Rekindle

2

Throughout the night, we picked up the basis of each other's stories between meeting people, drinking, and messing around. I woke up on the grand piano with a terrible hangover, equally hungover people strewn about like forgotten dolls. A couple somewhat sober guys pushed people along. I stumbled to the bathroom and threw up, immediately. Mostly alcohol barf, but some cereal too. I didn't remember eating any cereal. Or wearing the shirt I had on. I thought it was dark green, not maroon.

Either way, I regretfully held my head in my hands above the toilet, spitting up bile.

Friday, 10:47 PM

"No way."

"Swear on my life."

Bridget took another sip of wine, the two of us in a quiet and regal study. A thin, spindle-legged table and matching chair stood front and center, clean enough to perform surgery on. Bookshelves lined the left and right walls, carpet a deep, velvety red. The walls were decorated with an ornate black, gold, turquoise and blue paisley paper: pretty sophisticated for the amount of illegal activity that was being done a floor below, and the dirty dancing a floor below that. We kept the lights off and let the moon shine through the bay window to illuminate the room in a sharp glow.

I continued to stare outside at the vast expanse of forest, comfortably nestled into the alcove. Bridget set her wine down on the desk and walked over. I scrunched my legs up to give her room to sit. She smiled and said, "You're absolutely perfect."

"Oh, undoubtedly," I replied, laced with sarcasm.

"No seriously," she started, shooting up and pacing the room again. "You have experience. You're definitely off. Maybe sociopathic, maybe just insane, but you have just the right amount of sadistic demeanor to be beneficial. Plus, it sounds like you're a melee kind of fighter if I'm correct." Bridget turned to me for an answer.

I swung my legs over and faced her. "I don't know, I guess. Knives and hand to hand is what I've had experience with."

"Yes," she muttered to herself, returning to her pacing. "Yes, an all-around. Yeah, that's just what we could use." She abruptly stopped her pacing again and threw her arms up. For a second I thought she was disappointed in my résumé of sorts, but a wide smile slowly found its way across her face. "Where have you been my whole career?"

"Oh, that's not even half of it," I said, hopping down and grabbing the wine bottle off the desk. I read the label: Opus One, 1998. "Wait, you've had this wine since you were born?" I asked, forgetting about the rest of my sentence.

Bridget chuckled and took the bottle from my hand, reading the label for herself. "No, no, bought this a while ago. Little early to drink it, but still the best damn wine I've ever had." She gave the bottle back to me, plucking her glass up and raising it high. "To prosperity," she regally announced, grinning. "And the illegal drug industry."

I raised the whole bottle up and clinked it with her glass. "Cheers."

"Cheers."

Without a second thought I took a swig from the bottle, unfamiliar with alcohol's new identity. I think Bridget was right though, even if I knew nothing about grapes or Europe or old barrels—it was some pretty damn good wine.

Saturday, 12:33 PM

I rinsed and spit for the last time, still swallowed whole by a record-setting migraine. A blues tune was being played on the piano, some hungover girl trying to flirt with an equally wrecked pianist, stockings ripped and mascara smeared all the way down her cheeks. She started to loudly announce her woes to the placid pianist, more tears forming in her eyes, voice raising to an octave I had never heard in my goddamned life. Each complaint was about that bitch at the bar last week. A shitstained whore, to be clear.