Re: [Bar: Jack & Patrick]
[Jack predictably, followed the tumble of electronic over polished bar. He didn't look with any real intention. He had come to the bar because he didn't want to know rather more than he wanted to know anything more but he did follow where it rested, and he ignored his own, wedged into his pocket. There wasn't any sense of immediacy about Jack in that bar. The whiskey, perhaps but that was expediency rather than urgent.
He thought about it. About having been in deep discussion about this very man - boy? Masculinity was a complicated beast and so was adulthood. The transition between youth and man was a faff to try to parse in a bar that liked to play Johnny Cash loudly enough to deter coherent thought, but Jack thought Patrick young, and achingly American with his 'bro'.]
The problem with living here permanently, I should think. You acquire people who think they're entitled to comment on what and where and when you drink. Rough night, was it? [No, Jack did not think family gatherings were in the immediate offing. He had never met Patrick's brother, Adrian when he had been in his own right -- body, if not in mind. He recalled him now.]
There's only so many bars, and I prefer- [Jack's voice faded. Actually, what he'd been about to say was he preferred not to look at tits as he drank, but that seemed rather too on the nose. And then Patrick referred to Dahlia and Jack laughed, through comingled confusion, remembrance and christ, a little irony.]
No, and no. Dahlia doesn't drive me to drink, I've not been on the wagon reliably in months and I had an evening I've spent too much time thinking and talking about.