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“Well, now that you’re finally free, what do you want to do?” Zak nudged my side with his shoulder while we leaned against the kitchen table.

I’d just dropped Avaya off of at her grandparent’s for the weekend. I was off mom duty for a couple days and it felt…weird. I didn’t know what I should be doing. I wasn’t going to go to a party, but I also didn’t want to sit in my housecoat with junk food and a sappy movie, either. I scratched my head.

“Actually, I have no idea,” I chuckled. “Is that sad? Have I spent too long doing all this stuff?”

He sucked in air through his teeth and looked off into the distance. I’d come to learn that was his thinking face. “Jeeze, five years spent slaving away as an amazing single mom…I don’t know; I’d say you’re due for a break.”

I shoved him lightly and walked down to my bedroom. He followed slowly behind. I took off my navy blue heels I’d been wearing all day thanks to work, and shook my hair out of its restricting bun.

“Do you have any recommendations? I mean, out of the two of us, you’re the crazy one.” I smirked.

He looked astounded. “I’m not crazy, you are. I’m actually surprised you haven’t been locked up yet.”

I rolled my eyes. “Suggestions, Zak, suggestions!”

“Right, suggestions,” He scratched his chin. “When was the last time you were in a bar?”

“My last time being in a bar was my first time,” I giggled. “One of my cousins was getting married and we went out for her bridal shower. I was 23 then and all I could think about the entire night was Avaya. Needless to say I wasn’t the life of the party.”

“Well there’ll be none of that tonight,” He pointed his finger at me. “Get dressed; I’ll take you to this awesome place downtown. It’s a pretty quiet bar, so you should be fine.”

I nodded and kicked him out of my room. “I was hoping I could stay inside,” he protested from the hallway.

“Uh, yeah, I don’t think so.” I smirked.

I switched from my skirt and dress top into floral shorts and a loose black top that fell off one of my shoulders. I slipped into my black flats, grabbed my purse, and walked out to find Zak sitting in the recliner. He stood up when he saw me and grinned.

“What do you think?” I asked, spinning around. “Is this proper bar attire?”

“It’ll work,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Zak’s car was a lot to get used to, much like its driver. It was a white sports car, sleek, fast, and low to the ground. It purred like a kitten on the inside and his sound system rattled my brain a little. But he didn’t play his music too loud for long, because he said he wanted to be a “gentleman” tonight. I wasn’t sure what gentleman meant by Zak’s standards, but I was intrigued to find out.

We parked on the street and Zak took a good five minutes to fill up the parking meter. By the time he was done feeding it money I was positive we’d be free of a parking ticket. So he put his hand gingerly on my lower back and urged me towards a tiny building squished in between two other buildings that were much taller than it.

The bar was called Scully’s and I liked it before we even walked in. The outside was all black and grey shining granite, with two large wooden doors proclaiming “Scully’s” in the frosted glass windows. Inside it was very dim, lit by a few overhanging lights that really didn’t do much. There were large flat screen TV’s in every corner of the place, each playing a different sports game. I liked the atmosphere of the place. People were laughing, glasses were clinking, and it smelled good. My stomach growled a little, but thankfully Zak didn’t hear it over the din of people talking.

He urged me towards a small table by the far wall. “Go sit, I’ll get us drinks. What do you want?”

“Beer is fine with me,” I shrugged. “Get whatever kind sounds good.”

He nodded and walked towards the bar. I walked over to the table and set my purse by my chair’s legs, up against the wall. The chairs were tall and I had to really lift myself up onto it. I sat awkwardly for a moment, playing with the rings on my fingers in my lap. I looked down at the vintage coasters atop the wooden table and then up to all the little trinkets decorating the wall. There were ancient photos of Las Vegas, mobsters, rusty license plates from all over the world, signed cards, and even a few poker chips nailed to the wall. I leaned in to look at one of the photos. It was dated 1928 and it looked like a bunch of fancy gangsters throwing a party in some fancy room. They were all lined up at a table with glasses of alcohol everywhere, money, and girls wearing feathers and sequins dangling off their shoulders. I smirked.

“Y’know you shouldn’t get so caught up in the past. I heard it can come back to bite you.”

