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Decker shoved his hands in his pockets. “Yeah, we probably need to, uh, talk some more?”
She grinned. “Yes, we do.”
He grinned too.
She wanted to go to him, to touch him, but she didn’t. She felt shy and silly. They’d been connected for all that time, but now they were separate. She missed the connection.
“You want a drink, then?” said Hollis. “You’re not driving?”
“Uh, I sort of parked in your driveway,” said Decker.
“That’s fine,” said Hollis. “I can get around you if I need to get one of my cars out of the garage.”
One of his cars, huh? Essence wondered how many cars he had.
“So, I can leave it there until morning?”
“Sure thing,” said Hollis. “Hey, I’m really sorry about this. It sucks you guys got handcuffed together all evening.”
“It’s fine,” said Essence. “It really wasn’t even that long.”
They all trooped out to the front of the bar. Somehow, in their absence, people had arrived. Now, there were eight or nine people, in couples and groups, standing around the bar, and Jeff was busily making drinks.
“Wow, this place picked up,” said Decker.
“Restaurants closed,” Essence decided, looking at the people in the bar. It was people who worked as cooks and servers in town. “People who work at the restaurants are coming out for a post-work drink. It’s the second happy hour.”
“Makes sense,” said Decker.
They sidled up to what small piece of real estate on the bar they could find and waited for Jeff to be able to give him their attention.
“So, what was the great truth revealed about porn?” said Hollis.
“I don’t even know,” said Essence, looking at Decker.
Decker shook his head. “You know, I’m not sure when they fell open, but it could have been at an earlier point. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“I think it was the last thing you said,” said Essence. “About me being an idiot.”
“That was not the point of that,” said Decker. “You latched onto the idiot thing, but I was saying we were both being idiots, really.”
“You’re really hard on yourself,” said Essence.
“And you’re really hard on people in general,” said Decker. “On, like, the universe.”
“I am not,” she said. “It’s just… well, it’s pointless to try to control yourself, isn’t it? No matter how hard you try, you can’t.”
Decker looked at her with something like horror. “The only thing we can control is ourselves, Essence. We can’t control society or the sun rising or anything else—”
“Maybe not,” said Essence, “but I don’t think we really control ourselves all that much either.”
Hollis was laughing. “This is why I love this town.”
Essence turned to him. “Why?”
“Because you can show up here, and—within five minutes—you’re in the middle of a conversation people are having about the nature of the universe, self-control, and porn,” said Hollis, spreading his skeletal hands. “What do you guys want to drink?”
“Beer,” said Decker.
