Chapter 6

Chapter 6

“Hey, we’re just having a little fun,” said Ty, a little too loudly.

Shit, thought Corey. Still, she didn’t want to back up the car and do a U-Turn. She didn’t want to mollify this asshole. Sometimes, the only way out was through.

“I’m just trying to have a drink, boys.”

“Sounds like someone is too good for us, Ty,” said Jerry, his cackling manner now curdling as well.

Binder Boy got up and stretched. He picked up his unfinished beer and walked it over to the bar. At least hers wasn’t the only drink these two spoiled, but the bartender had stepped out into the lobby for a moment, and once Binder Boy was gone, Corey would be alone with her two new, and increasingly hostile, fans. Dungeon Dick’s was starting to look preferable.

A few stools down, Binder Boy leaned against a chair waiting for the bartender to reappear and settle his check. He caught Corey’s eye once more, then looked away.

“You seriously think you’re better than us?” said Ty. “We were just saying hi. You can’t even take five minutes to talk to people who’ve been listening to you since college? Shit, I like The Toddlers better anyway.”

And that’s bingo!

Corey saw red. She’d had these conversations before, usually when someone approached her in a restaurant or a parking garage or a doctor’s office, when she was not Corey Lyondell, Professional Recording Artist but Corey Lyondell, Amateur Human. When she was feeling sad or ill or vulnerable, and the other person was not picking up on how inappropriate it was to grill her. Someone who wasn’t taking the hint. When it had been necessary to get a little nasty to get a little distance or extricate herself from a weird situation. And since Randy was not there to back her up, she’d have to do it alone.

“Listen, buying a CD twenty fucking years ago doesn’t entitle you to jack—”

She never finished her sentence.

Binder Boy had detached himself from the bar and moved in their direction, making his way to the restroom behind her. Neither of the two men berating her noticed him, or when he wobbled in a shuffle step and spilled his full beer down Ty’s back.  

“Ah!” shrieked Ty. He whirled around to find the equally tall man standing there, eyes wide and hands held up in apology.

“Oh my God,” said Binder Boy. “I am really sorry.” 

“What the fuck, man?” yelled Ty.

“I don’t know what happened…”

Corey put a hand on her guitar case, prepared to bolt. The bartender returned then, drawn by Ty’s bellowing.

“Excuse me, can we get some paper towels please?” Binder Boy called to the bartender. He waggled his fingers. “I don’t know what happened. Butterfingers, I guess.”

The bartender handed over a cloth rag instead and the man took it and began to pat down Ty’s back. Ty flinched as if the total stranger had just tried to give him a massage.

“Dude, get off!

“What?” asked Binder Man innocently.

“You did that on purpose,” said Jerry. He said “purpose” like it was the jab of a knife.

The man’s eyebrows raised in a startled expression that gradually settled into wounded.

“That’s a hell of a thing to say.”

It was such a dry, deadpan delivery that it was actually over the top. More so because, she had watched the man walk in their direction without breaking stride and very calmly, very deliberately, pour the pint down Ty’s back. Corey bit her lip and looked into her glass of wine.

“You did, didn’t you?” growled Ty.

The man looked from Ty to Jerry and back again, and slowly rolled his shoulders back and drew himself to his full height. It was a little like watching Christopher Reeve transforming from Clark Kent to Superman with nothing more than a minor adjustment of his posture. Corey took her hand off the guitar case.

“Fellas, it was an accident. I’ve apologized. But now you’re accusing me of lying and I take that very seriously.”

His innocent expression went cold.  

There was a tense moment when they were sizing the stranger up, but the stranger was taller than Ty and broader than either of them. And while Ty seethed, breathing through his nose like a bull and dripping beer, the man stood calm and motionless.

The bartender interjected, recognizing a standoff when he saw one and wanting none of what followed.

“Take it somewhere else,” he snapped. It was all Ty and Jerry needed to save face.

“Fuck this, Jerry,” said Ty. “This place is bullshit.”

They grabbed their coats from the backs of their barstools and moved toward the door. 

“You’re fucking lucky, dude,” spat Ty over his shoulder.

The man with the binder watched them go. When they were gone, he turned toward Corey, an embarrassed expression on his face, genuine this time. “Sorry about that,” he said. Before Corey could respond, he walked back to his table, dropped some bills, stowed his binder in a laptop bag, then walked out of the bar. 

Are you fucking kidding me? thought Corey.

Corey ran to the lobby. She caught up to the man by the elevators.

“Hey. Hey!”

He turned around.

“That’s it?” she said.

He held up his hands. “I’m really sorry about that. You didn’t need any of that alpha male nonsense.”

“You’re right, I didn’t. Then why’d you do it?”

The man thought for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “I imagine you’ve been dealing with that sort of thing for a very long time and it looked like you wanted a night off.”

“Right again. And I could’ve handled it myself.”

The man nodded. “No doubt. Again, my apologies. Have a good night.”

He pressed the elevator button again. There was a ping, the doors opened, and he stepped inside. Corey was beginning to get mad.

Her default setting tilted more toward self-doubt than self-confidence, but in bursts, when it was necessary, she could summon supreme cockiness. As she had seen the stranger do, she drew herself to her full height. She put her hands on her hips, and she rolled one foot onto her boot heel, her toe pointing skyward. She reminded herself that was a warrior. A ronin, doing battle and swinging her ax in clubs and arenas and festivals across the country and around the world for the past twenty-five years. She was a Rock Star.

She jutted her chin at him.

“So you know who I am then?” It sounded like a challenge. It was.

“Of course.”

“And after all that, you’re not even going to offer to buy me a damn drink?”

The elevator doors began to close. He held out a hand and stopped them. The barest hint of a smile played on his lips.

“Shouldn’t you buy me a drink?”