At Night III

Claire meets the crew.

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It’s been a week since J and Claire met. A week of drinks that turned into dinners, of evenings that sometimes stretched until morning. Some nights they fell asleep tangled together, others they parted at the door with a kiss that burned long after.

Each time, the pull grew stronger. Not a rush, and certainly not a fling. More like gravity: steady, unstoppable, drawing them closer with every hour they gave each other.

Tonight, they’re walking into the bar together, hand in hand. The same bar where it started, but now it feels different. Same sticky floor, same low stage, but last week it was a chance encounter. Tonight, it’s a choice.

The table is already loud when they enter the bar. Ben, Dave, Melanie, Jessica, Eric, and Frank all crowd around a couple of tables pushed together, probably by Dave so he could reach the nearest pitcher in the center.

Ben sees them first. “Well look at this smug bastard. Brought proof he doesn’t spend every night crying into his guitar,” he shouts over the music as J and Claire approach the table.

Dave puts his glass down, with a mock-serious face: “Claire, blink twice if you need help.”

Laughter.

Jessica smirks, sipping her drink, eyes flicking between J and Claire like she’s measuring the room. Pale skin, deep natural red hair, dressed gothy but elegant. She stands and hugs J like they’ve shared a hundred lives already. The hug lingers.

When they break, Jessica turns to Claire.

“So this is her,” Jessica says. Not unkind, just certain.

J nods. “Yeah. Claire, Jessica. Jessica, Claire.”

Jessica leans in and takes Claire’s hands into hers, cool rings against warm skin. Claire bristles slightly, just enough for Jessica to notice. For a second, the noise of the bar seems far off, like the two of them are measuring each other in the quiet between words.

“Hey, I’m going to get us drinks,” J says, and wanders off to the bar.

Claire sits at the table, Jessica sliding into the seat beside her. The silence lingers a moment longer, not unfriendly, just thick with what hasn’t been said.

“So,” Jessica says finally, breaking it with a sip from her glass, “you two are a thing now?”

Claire nods, a measured smile breaking across her face. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“He seems… happier than he’s been in a long time,” Jessica says.

Claire lets that sit, then tilts her head. “So how’d you meet J? You two seem close.”

Jessica laughs, a full-bodied sound that cuts through the bar noise. “Oh honey, you don’t need to worry. We tried once, back in high school. Didn’t make it past first base. If he hadn’t dumped me, we’d probably have killed each other by now. Hell. We barely survived Velvet Ruin together.”

A wave of relief passes through Claire. Her shoulders drop, the tight smile easing into something real.

“Wait, you were in Velvet Ruin?”

“Yeah. I played bass.”

Meanwhile, the crew keeps piling on jokes at J’s expense, and she laughs politely but feels awkward. She doesn’t know the rhythms, the history. It’s like walking into Thanksgiving dinner with no script.

Jessica leans in then, her voice pitched low so it cuts through the noise:

“Don’t let them scare you. This is how they say ‘we like you.’”

Claire exhales a laugh, a grateful smile on her face.

“So this is normal?”

Jessica’s smile sharpens. “Normal? With these guys? They’re actually behaving tonight.”

Before Claire can answer, Jan calls Dave’s name. He whoops like he’s headlining a stadium show and stumbles toward the stage. The first jangly chords of Free Fallin’ ring out from the speakers.

Jessica groans. “God help us.”

Claire can’t help it—she laughs, the tension finally cracking.

That’s when J returns, two drinks in hand. He sets one in front of Claire and slides back into the seat across from them.

“You’re just in time,” Jessica says, nodding toward the stage.

J takes a sip, winces at Dave’s nasal howl into the mic. “Mercifully, this won’t last long.”

Claire glances between them, smiling for real this time, as Dave leans into the chorus like it might save his life.

“It’s like Bob Dylan’s cat is trying to cover Tom Petty,” Ben says. The table bursts out laughing, Jessica nearly choking on her drink. Even Claire laughs, surprised at how easy it feels to join in.

On stage, Dave doubles down, eyes closed, swaying like he’s in church. The worse it gets, the harder the table howls.

Beneath the noise, under the table, J’s hand finds her thigh. Warm, steady. She lays her hand over his, thumb brushing slow against his knuckles. The room roars around them, but in that small space, it’s just the two of them.

“You okay?” J asks, as he squeezes her thigh.

Claire nods. “Yes, just… trying to figure out the dynamic.”

The table finally catches its breath as Dave bows off the stage, arms spread like he’s conquered Madison Square Garden. The next singer is already queued up — a girl in her twenties in glitter heels. The opening notes of …Baby One More Time spill out of the PA, thin and tinny.

The bar erupts into half-ironic cheers. The girl belts it out with too much confidence, wobbling between notes, and the crowd eats it up anyway.

Claire leans closer to Jessica, laughing as the chorus lands off-key. “Okay, so this is normal?”

Jessica grins. “Yeah, usually a string of people with more alcohol in their blood than talent. But then you get someone like J, someone who can really sing.”

While the Britney cover wobbles on, they talk; about nothing, about everything. Jessica asks Claire what she does for work, where she’s from, the kind of easy questions that mean more coming from someone who clearly matters to J. Claire answers, but she’s aware Jessica’s listening harder than her words deserve.