Zak’s voice pulled me away from the photo and I watched him pass me a green beer bottle while he took his seat across from me. I tentatively took a sip, smiling as the fizz bubbled down my throat. He took a drink too, admiring the wall as I had just done. He shook his head at all.

“It’s crazy, isn’t it? All this stuff…once upon a time it wasn’t so old.” Pure interest washed over his face as he admired it all.

“Funny, I never took you for a history junkie.” I said, setting my beer down on a coaster.

He shrugged. “It’s interesting to me, unlike all that other crap we had to learn in school.”

“On the contrary it’s all pretty useful,” I countered.

He looked at me incredulously. “You think algebra is useful?”

I chuckled. “Okay, maybe not that one.”

He took another drink and crossed his arms on top of the table. “So tell me about the wild and crazy Lily Manning,” he said.

I laughed. “What?”

“C’mon, I wanna hear about the Lily that dared to go out and have some fun at a place that wasn’t the library!” he smirked. “She sounds like fun.”

“How do you know she ever existed?” I shook my head.

“You were a teenager once. Trust me, she existed.”

“Alright, so say you’re right,” I tilted my beer bottle at him. “What kind of stories are you hoping to hear about her?”

“Oh, dirty ones,” He grinned wolfishly. Before I could smack his arm he waved the white flag. “I’m joking, I’m joking! Anything, really, I don’t mind. I just want to know what kind of fun you had, if you ever had any.”

“You’re an ass,” I took another drink.

“And proud of it,” he retorted.

I sighed. “Alright, let me think.”

I’d never been to many parties in my lifetime. I got invited to them, but I always lied and said I couldn’t go. There was just something about hanging out with a bunch of drunk people that turned me off, I guess. My parents certainly didn’t mind. They had that preconceived notion that if I went to a party I’d come home pregnant and addicted to methamphetamines. Thankfully only one of those things happened, and it didn’t happen at a party. Anyway, I’d still been conned into attending a few, and I guess it made sense why I was having troubles remembering them. Finally a story came to mind. It might not be the gold Zak was looking for, but it was all I had.

“Okay, okay, so there was this time during my senior year of high school I was partying at my friend Lindsey’s house. Her brother was in college so he had a bunch of his older friends there. They ended up getting all of us girls a male stripper and they started a water balloon fight with us in the backyard. Anyway, I remember when the stripper came we were all a little shocked but also pretty drunk, so I thought it would be funny if I demanded a lap dance. I touched some things I really shouldn’t have, and I was scarred for life, basically. He kept pointing to me when he did his little routine after that.” I confessed, giggling as I spoke.

Zak laughed. “You turned on a male stripper?” he asked. “Was he all stereotypical and dashing or was he old and creepy?”

“Kind of in the middle,” I admitted. “He was like if George Clooney became a male stripper. And since I wasn’t middle-aged it wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be at the time.”

He smirked. “Alright, so what else happened? I mean there had to be crazier shit that went on that night. A bunch of high school girls and college boys? You can’t tell me that’s not a recipe for disaster.”

I blushed and looked down at my beer bottle, tracing the top with my pinkie finger. A lot of things happened that night, but did Zak really need to know about them all?

“I see something in that face of yours,” he commented. “You’re keeping secrets. Avaya told me we should never keep secrets.”

I rolled my eyes. “Are you really using my daughter’s advice against me?”

“Hey, she’s a wise kid!” He shrugged.

I nodded. He was right. Suddenly my motto was ‘fuck it.’ I took a long pull from my drink and picked at my coaster.

“It was the night I…hm-hm,” I mumbled.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” He leaned towards me, cupping his ear.

“The night I lost…mm…”

“You’ll have to speak up, I can’t hear you.”

“It was the night I lost my virginity, alright?” I said loudly. Immediately I bowed my head for fear that someone heard me. Once Zak started laughing the hardest I’d heard him laugh, I had to join in. What a doofus.

“That was really loud,” Zak commented, wiping his eye.

“Shit, I know,” I hid my eyes and smiled as innocently as I could.

“So wait a second, you were a virgin up until your last year of high school?” he asked.

“Well yeah. I have morals, you know.”

