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“Well I wasn’t negging you,” Nick says. “I was just being honest.”
“If I thought you were, I wouldn’t be here right now,” I reply. “But, uh, where exactly is here?” We’ve turned again and suddenly we’re on a street lined with stalls, with divey-looking bars and take-out restaurants on the first floors of ancient, slightly rundown apartment buildings.
“St. Mark’s Place,” Nick says. “The oddest street in NYC.”
I watch a gaggle of girls in brightly colored wigs and neon jewelry dance down the street. Passing them is a group of drunk business bros hooting and hollering. People lounge on stoops and smoke in the street. The sound of jazz music pours out of a bar further down. It’s eclectic and crazy, a sensory overload. Completely different from the high-class, fancy places I’d imagined Nick might take me.
“This isn’t what I pictured,” I say, as Nick leads me further down the street.
“And what did you picture?” Nick asks.
“Something less… grimy,” I say, stepping deftly around a puddle of vomit. “You’re a man of many surprises, Nick Madison.”
“You wouldn’t believe the half of it,” he says with a disarming smile.
He stops in front of a bar and opens the door for me. The sign reads The Spotted Cat. Stepping inside, the first thing I notice is what is presumably the titular cat, though it’s really more striped than spotted. It’s sitting on the bar, and barely glances at me as it continues to clean itself.
“That doesn’t seem up to the health code,” I whisper to Nick.
“Believe me, it’s not,” the bartender says. She’s a middle-aged woman with dyed bright red hair and double sleeves of tattoos. “But if I move him, he just gets sullen.” To the cat, she says, “And we can’t have that, now can we?”
The cat blinks lazily back as if in agreement.
“We’d like a booth,” Nick says to the bartender. She nods and grabs some menus, coming out from behind the bar and setting them on an empty booth near the back. The place is mostly empty, with only a couple men drinking alone at the bar. I can’t decide if it’s too early or too late for their clientele.
“What’s good here?” I ask Nick.
“Nothing,” he says with a smirk. “I’d go with a bottle. They’re usually cold.”
He puts our orders in with the bartender as I look around. It’s a straight up dive, with a pool table and darts in the back and a busted juke box in the corner. It looks like it’s sat mostly unchanged since the ‘60s. When my eyes go back to his, I realize he’s been watching me intently.
“Aren’t you going to ask?”
“Ask what?”
“Why a billionaire took you to a bar that serves two dollar bottles and has a fragrant disregard for basic hygiene.”
I shrug. “I assume you have a reason for everything you do. I don’t see why this is any different. Wait. Let me guess.” I study his handsome face. It’s hard to read, the emotions constantly flickering and extinguishing like the flame on a trick candle.
“Okay,” I say. “I think you want to see if I’m high maintenance. See if I complain about being brought here.”
He raises an eyebrow and accepts the beer from the waitress. She sets mine in front of me. “So then you’re only pretending to be okay with it because you know that’s what I want to see.”
“Of course not,” I say. “I’d be honest if I didn’t want to be here. I actually think it’s cool. My ex was the trendy sports bar type, so we never went to dives.”
“Ex, huh?” Nick zeros in on my mention of Brent. “And how did the poor fucker mess that up?”
I hesitate, consider lying. I don’t want Nick to feel bad for me. On the other hand, as the weeks in New York have gone by, I’ve felt better and better about where I’m at in life. It wasn’t the plan I’d had laid out for myself, but sitting here in this cool bar with a guy like Nick isn’t exactly a hardship. He won’t pity me if I don’t pity myself, right?
“Fucked my best friend,” I say. The words still hurt to hear aloud, but I manage to keep my tone casual.
Nick winces. “And yet you still believe that people are inherently good?”
“Yep,” I say. “Believed it before, and I still do. Even after everything I went through. Oh, by the way, did I mention that the best friend was also my Maid of Honor?”
Nick, usually so in control of his emotions, is having a hard time suppressing his shock. “You were married?”
“Nope,” I say, shaking my head. “Engaged to be. Obviously we never went through with it.”
