#jamie 1

The game was over, and the Last Drop was loud – which wasn’t unusual for the Last Drop, or any other bar he’d been in that was, essentially, the exact fucking same – it was just that right now, they were buzzing over baseball. (In contrast to the regular bar fights, which he dutifully avoided, and the usually mediocre open mic, which he grimaced his way through.)

Along the way, he’d made a new acquaintance: Jameson. ‘Jamie’. Who was, in contrast to Declan himself, not drinking anything, as far as he could tell. (For the occasion, it was a single beer; enough to let him blend in, not enough to get him buzzed.) With the game done, it seemed almost impolite to not make some idle small talk – which suited Declan fine.

“–– You said you were from outta town, right?”

Her house stood lonesome in the snow, as winter ate away at autumn. Only the evergreens remained alive in the woods, but Blackrock didn’t want for pine trees – the sleeping giants towered over the landscape in their mangled white gowns, wind blowing the powder-snow off their branches. 

She had neighbors, but it was less a cluster of picket-fence properties and more the vague idea of a neighborhood; scattered houses forming a strange constellation, inhabitants orbiting one another with the occasional smile.

(Mar had enjoyed the relative distance until Raine broke in. These days, sudden creaks had her holding her breath as she waited to hear footsteps. Knocks or the doorbell elicited the same reaction, but she hid it well.)

But it was just Jamie, out on her porch, checking in on her. It was sweet, she thought, and she got the sense that it had little to do with her and everything to do with how he was decent, which made it all the more easy to greet him with a smile when he showed up.

@jamiehart