“Apparently not enough, I mean, talking so openly about it in a bar like that,” He smirked, holding the bottle to his lips.

“Oh shut up. I didn’t mean to.”

He chuckled. “Okay, so tell me about it.”

“Um, what am I supposed to tell you? Do you want me to rate the guy who did it?”

“No, no. What did you think, or were you too drunk? Did you like it?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“Well I was pretty drunk,” I admitted. “It kind of bored me, actually. We were both drunk so it just went on forever. I mean it hurt at first and all that jazz, but the part where they say it’s supposed to feel good never came. I just got tired of it. I remember asking him if he was done yet halfway through.”

He burst into laughter again. “Really? What did he say?”

“He said ‘no, give me a few more minutes.’” I shook my head in embarrassment.

“Oh, this is too good. You’re a funny girl, Manning.”

“I’m glad you’re laughing at my horrifying experiences. That makes me feel good.”

“You can’t deny that’s hilarious,” he said.

“Alright, well if that’s so funny, I’m sure you have funnier stories. Go on, spill.” I dared him.

He looked a little shocked at first. There was no way this was going to be all about me. I was going to get some embarrassing stories out of him if I had to beat them out. He recovered himself and nodded.

“Alright, fine, if you wanna go there we can go there.” He swirled his beer around in the bottle for a minute or two, thinking. “Okay, so there was this one time where I was at the library with Nick, and I stumbled across this really mean brunette. I found out she had a kid and now she’s sometimes nice to me, but we both know she totally wants me.”

I slapped him hard on the shoulder, chuckling. “Zak! I’m serious. Tell me something.”

He scratched at a spot on his forearm and smiled bashfully down at the table. “I’m not sure what to tell you,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of stupid shit and honestly, I didn’t want to do half of it. But it was all part of keeping up with this image, y’know? It was all a mistake. I gave myself a reputation and in the end I’m not sure if I’m happy with it.”

I frowned and tilted my head. Poor kid. I think now that I gave him an excuse to be himself, he didn’t want to go back to being who he’d always tried to be. He didn’t want to remember that. I wondered if he even could remember it.

“Alright, well, let’s not get depressing so early into the night,” I said, finishing my beer. “Shall I get us another round?”

“Sure,” he smiled at me and I hopped off my seat, rushing over to the bar. I looked back at him while I stood in the short line and he was looking at me, and I felt a little lightheaded and it wasn't from my beer. He gave me that little smile and tipped his drink at me. I just grinned and looked away. I was kind of thankful for the dim lighting, because without it he definitely would’ve seen me blush.



“I can’t believe you were one of those kids who worked in a fast food joint,” I laughed. “That’s so stereotypical.”

“Well fuck, I was 15 and living in Michigan, okay? What was I supposed to do?!” Zak finished off his beer and shook his head at me. “What was your first job then, princess?”

“Oh, me? I worked at an art gallery when I was 16. I had some class, you see.” I put my hand on my chest and fluttered my eyelashes for effect. I just wanted to see how much I could bug him.

He chuckled and looked like he was about to cuss me out for being a smartass, but stopped himself. He looked around the bar, which was getting pretty crowded, and then back to me.

“Hey, do you wanna get out of here? It’s getting pretty noisy.” He nodded his head towards the door.

“Sure, let’s go.” I kneeled down to grab my purse and followed him towards the door.

Once again his hand was lightly pushing me on my lower back but I really didn’t mind. I mean, I used to mind a lot. I hated it when he touched me. But now I liked it. It really comforted me.

We were just out the door when I froze on the steps. He stalled on the sidewalk and looked up at me.

“What’s wrong?”

“How are we going to get anywhere? You can’t drive, you’ve been drinking and so have I.”

“Shit,” he cursed. “Yeah I guess I didn’t really think that one through.”

I knew Zak wasn’t about to leave his fancy car just sitting there, so he looked around for a little while, suddenly darting across the street and causing a car to honk at him. I gasped at his sudden movement and slowly and cautiously crossed the street to tail him. He was talking to some boy sitting on a bench. The boy looked a little lanky, in a dark windbreaker and blue jeans, with short pepper hair and grey eyes. Freckles coated his face and he was looking at Zak in shock as he removed his ear buds.

