you're real enough to me

Alex has joined Alcoholics Anonymous in the last week, and he's already feeling better for having made a responsible decision--after all, nearly twenty years without a drink and then he just starts again for Anna, and immediately turns reckless, well, that bespeaks a problem greater than a need to return to social drinking.

The change in his mood is easily reflected out, Alex being the person he is; he's been more cheerful and flirty than ever this week, his walk almost like a dance, and he has been an absolute joy to live with.

Right now he's in front of the mirror straightening his tie. He's meeting Mike for drinks this evening (it's a Tuesday, not his shift at the bar), but it's only three in the afternoon and he has plans to kidnap his daughter for some time together.

It's a week or so before they arrange to get together again, and another week before Alex's erratic schedule lines up in any way with a normal one. On Saturday evening Emory rings the doorbell at five minutes of nine. ("Excited" is possibly the mildest applicable word.)