“Thank you,” Sam said. “Cheers.” He lifted his glass as I took my seat. I lifted mine.
“Cheers.” Our glasses clinked and the alcohol went down smooth. I got the feeling neither of us knew exactly what we were cheering to.
“This is a pretty cool spot.” Sam looked around at the cramped bar while I continued looking at him. He was one handsome fucker. I couldn’t get my eyes off him, even when his returned to mine.
“Do you come here often?” he asked.
I shook my head. The spell still not breaking, my gaze hitched on his. “I usually stick to my routine.”
“And what’s that? Work, work, work?”
“Work is involved, but I definitely play.”
Sam arched a brow. “Oh?”
“I just don’t have to leave my house to play.”
“Oh.”
I smiled and drank the smooth rum, tickling the back of my throat with the Coke. “How about you? What’s your routine like.”
“My routine? It’s, well, not that exciting. I go to class during the day, I’m studying business at FIU, and then I come home and try to stream for as long as I can before my eyes start tearing up.”
“And how’s the streaming going?”
Sam shifted in the chair. I noticed a flush fill his cheeks, even under the dim orange lighting of the bar. “It’s fine, I guess. I’ve got a few subscribers that really love hanging out and watching my stream, so that’s super cool. I know, it’s very Gen Z of me. I just, I dunno, I really love it. I like connecting with people over video games. It’s hard to understand.”
“Not at all,” I said. “I get it.” Before I amended with an, “I think.”
Sam laughed before taking another drink. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down.
The truth was, I understood it much more than I let on. Video games had played a crucial role in bonding my brother and me. We’d spend hours playing together, leveling up and trying to outgear the other, losing entire weekends to playing games and not caring about a damn thing.
Fuck. I’d do anything to have one of those weekends again.
I shot back the rest of my rum and Coke, swallowing it like a shot even though the glass was still half-full.
We chatted a little longer, going over some of the bare basics. He had asked where I was from, and I told him New York, without going any deeper than that. He was born and raised in Miami, his parents both having immigrated from Cuba when they were in their teens. He was an only child and got along with both his mom and dad. He had never been out of the country and had a dream to go scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef even though he was terrified of fish.
I learned a lot about him in a very short amount of time. It was nice, forgetting about the day and just listening to Sam. He had a way of telling stories that wrapped me up from the second he opened his mouth. He was animated and motioned with his hands when he spoke, as if he were painting some kind of elaborate portrait, paint sloshing all over.
It wasn’t until midway through a story of how he got over his fear of the ocean that I realized something.
Holy shit. This is a date.
I sat up in my chair, suddenly feeling like the seat had caught fire. The nape of my neck grew warm. My leg bounced up and down under the table.
“So,” Sam said, crossing his arms. His cheek hadn’t grown any more purple, so maybe the hit wasn’t as hard as I feared. “What about you? All I know is that you’re from New York. What part?”
My seat grew hotter. “Manhattan.”
Sam flashed a grin. “I’ve always wanted to go to Times Square. Is it really as bright as it seems?”
“Even brighter. Going there at night feels a little surreal. The lights are something else.”
“And when did you move down to Miami?”
“Ten years ago.”
When my entire life was put through a garbage disposal.
Sam must have sensed the rigid walls I threw up. He cleared his throat and looked around the bar, which had filled up with a mixed crowd. Some people dressed up, others still in their bathing suits, everyone with a drink in their hand. There was a long moment of silence between us.
Fuck. I messed up. I shouldn’t have even asked him out. What the hell was I thinking? I didn’t do this shit. I didn’t sit and talk about myself, about my past. That wasn’t me. It hadn’t been me in a very, very long time. What was I thinking?
I was thinking about staring into those gray eyes for the rest of the damn night.
“All right,” Sam said, clapping his hands on the table. “I should probably get going.”
Fuck. This isn’t a date, it’s a disaster.