Meanwhile J is talking about football and computer games with Dave and Ben, over the din of other conversations at the table.

J stands finally, squeezing Claire’s hand once under the table before he moves toward the DJ booth. Claire watches him lean down to Jan, their heads bent together. Jan nods eagerly, eyes lighting up, and a broad smile on her face.

Claire turns back to Jessica, lowering her voice.

“So… why did Velvet Ruin end?”

“Well,” Jessica starts, “it’s a long story. We had everything going for us. Got invited to play the second stage of Warped, a bunch of dates. J was over the moon — until he got there. They handed him a list of rules. What he could say on stage. What he couldn’t. How long the set could run, down to the minute. Setup and teardown times with penalties if you went over.”

She lets out a long breath, staring past Claire for a moment. “He thought it was going to be freedom. Turned out it was nothing but a cage.”

The woman on stage keeps singing Britney, wobbling but working through the last chorus. The bar claps along half-ironically, half-sincere.

“Story goes he cornered Dave Grohl backstage, asked him how the hell you live with all that. Grohl told him it was normal. That’s just how festivals work. Orderly. Efficient. That’s the game.” Jessica shakes her head. “It gutted him. He thought being a full-time musician was about creativity. It’s all about marketing, all about making other people money.”

Claire studies her face, waiting.

Jessica softens her voice. “I ran into Dave a couple years ago when they were in town. He remembered J. Said it was probably good he walked away. Said the machine would’ve eaten him alive… like it did Kurt.”

She swirls what’s left in her glass, then looks at Claire again. “Called him a true artist. Someone who cared more about craft than composition.”

She takes a slow sip from her glass before finishing. “I never told J that. But those dates were the last Ruin ever played.”

Claire doesn’t speak. She glances toward the bar where J is in the booth with Jan, fiddling with something and laughing at something she said. For a moment he looks lighter, younger. It’s almost impossible for her to imagine that same man gutted and undone.

The Britney cover stumbles to its last “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Applause, laughter, someone at the bar whistles.

Then Jan clears her throat, and her voice cuts clean over the noise.

“Alright guys, we’ve got something special tonight. A lot of you know him, some of you probably don’t, but you’re in for a treat. Please welcome back to the stage — former frontman of Velvet Ruin… J.”

For a second, the room doesn’t quite register, except with the table. Then a ripple goes through the bar — whistles, cheers, the low murmur of people turning to each other. A few heads swivel like they’ve just caught the scent of an old story they’d half-forgotten.

And then J steps out, guitar in hand.

“Hey,” J says into the mic. “I… Uh, I wrote this song a couple days ago. It’s about… Well, you’ll see.”

J plays a G chord on the guitar, testing the pickup through the PA, Jan makes some adjustments to her soundboard and then nods, smiling broadly.

And J begins to play an expertly fingerpicked melody through the beat-up acoustic guitar. He looks down at the fretboard while he plays, then steps up to the mic and sings:

I never thought someone like you
Could turn me upside down
Inside out, right side wrong

Claire feels her breath catch. It’s not the words, but the way he leans into them, like they’re heavier than the melody can carry. He’s not hiding behind Geoff Tate’s music anymore. No borrowed words, no borrowed melody. Just him.

And she realizes he’s looking directly at her, like she’s the only person in the room.

Her chest tightens. He keeps singing, lines about gravity, about being pulled together, simple but true. It isn’t the song that matters — it’s the way he’s looking at her while he sings it.

It’s not just a song, she realizes. It’s a confession.

Jessica snaps her out of the trance with a low whistle.

“Jesus. I’ve never seen him like this. Girl, he’s got it for you. Bad.”

Claire only nods, slowly, her mouth slightly open.

The last chord hangs rough and unpolished in the air. For a beat, the room doesn’t know how to respond. Then the table erupts into cheers, the bar claps along, whistles cutting through the noise.

But Claire barely hears it. Her eyes are locked on him, bright, wide, as he steps back from the mic.

The cheers fade, glasses clink, the table still buzzing from J’s song. Jan glances at her list, then calls, “Jessica, you’re up!”

Jessica lifts her drink, half-smile on her lips. “Not tonight, Jan. No way I can top that.”

A couple groans from the crew. “Come on, Jess—”

She shakes her head, eyes still on J as he settles back into his seat. “Nope! I’m out.”

Jan raises her brows but shrugs, cueing the next singer. The room shifts back into karaoke chaos, but for Claire it all feels distant.

J returns to the table, setting his guitar carefully against the wall before sliding back into his seat.

Claire turns to him, her eyes still wide, locked on his. For a long moment neither of them speaks. The noise of the bar fades into a dull hum, the laughter and chatter collapsing into nothing.

“Did you mean it?” she asks, her voice barely above the noise.

“Yeah.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, just kiss her already, ya pussy,” Ben calls out, and the table breaks into laughter.

J smiles and leans in, closing the space, and kisses her. Soft, but deliberate.

The laughter fades around them, swallowed by the noise of the bar. For that moment, it’s only them.

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