****
Jessica smiled at her favorite bartender, James, as he handed her the Long Island Iced Tea he had decided she needed after hearing the cause of her troubles. She moved to slide her card across the bar and James shook his head, wagging his finger. “We’ll open you a tab if you decide you want another, but that one’s on me, Sweetie,” he said, turning to help the next customer. She sighed and took a long, grateful sip; at least, she thought, if she had to contemplate the wreckage her life had suddenly become, she would at least be able to enjoy the haze of liquor to soften it. She looked around the bar; Vagabond had been her favorite place for years—ever since a friend had introduced her to the hole-in-the-wall bar. The relationship with the bartenders had outlasted her friendship, and the ever-changing customer base of goths, hipsters, club kids, and hip hop lovers kept the atmosphere interesting.
As she was beginning to unwind, the copious alcohol in her Long Island loosening the grip of panic that overwhelmed her, Jessica felt the uncanny sensation of someone watching her; someone close by, rather than across the room. Darting her gaze around, she spotted the source. She had seen the guy in the bar before, sporting some rather odd—at least to her eyes—ensembles. He would’ve been a unique sight even without his romance novel cover outfits, she thought idly, turning back to her drink. She had heard from James that the guy’s name was Banek; the foreignness of the name made her think that he must have come from some very isolated country. Probably close to Chernobyl, she thought wryly. The man was tall—taller than she was, which was unusual in and of itself. He was also massive, with shoulders so broad that Jessica thought it would be impossible to wrap her arms around them and legs that a tree trunk would envy.
His hair was strange, too—falling down to his shoulders in a cascade, it was a bizarre orange-gold color, contrasting weirdly with his brown-gray skin. Jessica realized that half of her drink was gone and shook her head in amazement; when she stopped to consider it, she realized that she could feel the hum in her veins, the subtle fogginess that came along with the alcohol entering her bloodstream.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat, right at her elbow, almost making Jessica jump. “Excuse me, ma’am.” Jessica swallowed the sip of her drink that she’d nearly choked on and turned her head to look at who had approached her. It was the strange foreigner; she tilted her head up slightly to be able to meet his gaze. Up close, his eyes were just as strange as the rest of him, an oddly appealing cerulean color. Where in the world did he come up with that combination? she thought in bewilderment. Somehow, in spite of how strange he looked, Jessica had to admit to herself that she didn’t feel any instinctive creepiness about the guy.
“Yes?” she said, setting her drink down with unsteady hands. The guy may not be creepy, but he was big—and so close to her. In all the times she had visited the bar, Jessica had seen him on several occasions, but he had never introduced himself to her, never done more than casually glance at her from across the bar. She had seen him talk to other girls—but he never seemed to leave with anybody. If that’s even his intention, she reminded herself. Not every guy who went out to bars viewed them as a meat market.
“Forgive me if I’m being forward,” he said, “but you look like you’re very distressed, and I was wondering if a sympathetic ear might be useful.” Jessica glanced at James, who was leaning against the back of the bar, surveying the slowly growing crowd. She worried at her bottom lip, mentally calling to the bartender. James’ gaze fell on her and he grinned, raising an eyebrow slightly and inclining his head just as subtly. If Banek had James’ approval, then Jessica thought to herself that it probably wasn’t a bad idea to accept his invitation.
“Have a seat,” Jessica said, gesturing to the stool next to her. Banek sat down, and Jessica almost laughed at how improbable he looked. “I’m Jessica, by the way,” she said, extending her hand towards him politely. She steeled herself; guys of Banek’s size tended to almost crush a person’s hand without even realizing it.
She was shocked when Banek took her hand lightly in his—more lightly than she would have thought possible—and leaned forward, pressing a soft, gentle kiss just above her knuckles. Jessica felt her cheeks burning at the chivalrous gesture without knowing why. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you,” Banek said, sitting up once more and giving her a smile. “My name is Banek.” For a moment, flustered, Jessica was not entirely sure how to respond.
“Nice to meet you, too,” she said, licking her lips and reaching out almost blindly for her cocktail glass. She took a quick sip and a deep breath to steady herself.
“What’s troubling you, Jessica?” Banek asked. Jessica remembered that he had asked her that before—his strangely courteous gesture of kissing her hand had thrown her. She cleared her throat again and focused on the subject at hand.
