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In my head, when I go barging in through the door of the Clam Shack, I’m the outlaw from a western movie slamming through the saloon doors. The fantasy of my soured, mean face sending the locals fleeing for cover makes my lips curl deviously.
But once again, reality is a sad imitation of my imagination.
Instead, the only reaction I get when I stumble dripping wet into the bar is for the grizzled looking bartender with a gray beard to glance up from the sports section of a newspaper.
The bravado, fury, and wind go out of my sails as I clear my throat.
“… Are you open?”
The guy lifts a shoulder, nodding. He turns his gaze back to his sports section, completely ignoring me.
I clear my throat again.
“Uh, great. Thanks.”
I swallow, trying to collect my wits as I walk over and find a seat at the bar. Gray Beard looks up, raising an eyebrow instead of actually asking what I want.
“Hi yeah I'll have…I'll have vodka.”
The brow stays arched.
“With ice. Thanks.”
The bearded bartender keeps eyeing me as a squirming in my seat.
“I… I think I left my ID at…my house?”
I smile at him. Gray Beard just shrugs his shoulder again and turns away, reaching for a glass.
Apparently, legal drinking age matters about as much here as sending a search party for missing young female tourists after they rent boats and disappear for anentireday.
Which is to say, it apparently doesn’t matter for shit.
Gray Beard slides a glass that looks like it has entirely too much vodka in front of me. But at this point I'm actually thankful for the over-pour. He holds up five fingers without saying a word.
“Do you take cards?”
The thin line of his mouth pretty much answers the question.
“Right, right. Okay. Is there a—“
He nods a chin past me to one of those rip-off ATM machines on the wall that charges you ten bucks to take your own money out.
“Great…thanks,” I smile. “Should I pay now, or—”
He just nods.
“Got it.”
A minute later, I come back with cash in my hand and take my seat at the bar. Gray Beard makes me change as I sip on the medicinal tasting cocktail in my glass.
What. A. Fucking. Asshole.
Jackson, that is. The devil king of fuck-off island.
I glower. An NDA? He wants to send me an NDA? Fuckinggladly. I’d rather no one in the entire world knows how I spent the last twenty hours of my life.
Especially the last one of those hours.
