At Night I

A chance encounter.

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It started like any other “Karaoke invasion” night. I walk into the bar to see my friends, a dozen of them, already sitting at a few tables, pushed together to make room for all of us. Hole-in-the-wall joint. Budweiser neon over the worn bar, a dart board, and a tiny stage where a small screen and PA was set up. Like it was set up as an afterthought.

The air reeked of stale beer, and staler cigarette smoke, despite the strict “no smoking” policy.

My friend Ben already ordered a whiskey neat for me. My usual source of liquid courage on these nights.

There’s a few people sitting at other tables, half a dozen up at the bar. They look like locals, or perhaps they’re just here for Karaoke.

After saying hello to the group and reminded by Ben that I owe him seven bucks for the drink, I approach the DJ, Jan, and put in my name. “You got the song, right?” I ask her as someone begins singing some forgettable pop song.

She just nods and smiles.

I return to the table and chat with my friends.

A few songs pass, and then Jan calls me up.

She hits play on the song on the laptop. The bar is filled with acoustic guitar playing a gentle melody. Silent Lucidity. Queensryche. My friends cheer and all eyes are on me.

I sing. I’m not as good as I used to be. Too much time, too much distance from singing, but I still manage to remain in tune, I still have the range – barely – that I enjoyed in high school. But I’m twenty years removed from school.

I work my way through the song, the deep baritone part gives way to the higher tenor part, I sing about hiding, facing fears, and magic dimensions.

As the guitar solo breaks, I see her.

Brunette, curls spilling like they’d been waiting for this light. Skirt brushing her ankles, corset cinched too tight for anyone sane. She sits alone at the far edge of the bar. Glass half-empty in front of her. None of it mattered. She was looking at me.

By the end of the voice-over, the rest of the bar fades, and it’s like I was singing directly to her. Nothing else, nobody else matters now. I hold the last note a little too long, it cracked a little, but she doesn’t flinch. She smiles like it was a secret, like I only sang for her.

When the cheers come, they’re distant. My friends pounding the tables, the regulars half-clapping between sips. Their taste leans more Garth Brooks than Geoff Tate. But she is already moving. She points, her graceful, slender finger beckoning me over to her.

Of course, my friends see this, their cheers turn louder now.

I walk over to her, my sneakers making a scrunching sound on the sticky linoleum. She orders before I get there. Whiskey for me. Something clear for herself. I sit down next to her as Jan announces the next person, my friend Dave who is going to sing some Creed Dad-Rock song, like he always does.

Her drink hits the bar as I slide onto the stool. Gin, maybe vodka. I didn’t care. She’d already guessed mine right.

It’s my friend Dave’s turn now. His voice fills the room, nasal and earnest, Creed bleeding out of the tiny PA in all the drunken bravado that Dave can muster. It makes her laugh and roll her eyes, soft and under her breath. She turns back to me before I could think of what to say.

“You still sing like you mean it,” she says. Not a question or a compliment, just fact.

Her voice is velvet on my ears. Her hand rests on the bar, inches from mine. Not moving. Not pulling back.

“Yeah, a million years ago, I thought I was a musician,” I say softly, leaning in with a smile.

“And now?” she asks, leaning in as Dave reaches the bridge to “Higher”. Poorly.

“I guess music never leaves you,” I say, leaning in to her slightly. “The voice fades, but the music never does.”

She holds my gaze a second too long, then lets it drop to my mouth before returning to my eyes. Deliberate. The corner of her lip curls, like she knows I caught it.

She tilts her glass toward me. “I’m Claire.”

I swallow the last of the whiskey she bought me, set it down slow. “J.”

Her smile curves, not wide, but knowing. “J. the musician.”

“Retired,” I say.

“Not tonight.”

The crowd laughs at Dave’s off-key howl, but it feels a mile away. She lifts her glass, sips, sets it down. Her fingers trace the rim once, slow, then stop.

“Maybe,” she says. “But sometimes it takes the right night to remind you.”

Her words hang there, heavier than they should. I want to answer, but her hand slides across the counter, covering mine. Warm. Firm.

I tense up, but relax after a second. She doesn’t notice.