“Well,” she said, setting her glass down and spinning it carefully on its base against the bar top, “this has kind of been a week from hell for me.” She felt a short, sharp stab of pain somewhere between her ribs—a pang that she had felt several times in the last few days. Jessica swallowed as her throat convulsively tightened at the thought of what all had happened to her. “First, my boyfriend broke up with me,” she said. Jessica closed her eyes; she could remember all too easily the look on Thomas’ face when he had told her he wanted to “see other people.” “And then my car threw some kind of rod or something, and it’s in the shop until I can come up with seven hundred dollars to fix it.” Jessica opened her eyes. “And to cap it all off, tonight I got a notice from my landlord that if I can’t pony up an extra three hundred a month for rent, he’s going to lease my apartment out from underneath me.” She smiled wryly, glancing over at Banek. The huge guy nodded, his eyes sympathetic.
“Those are very deep troubles indeed,” Banek said, reaching out and giving her free hand a squeeze. “Would you like me to beat up your former boyfriend? Or maybe your landlord?” Jessica nearly dropped her glass in the process of bringing it to her lips, her mouth falling slightly open in shock at the matter-of-fact way that Banek had proposed “beating up” the two men causing her the most grief. She closed her mouth, licked her lips, opened her mouth to respond, and then closed it again in rapid succession.
“Did you just offer to beat up my ex or my landlord for me?”
Banek nodded solemnly. “Or both of them, if that will solve more of your problems,” he said. Jessica stared at him, blinking slowly as she tried to work his words through her mind to make sense of them. It wasn’t the alcohol; she certainly was not nearly as drunk as she would like to be. Jessica steadied her hand and took a long drink of her Long Island, still reeling in shock at the offer that Banek had made.
“That won’t be necessary,” she said finally, licking her lips of the potent concoction. “My…my ex can just…” she took another sip and laughed ruefully. “I’ll leave karma to deal with him. As for my landlord…” Jessica shook her head again. “I’d rather you didn’t end up going to jail just to get revenge for me.”
Banek shrugged. “I could also provide you with money to pay for your car repair, or repair it myself,” he suggested. Jessica laughed, finishing off her drink in two more gulps and bringing her hands up to her suddenly warm face.
“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull,” she said, glancing at Banek furtively. “But I’m not that kind of girl.”
Banek frowned. “What kind of girl?” he asked. Jessica pressed her lips together; his strange looks in addition to the inflections and accent in his voice made her certain that Banek was as foreign as they came.
“I don’t want—or expect—a guy to…pay for things for me,” she said quickly, pushing down the other retort that sprung to mind. I’m not a call girl, I’m not a sugar baby, and I can solve my own problems.
“But it would be easy for me to remove all of your troubles,” Banek pointed out; Jessica had to admit to herself that he sounded sincere—and that unsettled her almost more than the offers themselves had. “I wouldn’t expect anything in return except for your kind regard.”
“My kind regard?” Jessica raised an eyebrow.
James came over, attentive to her needs as a regular customer. “Another Long Island, or something else?”
“Whatever she wants, James, please let me pay for it,” Banek said quickly. Jessica glanced at him, irrationally irritated with the gesture. She was in dire enough straights that free drinks—no matter the source—should have been met with nothing but gratitude, but the fact that Banek had offered to take all of her troubles away by giving her what amounted to at least a thousand dollars in exchange for “her kind regard”—whatever that meant—made her wary of any other offer on his part.
“Another Long Island it is, then,” James said, giving her a surreptitious wink. Jessica pressed her lips together, taking a slow breath to conquer her sense of irritation. She shouldn’t be mad at Banek; he hadn’t suggested that he wanted her to have sex with him in exchange for his help, after all.
“What did you mean by kind regard?” she asked finally, watching James mix her drink in the corner of her eye. Banek smiled.
“I just wish to be thought of kindly by you,” he said. “I’d like to see you happy, and not upset.” Jessica accepted her drink from James, looking away as Banek paid the bartender—giving him, she noticed, a very good tip on top of the price of the drink.
“You don’t want me to promise to go on a date with you or something?” she asked, wary. Banek shook his head.
“I only want to see you happy,” he said. All he’s missing is a fedora, Jessica thought resentfully. But the next moment, she retracted the mental statement; Banek seemed—unlike any of the “nice guys” she had encountered before—to actually be sincere. About everything. She took a long sip of her drink and tried to understand it. Here was a guy who had just met her and who was offering to solve all of her problems, simply to make her happy. It was strangely thrilling—and unsettling all at once, though in spite of herself Jessica found that she liked Banek more and more. Lord help me…I’m in such sad shape, I’ll probably even go home with him, she thought wryly. Abruptly, she caught herself glancing down, her mind suddenly fixated on the thought of what it might be like to go home with Banek—and what, exactly, a huge man like him would have in terms of endowment. She reined in her thoughts, telling herself to focus on what the man was saying to her.