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This Captain doesn’t match that Captain in my head. This one …
This one is a guy I’d look at twice in a room.
I reply: “You seem quite harmless to me.”
Captain’s eyes drop to my lips. “Oh, do I?”
I smirk. “Well, so far. Perhaps it’s … yet to be determined.”
A glint of humor sparkles in his eyes.
“So what’s wrong with the bar?” I ask as I walk up to the counter, slide onto a barstool, then pat the one next to me. “Take a seat, Captain. Let’s get to know each other off the screen. Isn’t this funny?” I ask suddenly, gesturing between us. “You’re the one called Captain, yet I’m the one in the uniform. Hey, why do you call yourself Captain?”
He appears to have an intense thought, which may or may not have anything to do with what I’d asked him. But it passes quickly, and he gracefully slides onto the stool. “Drinks are on me.”
“Thanks, Cap. I’ll take a vodka tonic. And you didn’t answer my question.”
The way he flags the bartender, it’s just a flick of his wrist, a word or two, and the order is made. Even his smallest, subtlest mannerisms show such command. “So is it strange?” he asks me. “Sitting here at a bar, you and I, after all this time?”
He still didn’t answer my question. But I let it slide. “Couldn’t I ask the same thing, Captain?”
“Rich.”
I lift an eyebrow. “Huh?”
“I’m Rich.”
A chuckle hops out of my throat. “I figured. For as much as you’ve generously tipped me over the years. Not to mention you’re staying at a place like this, which isn’t exactly a Motel 6 …”
“My name. Rich.” He smiles. It appears tight, revealing a sliver of insecurity. Is that just from letting down his guard and revealing his real name? “Richard Belford. But you can call me Rich.”
“I’ll call you Richie,” I decide suddenly, then smile back at him in that way I always do to make others feel more comfortable around me. “Is that alright with you? Or you got some kinda … I don’t know … bad association with Richie?”
A look of relief softens his eyes, which quickly shatters into a short-lived laugh. “Oh, I can’t even remember the last time anyone called me that.” He laughs again. “Not since I was thirty, probably.”
“So … a couple years ago?” I tease him.
Still laughing, he gives me a look. “Oh, that’s kind of you. Real, real kind of you. Cute, even.”
“Cute?” I prop my elbows up on the counter and clasp my fingers together. Our drinks appear in front of us, and I swipe mine up and take a fast sip before saying, “Well, damn … I don’t think I’ve ever been called ‘cute’ before.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
“Do you, though? I mean, I get ‘hot’ enough. ‘Sexy’. ‘Fuck boy’. But ‘cute’ …?” I shake my head. “You don’t call strippers ‘cute’. ‘Cute’ doesn’t put dollar bills in my thong.”
Richie is still smiling when I look at him. His eyes are on me as if he’s peering into a dream.
That’s when I remember where I am, who I’m with, and what I’m saying. “Sorry. I …” I laugh, then swallow up that laugh right away and twist my lips into something of a wince. “… didn’t mean to imply that everything’s about the dollars. There are more important things. Obviously. Like …” I stare at my drink, frozen, and suddenly can’t find the next word I meant to say.
Richie saves me. “Like making a new friend?”
I look at him. “Aren’t we friends already?”
“Captain and Zak are.” He tilts his head with curiosity. “But what about Richie and …” His eyes shimmer with uncertainty. “… and you?”
I peer into those uncertain eyes.
He’s reaching out for me. I can feel it as clearly as I’d see a hand reaching for mine.
In a world full of fantasies—giving others their fantasies on the stage, at their tables, behind the camera—maybe I long for something real.
And maybe that’s what makes the name drop straight out of my lips, at long last: “Isaac.”
His eyebrows lift in surprise. “Isaac.” He tries the name on like a soft, comfy new pair of socks. It seems to make sense to him. “Isaac … Alright. Yes, I can see it. And ‘Zak’ even lives in it a little, too … in the second syllable. Hiding in plain sight.”
“Everyone calls me Zak,” I admit. I can’t believe I told him my real first name. “Even my friends. And one of my sisters, who knows what I do.”
“One of your sisters?”
All the truths are spilling out. “Yep. Got a few.”
“A few?”
Am I really sure I’m ready for him to know the real me? I take a quick, anxious sip of my vodka tonic for courage. It’s helping. But not much. “I like to send money back home. To help them out. Two of my sisters are still in high school, believe it or not. Bit of an age gap there. Third sis is just a year behind me, married, no kids yet, but her husband is a deadbeat she can’t seem to leave.”