The noise in the bar swells again. Dave’s belting the last chorus, my friends hollering along. But it’s all blurred. Her thumb brushes the back of my hand once, barely moving. Enough to set my pulse hammering.

I lean closer, catching another breath of lavender, sharp citrus beneath it. She doesn’t move back.

“You’re right,” I whisper. “Maybe it just takes the right night.”

Her hand stays on mine, heat seeping in, her perfume a quiet insistence in the stale air. She doesn’t rush. Doesn’t pull away. I sit in silence.

Dave’s song crashes to its end, clean guitars signifying the merciful ending. The bar claps too hard out of pity. Or perhaps just relieved it’s over.

She leans in, close enough her curls brush my cheek. “So,” she says, voice low, meant only for me, “what happens after the song fades?”

“It doesn’t,” I tell her. “Not really. You can put a musician out to pasture, but the music never leaves.”

She tilts her head, eyes fixed on me. “So you’re not retired,” she says.

I shake my head. “I guess not. Truth is, I made choices, and that didn’t leave much room for music.”

Her thumb moves slow against the back of my hand, almost absentminded, but not. The noise around us swells again — another round called out, glasses clinking — yet it feels like the bar’s gone dim, the two of us lit by something else.

“But right now,” she says finally. “Maybe it’s not about the past. Maybe it’s about this song. This night.”

Suddenly, Dave’s hand claps my shoulder, heavy and sloppy. “Dude. Are you—”

I cut him off with my eyes, sharp. Don’t ruin this, they beg.

“Oh… oh.” He backs up, palms raised, grinning dumb. Motions for the bartender instead, already half-gone.

Claire watches the whole thing. Doesn’t laugh. She slides her thumb over mine again, slower this time, deliberate. The kind of move that ignores the world on purpose.

Frank lingers half a second too long, noticing her hand on mine. But Claire never takes her eyes off me. It’s like he isn’t there.

When he finally peels away, the lavender comes back, sharper, cutting through the stale smoke and spilled beer. Her thumb still moving, slow, claiming the silence he left behind.

We talk. About nothing. About everything. The kind of talk that doesn’t need to hold up in daylight, only in the glow of a dive bar where time moves differently. My friends cycle through their songs, Creed gives way to Bon Jovi, then Journey. A Grease duet, someone I don’t know tries to sing Amy Winehouse. We laugh at some, ignore most. Her hand never leaves mine.

By the time the bartender calls last call and the lights come on, we’re still locked on each other. Claire. I forget my friends, most of whom slip out without saying goodbye. Lavender and citrus hang between us, her curls tumbling across her shoulders, her icy blue eyes fixed on mine.

She doesn’t ask. She doesn’t need to. The night has already chosen for us.

Rain falls as we step outside, neon bleeding across the pavement. Her hand never leaves mine. A short walk, a block or two, and we reach my place. Soaked, we step inside. The air smells of wet asphalt, faint and sharp. She brushes past me in the doorway, shoulder to shoulder, like it’s an accident. It isn’t.

In the bedroom, she turns and kisses me. Deep. Overwhelming. The atmosphere shifts. Her eyes never leave mine, as she guides my hand onto her chest. She sighs at my touch, then kisses me again.

No more words. We don’t speak. Breath does the talking. Sweat traces paths where words would spoil.

Every kiss feels sharper, hungrier, until there’s nothing left but the need to close the distance. And then we do. No restraint or pause, just the collapse into heat.

In the dark, wet clothes scattered across the floor, her perfume clings to the sheets. The world outside is gone, the room alive with nothing but breath and skin. The bed creaks under the weight of us colliding. Her hand on my chest feels both inevitable and wrong, like a key that shouldn’t exist turning perfectly.

Each movement stacks on the last, pressure building until there’s no space left to hold it back. The wanting sharpens, turns desperate. I can’t tell if I’m pulling her closer or if she’s drawing me in, but we meet in the middle, breaking past the line we thought we could hold.

At the breaking point, it’s less release than ruin. Like something inside me is breaking open, pouring into her, and I don’t care if I ever get it back. It’s the moment we stop being careful and let each other take us whole.

The room still pulses with us, even in the silence. I don’t know what tomorrow looks like, but tonight, with her against me, it feels like enough.

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