Page 43 of Later Bloom

“Uh, yeah, no, it’s fine. Thanks for the tip. It should hold me off for a minute.”

“Right.” She hears herself say, “Sorry, again,” and she knows she shouldn’t.

“Okay. You don’t have to apologize.”

Aubrey hums around a tangy sip of her drink. She decides to switch strategies. “I’m not very good at this,” she confesses, hoping for a bit of sympathy, maybe a little bonding.

He ventures, “Speaking?”

“Yes. With strangers, I mean. But I’m trying to go all-in with exposure therapy.”

His face is hard to read. Aubrey’s humour feels wrong, and her tone is off. She watches intently for a smile, even a small one.

Finally he says, with a hint of a smirk, “I don’t really trust people who are good at talking to strangers.”

“Well, there you go, then.” Aubrey indulges in her drink again, for courage. “I’m Aubrey, by the way. If it helps with the whole strangers thing.”

“Sure, yeah. I’m Arjun.”

“Are you having a good time tonight, Arjun?” She fidgets with her paper straw. She’s nervous but in a good way, her foot shaking against the stool and the lump in her throat sitting right where it usually does when things get interesting.

Arjun says, “I am, yeah. I just got here, but no complaints so far.”

Aubrey considers looking back at Florence, or maybe pulling out her phone again, but instead she nods and smiles and thinks this is what she ought to be doing, at this very moment.

“That’s good. Amazing.” Hopefully she’s enough of a stranger to this man that he won’t notice the way her tone is just a little off. She smiles wider and takes another swig of her drink. Then she confesses very quickly, “You know, I get really nervous talking to guys like this. Like I’m not sure what to say or ask next.”

Arjun’s smile softens then. He says, “You could ask if I come here often. In a less overdone way, I’d assume.”

“Right, okay. But then, what would I say to that? Would it indicate anything about you for me to know this?”

“Well, maybe, if you go out very often, or if you don’t.”

All Aubrey finds to respond is, “Right,” which sucks.

“Or you could make another quirky comment about how terrible you are at this.” Arjun shrugs, and the jab would sting if he didn’t seem ever so amused by the situation. Or at least it’s what Aubrey hopes, her fingers wet around her cold glass and her outfit just a little too tight in all the wrong places. She says, “It’s really not any kind of move, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I think anything can be a kind of move on the right person.”

“Ah. Is that implying something?”

“I just mean, I also get nervous talking to women, and I also happen not to know what to say next. So in a way this is good, but also very bad, because it appears we’ll hit a dead end.”

“Mm. But we can bond over this, how terrible this whole ordeal is. Going up to random people with nothing but sheer luck on your side, and saying hey, nice to meet you, I’ve decided to talk to you based solely on the way you look just now, and I’m hoping somehow you’re someone I’ll enjoy conversing with.”

“Yeah, you do make it sound appealing. If you ask the guys I’m with, they’d say it doesn’t really matter what the person has to say, so long as they’re easy on the eyes and ready to rehash the same surface-level topics on a somewhat continuous loop until you end up sucking face.”

“Oh, so I should go and talk to them, then.”

“Yeah,” Arjun says through soft laughter, with a nod and a look that catches the light around them. “Well, anyway. I don’t want to hold you off any longer.”

Aubrey wants to tell him he’s not, but there’s something in the way he says this that suggests it’s not the right answer. So she smiles and nods and says, “Nice chatting, Arjun.”

“Yeah, same.” He looks away now when he speaks, but once in a while he glances over. “Sorry, it’s—I’m with these guys there, and I’m mostly sticking around just to feel a little less like a hermit, so they get off my case about never leaving the house. I’m not really looking to—well. You know.”

“Right. Of course.”

Aubrey loses him for a second when he leans over the bar to order something from the bartender. It’s only for a moment, but she wonders if it’s her cue to leave, and why can’t she bring herself to. She says, almost to herself, “Well, have fun with the guys.”