Evans & Peel had quietened considerably since the rush of the opening but it was still making money. Just as bloody well, considering how much the place had had sunk into it. The bar was low light and music turned low, and there was a bartender behind the slab of wood, beneath the bulbs that spiralled from the low-level ceiling. The bartender had doubtless seen the rousingly drunk before, because the bartender was young, college-age and making money in evenings, with a car in the parking lot and a girlfriend to get home to. There were a few couples, drinkers, sitting in the booths and talking and the piano was sat with the lid propped open, so someone had been playing, who Jack couldn't bloody tell you.
He expected youth to stroll through the door. Well, obviously Jack expected youth - age was a factor, but he expected something of the glum 'fuck it all' that came with a decision to push the boat out and get blindly pissed when you'd evaded for long enough that it was noticeable when you hadn't. That, and Holly had been categorically wasted enough to become far too honest, and that Jack knew remarkably well.
He wasn't sober, which was likely predictable, but he wasn't wasted, either. He was coasting along the surface of mildly inebriated which given Jack was Jack and had the tolerance of a Scottish Highlander, had taken some sinking. He was sat, with a glass of single malt Scotch - the real kind, thank you bloody kindly - and when the youth wove toward the bar, considerably less steady than even Jack had given him credit for, the bartender obligingly pointed Jack out.
Jack, being Jack, looked exactly as he would sober. Heathered brown wool sweater over jeans, and he leaned back in his chair to look at the newcomer. The boy looked wasted, but the thing about drinking decent booze was that you had to savor it to make it worthwhile. The booze behind the bar, Jack had learned from Cat's example, was in some places, criminally expensive.
"Hello, Holly," Jack's voice was strictly speaking, English, the kind of accent American television argued was 'posh', but softened somewhat by a vaguely Northern burr. "Jack. Grape or grain? No, scrap that, you won't make a damn bit of sense of it. What were you drinking? Sit down."