got here. He’s not really paying attention to her.”
Sam looked again. And this time, she paid attention, seeing past the obvious and focusing on the details. Colt was leaning in to Janelle, sure. But his face was angled away from her. He wasn’t making eye contact.
And Janelle’s hand, though it rested on his forearm, now looked less than intimate. Now, it looked grasping, and almost desperate, like she was struggling to hold Colt’s attention, and knew that she wasn’t succeeding.
Sam almost smiled.
“See?” Aidan said.
Sam nodded wordlessly, then looked at her “date” again.
“Interesting,” was all she could muster without sounding too smug.
Aidan shrugged again. “I’m a dude. And I know how dudes act when we’re into someone. He’s not into her. The person he’s into, is down here.”
Sam pulled back. “Down where?”
“Here.”
“What makes you think …?” She shook her head, picking up her wine again, horrified by how much delight Aidan’s observation caused her. “Colt and I have been friends since we were kids. He’s just overprotective, that’s all.”
“Okay.” Aidan sounded unconvinced. “How about we make a bet?”
“What kind of bet?”
“If he makes it till …” Aidan looked at his watch. “If he makes it till midnight without telling you it’s time to leave, then we go on a real date. Just the two of us. If he asks you to leave before midnight, then we go on two dates.”
Sam laughed. “Wait. What? I don’t get how you lose with either option.”
“If he asks you to leave before midnight and you do it, then that tells me I’m going to need at least two dates to get him out of your system.”
“He’s not in my system,” Sam said. “He’s like a brother.”
“Cool. So then scratch the bet, and just agree to go out with me.”
Sam laughed again. “You think you’re slick, don’t you?”
“Nah. Just determined.”
“We don’t need the bet,” Sam said. “I’d love to go out with you.”
Eleven fifty-three p.m.
That was a respectable time to head home. In just a minute, Colt planned to put the kibosh on this whole night. After fixing her latrine, he should have just posted up at Sam’s and watched ‘Homeland’ or something.
Watching shows like that with her was as exasperating as it was amusing. She always lost the narrative thread and asked questions that she should have known the answer to if she’d been even half-assed paying attention.
‘Wait, who’s Nasim now? Is it that guy who just got blown up, or the curly-haired kid?’
What made it cute was that she always asked at a volume just below a stage-whisper, like they were in a movie-theater, instead of alone in her living room. And when something exciting looked like it was about to happen, that was always when she decided she had to leave the room.
‘Pause it, pause it! I have to refill my glass. You want something?’
And then there would be an awkward freeze-frame on her television—a partly-exploded car, the main character’s face stuck in a farcical grimace, while Colt rolled his eyes. Then she’d return, settle on the sofa next to him and rest her feet in his lap, asking, ‘Where were we?’ before un-pausing the show.
Of course, by then, the dramatic effect was lost, and Colt would have to rewind a few minutes’ worth just to get in the spirit once again. On average, it took him ninety minutes to get through an hour-long show when he was watching it with Sam.
Colt reached for his glass of water and took a long sip. He had laid off the alcohol more than an hour ago, and now was just hoping to piss it all out, so he could be straight for his workout the next morning.
Next to him, Janelle was still chattering up a storm. And he was dutifully nodding and responding when it seemed like a response was called for. It was funny how he’d never known this about her—that she liked to listen to herself talk. But, why would he have known that? They met in the gym, where conversation was, by necessity, kept to a minimum. And maybe the talking wouldn’t have bothered him as much if the restaurant wasn’t already so doggone loud, and if he wasn’t distracted by Sam and her summer-suit-wearing Casanova down there.
Sam didn’t know men. She didn’t know game. But Colt did.
Dude was not the settling-down kind. You could tell by that suit, and his watch. The suit made him look like he was harmless, and that was probably by design. But the watch gave him away—it was showy and expensive, and, Colt believed, probably betrayed his true nature. All sizzle, no steak.
Colt wore a very sensible 88 Rue Du Rhone himself. Moderately expensive, but only expensive because it was high-quality. Not expensive because it was flashy.
He couldn’t believe Sam was falling for dude’s bullshit. And he knew she was falling for it because she was down there at the other end of the table, kiki’ing it up with him, in between guzzling from that monster-glass of wine in front of her. By Colt’s count it had been refilled three times. Roughly twelve ounces of wine. And that wasn’t counting whatever she had to drink at Bar One.
Yeah, it was definitely time to go. He turned to look directly at Janelle for the first time in maybe a half-hour.
“Excuse me,” he said before pushing back from his seat.
Maybe this was why she and Colt didn’t go out to bars together more often.
Sam watched as he turned away from his lady-friend and began making his way toward her end of the table. There was no point making a scene about it. Colton was the stubbornest man she knew, so now that he’d decided they were leaving, that was it. They were leaving. He didn’t even have to speak. She could see his intention in his eyes.
“What’d I tell you?” Aidan said, just before Colt got to them. “Eleven fifty-seven.”
“You ready?”
Colt was standing over her now; and wasn’t even looking at Sam but just past her, over her shoulder. His posture was one of impatience, as though they were late for an appointment, and it was entirely her fault.
“Sure. Let me just …” Sam gathered up her phone and reached down into her purse. “I should go to the ladies’ room first, and ...” She fumbled for some bills to pay her share of the food, and rounds the table had ordered.
“No worries, Samantha,” Aidan said. “I’ve got you.”
At that, Colt reached for his back pocket, took out his wallet and produced three crisp hundreds, dropping them on the table.
At that, everyone else looked up and started paying attention.
“You guys leaving already?” Janelle’s friend said. She glanced significantly at Janelle, now alone at the end of the table.
“Yeah,” Sam said, making herself sound regretful. “I have spin class in the morning and …” Her voice trailed off.
Janelle met her gaze evenly with a flat-eyed stare, then a completely unconvincing smile.
“Thanks, man!” Aidan’s cousin said, indicating the bills Colton had dropped.
Aidan smirked. “Yeah. Thank you,” he said. But his tone was dry. “That’s really generous.”
“Y’all have a good night,” Colt said, looking at Sam.
She wanted to remind him that she needed to go to the bathroom, but seeing his eyes, thought better of it.
Instead, she smiled at Aidan. “Thanks for a fun night. I guess we …”
“I got your number,” Aidan said, nodding. “I’m sure we’ll connect again.”
As she and Colt walked away, his hand on her back, Sam heard Aidan’s voice, too loud to have been intended only for the table.
“Colton. What kind of name is that for Black man?”
Sam felt a hitch in Colt’s step but then he was steering her forward again, and out into the spring evening.