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It had been a while since Alex Kwong had been out on a Saturday night. At least a month, maybe more. He hadn’t planned to go out tonight, either, but then his friend Jamie had called—yes, called, not just texted—and insisted Alex go to a bar with him and his girlfriend.
Frankly, it would probably be good for Alex to get out of the apartment. Have a few drinks, see some people, talk about nothing in particular.
He’d just changed into a polo shirt when there was an unexpected knock on his apartment door. It was his father, carrying a large cardboard box full of food.
Alex shut his eyes for a moment. “Dad, I’m going out tonight.”
“That’s okay. I won’t be here long.”
Dad set the box on the kitchen table and started pulling things out. First was some char siu—barbecued pork. There was always char siu. Then bok choy, green beans, mushrooms, three pomelos...
“They were on sale,” Dad explained.
That hadn’t needed to be said. If there were three pomelos, of course they’d been on sale, but due to their large size, they were rather awkward for a single person to eat.
And Alex lived alone. As did his father.
Once upon a time, Dad wouldn’t have dared to stop by without calling first, and he never would have brought an enormous box of food, but things were different now.
Alex wished they weren’t, but they were.
He dug out some small cartons of Vitasoy and a bottle of sesame oil from the box. “You brought me sesame oil last time.”
“Did I?” Dad said absently as he removed the last thing from the box: a package of frozen wontons.
“It takes me a while to use up a bottle of sesame oil.”
Dad merely grunted.
“What’s new?” Alex asked.
Dad shrugged.
Conversations with Dad were often irritating. Alex would try to ask questions, try to keep the conversation going—not something that came naturally to him—and his father would fail to do his part.
Yet he kept coming around with these unnecessary boxes of food.
Once they were finished putting the food away, Alex crossed his arms over his chest and regarded his father. The older man was looking a bit thin, and Alex felt like he should be the one bringing food to his father, not the other way around.
“How’s work?” he asked, because he needed to say something.
“Same.” Dad shrugged again. “Do you have a date tonight?”
Alex shook his head. “Just going out with friends.”
“Right.” More silence. “Well, it was good to see you. I’d better be going.”
Before Alex could reply, his father was gone.
Well, time to head out to The Thirsty Lumberjack.
* * *
Iris and Crystal had started their night at Elle Cocktail Bar, but Iris had the impression it didn’t get busy until eleven o’clock or later, and she didn’t want to wait around that long. Plus, there was a loud bachelorette party at the front. She could tell it was a bachelorette party because one girl was wearing a flimsy white veil on her head and a black shirt that said “bride” in enormous electric pink letters. The other women in the group were wearing white shirts with pink letters that said “Krissy’s Bachelorette Party.”
Seemed like a waste to get shirts made just for this occasion. Iris certainly hadn’t done that when she’d thrown Rebecca’s bachelorette party last year.
Though she’d hired some male strippers.
Crystal Cameron had been at Rebecca’s bachelorette party, too. The three of them had hung out all the time when they were at U of T, and they’d lived together in their upper years. Crystal, like Rebecca, had studied electrical engineering, and she’d been the only black woman in electrical engineering in their year. She’d done a master’s degree and now worked for a large engineering firm, whereas Rebecca had left engineering entirely and was preparing to be a stay-at-home mom. Rebecca hadn’t gone out with them quite as often since she’d met Elliot, especially now that she was pregnant. Iris had invited her tonight, but she’d declined, saying something about making a fish mobile for her baby-to-be.
Iris would definitely prefer to be drinking at a bar than making a fish mobile, but Rebecca couldn’t drink right now, and she’d always enjoyed arts and crafts. She’d also said something about “nesting,” whatever that was.
“This place isn’t doing it for me,” Iris said, taking a sip of her fruity cocktail.
Just then, another woman in a white shirt with pink letters ran into the bar and threw her arms around the bride-to-be, and they both squealed and jumped up and down.
How on earth were these people old enough to get married?
Yeah, definitely not the vibe Iris had been hoping for tonight.
“I agree,” Crystal said. “Not enough men.”
“Definitely not enough men.”
There were a small number of men in the bar, but they all seemed to be on dates. Probably not dates arranged by their mothers or grandmothers. Lucky them.
After being bugged about her single status all afternoon by her family, Iris wanted to take advantage of it by going home with a guy and having meaningless sex. Once she lived with her grandmother, one-night stands would probably be off the table. Ngin Ngin claimed she wouldn’t ask questions and Iris could stay out as late as she liked, but Iris had no intention of staying out all night once she moved in with Ngin Ngin.
Why had she agreed to this?
Filial piety. Guilt. Money.
Something like that.
Iris could just imagine the scene if Ngin Ngin woke up at eight in the morning and discovered Iris wasn’t in her room. She’d call Iris’s father or the police. And obviously Iris wasn’t bringing any men to stay over at Ngin Ngin’s.
So she was going to have her fun while she could.
