The Darkest Days

40. Caleb Knows

Caleb's deep green eyes followed the movements of the feminine fingers that glided across the piano keys whilst producing a melodic sound.

Suddenly, a slip of a note made him wince. Then he sympathetically said, "you'll get there, Vanessa."

"I know I will, it's just that it's not happening fast enough." She laughed as Caleb proceeded to walk over and sit beside her.

He played the piece where she had messed up perfectly well. "Listen to the sound transition and I try to remember it."

She tried again only to fail again.

Her lips curved up into a sarcastic smile as she looked him innocently. He laughed and shook his head, "we can always switch to a guitar."

"But I've always thought of this song as a piano ballad. I'm determined to have it that way."

He sighed and stood up. "Well, in that case," he said and walked across the empty bar that had the wooden chairs turned upside down on the wooden tables, "we'll be here a f*cking long time."

"No offense taken." Vanessa called out.

He smiled at her remark and jumped over the bar to grab a deep blue rectangular glass bottle of gin and poured it into two glasses.

When he handed one to Vanessa, she frowned and looked up at him. "No tonic?"

"No tonic and no mixing up a cocktail."

"But it'll be bitter.."

"Blue Coat is my favorite American gin, from Philly. Not like those medium-grade London dry gins." He said distastefully.

"You seem to know your drinks."

"My dad has a distillery in Texas." Caleb grinned. "I've completely banished tonics from gins. Too often, gin is like coffee: appreciated from afar for its formal qualities, but almost always enjoyed through a thick soup of mixers that dilute and confuse the most delicate flavors."

Vanessa looked at him amusingly. "I never thought about it this way."

"Of course you haven't. Gin was once a common straight drink, up through the 19th century. But it had the bad luck of also being a popular base for cocktails, particularly the martini and the gin and tonic. It's a good bet that many fans of gin think of it so exclusively in terms of these two quaffs that they wouldn't know what straight gin tastes like in the first place."

Vanessa took a sip and hummed. "I'm kinda impressed, Caleb. You really know your alcoholic beverages."

"Well, it's a mere means to woo women." He smirked.

"Consider it working." She smirked back.
He playfully gasped. "Did Vanessa Pierce just flirt back with me?"

She chuckled. "No. Some alternate version of her did. Vanessa is gone somewhere and sleeping."

"Good enough for me."

She rolled her eyes. "A**."

"On a serious note," he finished his drink, "why am I talking to the alternate Vanessa and may I have the original one back, please?"

"We just landed back from Barcelona this morning, and then the whole day in the studio, I'm just.. exhausted beyond recognition."

"Oh, yeah. How was the mid-tour, uncalled for Barcelona trip?"

"Outer worldly." She said before telling him the whole story. "..that s*x party was nuts, and I really don't know what the deal with my white outfit was." She concluded.