Long term relationships were still a relatively new thing to James. He had been in a few, the longest lasting ten months, but in the end, he diagnosed their failure in the same way that he always had. He simply got bored. It wasn't anyone's fault. He just couldn't keep his attention on one girl for so long. Except for Katherine. She had almost always held his attention. He couldn't remember once ever being bored with her. She was engaging, she made him think, even when it was their foolish banter in school. Back then? No, he couldn't bring himself to admit to feeling much for anyone. But in retrospect, there had to have been something. There was no other reason for him to have been so confused for so long. No reason for her to still be popping up in his thoughts.
Fate was another thing entirely. James certainly was the last to believe in such a thing and refused to be a part of any sort of study of the future and anything that could “predict” it. Their meeting was happy coincidence, and in his mind, not the most far fetched thing in the world. After all, she lived in London. He was staying there for the next few days at least. They both liked a bit of alcohol — admittedly he enjoyed it quite a bit more. But really, it didn't take much stretch of the imagination to see that this easily could have happened almost any time. Happy coincidence, and nothing more. But he could see it as a second chance without believing in destiny.
As for them, he was unsure. But at the very least, he didn't think he was going to let this just be it again. He'd made the mistake of letting them fall apart once already. He wasn't about to make it again. So even if they didn't talk about anything serious tonight and she simply left after a few minutes (although he hoped she wouldn't) he was going to make sure they still talked. He'd decided that before they'd finished their drinks downstairs.
If she was drawn to the few that were on his desk, it was probably a good thing that his trunk was under his bed. James brought massive amounts of literature with him, and there were at least a ten more books in his trunk. The ones in plain sight were the things he'd been reading just in the past couple days. Most of it was twentieth century literature. The most worn one was 1984, a particular favourite of his. He'd probably read it a dozen times over the past ten years and he always thought he found something new in it. Among the rest were two books of poetry that had notes sticking out of almost every page, another Orwell (it was Animal Farm), a biography of Vincent Van Gogh and a collection of plays by Tennessee Williams. All right, so it might have seemed a little random and haphazard. But it made enough sense to him that he could jump from one to another quite easily.
James definitely did not catch her flush, which was probably a good thing. If he'd seen, a dozen different questions easily would have popped into his mind. But it helped that he now knew that they had some privacy. That would open the door for some more serious conversation, whether it was catching up or actually discussing things. He had questions for her as well, and no matter how empty the bar was, he didn't want to ask them there.
“Right, so um,” he paused for a moment, apparently thinking, trying to choose. After a few seconds and a nod as he decided, he went on. “This is one I started writing the summer after I graduated. I went back to my dad's house and it was the first time I'd really started going through, you know, everything.” He tried not to linger, to keep from remembering in detail how difficult it had been, even a year and a half later. There was a moment, where he dropped his eyes, but he plunged on, refusing to let that bother him. At least not right now. “So, anyway, I got the idea from this old environmental journal that I found amongst his things. It was decades old, seriously. I don't even know if it was his, as it just as easily could have been his dad's. I don't even know what possessed me to pick it up, but... there you have it.” He smiled and ran his fingers over the strings of his guitar, almost for comfort. “So, this is Slash 'N' Burn.”