“I’ve got the perfect idea,” Crystal said. “The Thirsty Lumberjack on King Street. There will be no shortage of men at a craft beer bar.”
“I don’t know if they’ll be the right sort of men.”
“Come on. The bearded lumberjack look has really been doing it for me lately.”
“You do realize that being called The Thirsty Lumberjack doesn’t guarantee there will be any bearded lumberjack dudes there, don’t you?”
“Stop spoiling my fun. There’s got to be at least one. We’ll go there for a few hours, then maybe head out dancing if nothing suits our needs.”
“I bet it’ll be full of skinny men in toques rather than strapping mountain men.”
“You won’t know if you don’t try,” Crystal said.
This was true. It was worth a try. Definitely better than hearing Krissy and her over-enthusiastic friends squeal every five minutes.
Fifteen minutes later, they were standing at the bar in The Thirsty Lumberjack. Iris felt a little overdressed. She was still wearing the blue dress she’d worn to the wedding. She’d thought about changing, but this dress did amazing things to her boobs, and in the end, she’d just settled for touching up her make-up. Crystal was wearing high black boots, a short skirt, and a cream shirt with sequins, and she also seemed a bit overdressed.
Iris felt rather conspicuous. They weren’t dressed right, and practically everyone else here was white. And a beer fan.
Iris was not much of a beer fan, and yet here they were.
She ordered some sort of raspberry beer, which turned out to be surprisingly good, and Crystal went with a gose, whatever that was.
“Try it,” Crystal said, handing over her glass. “It’s not bad.”
Iris had a sip and wrinkled her nose. “It tastes terrible. Like drinking someone’s sweat.”
“I’d happily lick his sweat.” Crystal nodded at a scowling man in the corner. He was wearing jeans and a red flannel shirt, and he had a bushy beard that was somewhat reminiscent of the dwarves in Lord of the Rings. “He’s the perfect lumbersexual.”
“‘Lumbersexual’ isn’t a thing,” Iris said. “You just made that up.”
“I swear! I didn’t.” Crystal pulled out her phone to prove it.
Okay, fine. It was a thing.
But it wasn’t what Iris was in the mood for tonight.
* * *
Alex looked around The Thirsty Lumberjack. The name seemed apt, given the bar was full of hipsters with beards wearing flannel shirts, though most of them probably weren’t fit enough to do any serious wood chopping. A few were wearing toques, even though it was summer.
Alex shook his head in disgust. He didn’t approve of men wearing scarves and toques just for appearances.
He sighed and got a table at the back. Since Jamie wasn’t here yet, he perused the list of beers on the chalkboard, but nothing really caught his interest. He hated IPAs and sours, and why on earth was gose a thing now?
What the hell was he doing here?
He read through the list again and settled on an oatmeal stout. When the waitress came around, he placed his order.
His dad’s visit had put him in a bad mood, and he felt guilty about that. It was a ten-minute surprise visit from his father with an unnecessary box of food. No big deal.
But things didn’t feel quite right between them anymore.
The waitress came back with his beer, and he sipped it as he waited for Jamie and Eve. Indie rock music was playing, but it was mostly drowned out by all the loud conversations around him—the acoustics in this place were crap. The table behind him was having a loud conversation about movies, and he wanted to yell at them. Instead, he clenched his jaw and said nothing. He looked around for a TV, hoping to watch a baseball game, but unfortunately, this seemed to be one of those pretentious beer bars that thought it was too good for a television.
Wait—he’d been wrong about that. There was a television in the corner, but it was playing an old black-and-white movie. No subtitles, though. What was the point of that? He wouldn’t be able to follow the story. Perhaps he’d check some baseball scores on his phone instead.
“Alex!”
Good. He wouldn’t need to sit here alone anymore.
Jamie gave him a hearty slap on the back before sitting down across from him. Eve sat next to Jamie.
Jamie Tsang was a friend of Alex’s from high school. He almost always wore a cheerful smile, and he was almost always late. He worked in IT. Eve Appleton was his girlfriend of six months. She had blonde hair and blue eyes and, in Alex’s opinion, a slightly annoying laugh, but he tried not to hold that against her because she really was a nice person. She’d even managed to do what Alex had thought impossible, which was to get Jamie talking about kids and marriage and settling down. They’d moved in together a few weeks ago.
“How’s it going?” Jamie asked.
Alex shrugged. “Same old. My dad stopped by today with more food.”
“How is he?” Eve asked.
“I don’t know. Okay, I guess.”
“And you?” She smiled at him and reached over to touch his hand.
He supposed he liked that she asked him. Nobody else did, now that it had been eight months, but he never knew how to respond. He couldn’t put it into words.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. It was simpler that way.
His mom was dead, and he was going along with life because there was nothing else to do. She’d had cancer, and the prognosis hadn’t been good...and four months later, she was gone. Now it was just Dad, Alex, and his younger brother, Stuart, who lived in Calgary.
