“Tell me about it,” he said, waving the bartender over and calling for another round of pink drinks. “I bet you can’t beat that story.” He looked at me challengingly.
“Um . . .actually,” I emphasized the word and he smiled immediately, “I think I can.”
“Really?” He raised his eyebrow in query. “I doubt that.”
“No, I’m pretty sure my story is on a par with yours, potentially worse because of one very unfortunate factor.”
Now he looked intrigued. “Right, it’s a bet then. Whose story is the worst?”
“Okay,” I said. “What are we betting?”
“That ring.” He pointed.
“No. Never.” I shook my head.
“I’m serious. Because if your story is worse than mine, then you genuinely deserve that ring.”
“Okay,” I muttered, trying to work out if he was for real. “And if yours is worse?” I asked, wondering what I would need to give him.
“Just stay here and have some drinks with me,” he suddenly said in a much smaller voice.
“I already am.”
“Have a few more. I’ve been sitting at this bar by myself for five nights and, truthfully, I’m lonely as hell.”
“That doesn’t seem like a fair exchange, though,” I said.
“A new study shows that loneliness is a bigger killer than smoking and obesity. So you’d be saving my life.”
“Well, when you put it that way.” I smiled at him.
“Okay, great. But we need an impartial judge to decide which story is worse,” he suggested.
“Who?”
“What about him?” He pointed over at the bartender, who was already looking in our direction, as if he’d been listening this entire time. The bartender looked like one of those perpetually laid-back kind of guys. Blond surfer hair, golden tan and an unhurried quality to him. He smiled at me and I quickly looked away.
“Noooo,” I whispered under my breath. “I can’t tell my story to a stranger.”
The bartender piped up. Clearly, he had no shame in now admitting that hehadbeen eavesdropping. “You won’t believe the kinds of things that people tell me. I’ve heard it all, trust me.”
“Like what?” I asked, as the bartender moved closer to us and casually leaned over the bar.
“This one time, a guy told me he’d cheated on his wife the day before their wedding, with her maid of honor who was also her sister.”
“What?” Alex and I gasped at the same time.
“You think that’s strange, this other time an old woman in her eighties confessed to me that she’d killed her husband sixty years ago and buried him in the rose garden. She wanted to clear her conscience before she died.”
“You’re kidding?” I said in horror.
The bartender shook his head. “People confess all kinds of crazy things once they’ve had a drink or two.”
“Mmmm, tell me about it,” I said knowingly.
“So, what do you say?” Alex asked. “We both tell him our stories and he chooses which one is worse.”
I shrugged. “Sure, why not? You go first though.” I pointed at him.