“Have you been drinking?” Zak asked. I furrowed my brow.

“Um, no, I can’t yet,” the boy said.

“Well how old are you? Can you drive?”

“Yeah, I’m 17.”

“Show me your license.”

The boy dug around in his pocket, producing a leather wallet which he opened. He flashed Zak a license.

“Awesome. I have a proposal for you, kid,” Zak sat down next to him on the bench and got real close. I giggled. “My friend and I here have been drinking, but like the tragic idiots we are, we drove here. Now, we want to be responsible and not drink and drive. We aren’t murderers or anything like that; we just need to get home. So, would you be interested in driving us if I gave you money for a cab when we arrived and, this is the cool part, you get to drive that beast right over there?” He pointed to his car.

The boy looked highly sceptical and freaked out the entire time Zak was talking until he saw the car. Then his jaw dropped open as he admired it. He cleared his throat and looked up at me and then to Zak.

“You’re not going to make me help you rob a bank or anything, are you?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Not at all. I mean, unless you want to. In which case you should bring it up with her, she’s the wild one.” He jabbed a thumb in my direction.

I shook my head when the boy smiled at me.

“Alright, I’ll do it. Where do you live?”

I gave him directions and we got into Zak’s car. I was pretty surprised Zak was willing to let a stranger—a teenager nonetheless—drive his car. He looked totally in love with the thing. But whatever, at least we were getting home. The entire drive there Zak was talking cars with the kid, whose name was Seth. It was a little boring for me but I didn’t expect anything less. I kind of had a buzz going on so I liked just listening to Zak talk. He was really passionate about a number of things, and I liked how he got when they were brought up. He was always so excited and intrigued; he could go on for hours.

Finally we arrived and Seth parked Zak’s car on my street. Zak gave him money to hail a cab, apologized for any inconvenience, and raced up to me. We started to walk towards the door to the apartment and I began to laugh.

“I can’t believe we just trusted a 17 year old boy to drive us home,” I said. “I felt like such a little kid. It was like he’s more responsible than we are.”

Zak just smirked. “Yeah, I know right?”

We were walking in close proximity to one another and I felt his fingers brush my palm. I kind of stalled and looked up at him wondrously. Had he meant to do that? Had I meant to do that? He was looking at me the same way and eventually just lifted his guilty hand to rub his neck.

As I was letting us into my building, I had a question. “Hey, how did you even get in here that first night when you tracked me down? And, come to think of it, the second night too.”

He chuckled. “There was a pizza guy on the first night that let me in and on the second night some other people that I’m presuming live here too held the door for me. Weren’t you just so surprised?”

“A little,” I admitted. “But looking back now I think it was a pleasant surprise.”

He grinned. “I’m glad.”

I pushed open the door to my apartment and sighed in contentment. “Home sweet home,” I said.

“Yeah.”

I opened my freezer and pulled out the peppermint ice cream I’d bought earlier in the week. Zak gave me a mischievous look when he spotted it.

“I’ll get the spoons.”

Needless to say we ate a lot of ice cream. The fact that we weren’t sober really hit us when we started trying to get our spoons to stick to our noses. I succeeded but Zak kept failing and it only got funnier the more he tried. I was laughing while I watched him and suddenly a sharp pain ripped across my temples. I dropped my spoon and squeezed my head with my fingers.

“Ugh, fuck,” I cursed, shutting my eyes tight.

“What’s happening?” Zak panicked. “What’s wrong?”

“Brain freeze,” I groaned. “Shit…”

I felt his warm hands on my jaw. I slowly opened my eyes as the pain gradually subsided and his blue gaze was only a few inches away from my face. I jumped a bit, not expecting him to be that close to me. But still he held my face on him. I watched his eyes drop down my face and my heartbeat quickened.

“Zak…” I warned him, but my voice was barely a whisper. He didn’t even hear me.

His thumb traced my jaw line in a soft, slow pattern. Those eyes found mine once again and they were closer this time, begging for affirmation from me. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t make him stop. I didn’t shake my head. I didn’t push him off of me. I let him get closer. I let my own eyes shut. And I let him kiss me.