It was all wrong, but it was life.
He went to work like he always did, he went to the gym every day, he ate dinner in front of the television. He saw his friends on occasion.
He glanced at his watch. One year ago today, he’d learned that his mother was almost certainly going to die.
Jamie and Eve looked at the blackboard with the list of beers.
“What’s gose?” Eve asked.
“It’s pronounced goes-uh,” Alex said, “and it tastes like shit. Like sour, salty water with a bad aftertaste.”
“He’s not to be trusted,” Jamie said. “He doesn’t like IPAs.”
“I wouldn’t mind so much if there weren’t so damn many of them. Look at the menu. One porter, and seven IPAs.”
“What are you drinking?” Eve nodded at his beer.
“Oatmeal stout.” Alex slid it across the table, and Eve tried it and made a face, which Jamie seemed to think was adorable.
Jamie ordered an IPA—of course he did—and Eve ordered a cider. When she circled her hand around her glass, Alex immediately saw the ring.
“You’re engaged?” he asked.
She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “We are.”
“Congratulations.” Alex meant it, he really did, though he suspected his tone of voice didn’t exactly express that. “When were you going to tell me?”
Eve turned to Jamie. “I told you he’d notice.” She turned back to Alex. “My fiancé was convinced you wouldn’t notice the ring, so we agreed to give you half an hour to see who was right.”
Alex stood up and hugged Jamie, then Eve, but he felt a little robotic as he did it. He sat back down and had a long sip of his beer and tried to remember what the right thing to say in this situation was.
“Have you set a date?” he finally asked.
Eve shook her head. “Hopefully next summer, but we have a lot to figure out.”
“Right,” Alex said. “I bet Jamie wants to get married at sunset under a great white tent, surrounded by thousands of tropical flowers and twinkling fairy lights.”
Eve gripped Jamie’s arm. “Alex has the best ideas, doesn’t he? We should do that. I’ll ride in on a pony! What other ideas do you have, Alex?”
“Um. A unicorn?”
“If Eve can find a real unicorn, it can participate in the ceremony,” Jamie said, “but people in costume do not count. Nor do stuffed animals. Or ponies with horns taped to their heads.”
“While we’re on the topic,” Eve said, “I found a great store on Queen Street the other day. Everything it sells is unicorn- or rainbow-themed.”
And that was how a night out with his friends turned into a twenty-minute discussion about rainbows and unicorns. Alex had very little to contribute. He sipped his beer and looked around the bar, wondering what black-and-white movie was playing on the television and why they couldn’t show a baseball game instead.
“Do you think he’s mad at us for talking about unicorns?” Eve asked in a not-so-hushed voice.
“I assume so,” Jamie said, “and, frankly, I’ve said everything I can on the topic.”
“All you did was repeat the word ‘no’ a lot.”
“I’m glad you were listening. Hey, Alex.”
He turned his head. “What?”
“You know what you need?” Jamie asked, then gave him no chance to answer the question. “A woman.”
“Yes!” Eve said excitedly. “We’re going to find you a woman tonight!”
“What is this woman for?” Alex asked. “To marry? To date? Or for a one-night stand?”
Eve shrugged. “Any of the above.”
“You can’t predict what will happen,” Jamie said, then kissed his fiancée on the lips.
Those lovebirds really ought to get a room.
“What about the hipster girl at the back?” Eve nodded toward a brunette with large glasses and a toque. Her beverage was bright red.
“No,” Alex said. “I’m not interested in anyone who wears a winter hat indoors in the summer and who’s drinking something that looks like liquid Jolly Ranchers.”
Eve rolled her eyes. “The woman with the pixie cut?”
“What the hell is a pixie cut?”
“The woman in the brown dress.”
She was decent-looking, and it looked like she was drinking the same thing as he was...and she was now kissing another man.
Okay. That was a no.
He couldn’t say he was terribly disappointed. He wasn’t in the mood for this, to be honest. Too complicated. Too much effort.
Eve looked over at him. “You’ve sure been working out a lot lately.”
“Shh,” Jamie said. “You’re not supposed to pay attention to any man but me, babe.”
“Aww, jealous, are you?” She slid into the seat next to Alex. “Can I see your abs? Do you have a six-pack? An eight-pack?”
“Um...”
She was right, though. He’d been working out a lot. Sometimes twice a day on the weekend. It felt good to push his body these days, even more so than usual.
Eve wrapped her hand around his bicep. “Flex for me.”
He did as requested, though he felt a little ridiculous.
And that was when he saw her. An Asian woman, perhaps Chinese, at the far end of the bar, with black hair and a dark blue dress that ended around her knees. She was laughing at something her friend had said, and she put her whole body into the laugh, and it was just fucking gorgeous. She had an expressive face and pink lips he yearned to kiss.
Her.
Yes, her.
He didn’t want a date. He didn’t want a relationship. He didn’t want any complications.
He just wanted her for tonight.