ConvenientStrangers by Cara McKenna Page B

Tennessee without beer.
    It seemed quiet for a Saturday, or maybe the place just felt
quiet without David beside him. Lonely and intimidating. Still, both the guys
working were familiar faces, and that was enough to draw Adam across the
scuffed hardwood to the bar. He could do this.
    He took a seat and smiled a greeting at the nearest
preoccupied barman, waiting patiently until he came over.
    “Hey, stranger. Solo tonight?”
    The guy was cute, but Adam wasn’t quite ready to flirt. Too
rusty, for one thing. Too sober, for another. “Solo for the foreseeable
future,” he said with a dopey smile.
    “Oh, sorry man.”
    “It happens.”
    “That it does. And that’s why I’m here. What I can do to
help?”
    Adam scanned the bottles and taps. “Shot of Jack and
whatever seasonal summer you’ve got.”
    “As you wish.”
    “It’s quiet tonight.”
    The bartender laughed as he turned to pour the beer. “Lady
Gaga concert.”
    Adam shook his head. “We’re that predictable, are we?”
    The bartender turned back with Adam’s order but kept his
hands wrapped firmly around the glasses. He squinted warmly at Adam. “You get
your heart broken, or break somebody else’s?”
    “Mine, sadly.”
    “Well, misery’s first round is on the house.” He slid the
glasses across the wood.
    Adam mustered a grin. “Thanks.”
    The bartender turned away to fill another order and Adam
killed his shot in a gulp, liking the warm sting that trailed down his throat.
He folded a five and set the spent glass on top of it, and carried his pint to
a table near the windows. If the folks inside didn’t prove exciting enough to
distract him, he could always space out to the lazy human traffic streaming
past on the sidewalk.
    He was out. That was all that mattered. He’d shaved, ironed
a shirt, left the house and not looked back.
    But it turned out there was at least one guy in the bar
intriguing enough to snag Adam’s attention. A guy in the corner he’d never seen
here before. A guy who, frankly, looked as if he just might not realize he was
in one of Nashville’s more understated gay hangouts. Six-one, maybe, and big.
Muscular-big. Thirty-five or forty or somewhere in between, with a shaved head,
strong features, snug tee shirt.
    And hallelujah, just like that, Adam had managed to forget
about David for a whole twenty seconds!
    He settled into that familiar, contented barroom boredom,
laced with the heady spice of romantic possibility—or at least the possibility
that he might one day be in the mood for romance again—more intoxicating than
the shot. Felt like being twenty-five again, the night new, slate clean.
    Adam wasn’t particularly looking for romance or sex, merely
a little proof he could feel that spark for someone who wasn’t David, maybe
give someone else a little spark. He stole another glance at the corner,
finding that proof, feeling that crackle.
    The guy was playing pool, ostensibly by himself, though the
look of deep concentration on his stern face made it seem as though he were
matched against some invisible adversary, and a tough one at that. He cued up
and the balls scattered with a sharp snick , colors bouncing and rolling
and settling. The guy seemed to pick solids for himself, sinking the three then
stalking the five.
    Adam drank half his beer without tasting it, caught up in
the man’s intensity. The most magnetic, dangerous charisma he’d encountered in
a long time. He was Adam’s type to a tee. A type that hadn’t really ever given
him much, aside from grief. Oh and incredibly hot one-night stands, back when
he’d been into those.
    David hadn’t been Adam’s type, and possibly because of that reason, they’d lasted eight entire months. But when the giddy momentum
of the honeymoon phase had waned, wasn’t that maybe, just maybe , because
Adam’s interest had waned? He sure as hell hadn’t looked at his ex and felt
this electric jolt. Not in ages, maybe not ever.
    Then again, a shot of bourbon