Evans & Peel: Jack open
It was a bloody good job he'd spent the money on soundproofing. Overhead somewhere, Sia was wailing about stamina as the blue light washed over varnished floor and once the outer door was shut to the rink and you'd ducked your head as you came down the last of the steps to the basement and closed that outer door, you couldn't hear a scrap of the music or the wheels. Billie sang, and Jack sat at his own bar, this one heavy wood battle-scarred - with what, he couldn't have said. The stuff was reclaimed, sourced from somewhere that sold materials that had lived a little first.
The bartender was young, and a little nervous. His hands possibly, or it was just the slick surface of the glass, because when he tossed the ice into the glass, it clattered with godawful noise. Jack smiled, outward calm and not nearly as impatient as he felt and he let the bartender lean past his elbow and take the order from the woman with forties victory rolls and a pair of denims that were more holes than they were jeans before he really got his hand around his glass. Gin, not whiskey. Tonic, and the astringency of lemon was on his tongue as Jack meandered from the bar to the booths in the back to admire the picture of it all.