Solar Flare was Beatrice’s favorite pub, which was the whole reason I even knew of its existence. It was classic rock themed, and mostly neon lit, inside and out. The second floor had billiard tables and even old-school arcade machines. I was often told that I do not look like I belong in such a place, but I actually found the ambiance relaxing. The price range too, wasn’t too high, which spoke in its favor.
I arrived there at five to nine, and found that the pub was already getting lively, which was uncommon. Its busiest hours were between 11pm and 1am. I often liked to arrive early, just after opening hours, if possible, and leave once it got too crowded, but by the looks of it, avoiding crowds that day wasn’t going to be entirely possible.
I asked Rick, the manager, to check if my usual table was already occupied, and was told to wait at the lobby.
“Well, hello, miss Belladonna,” I looked to my side and saw that Valerie was already there. She was doing that thing again, where she pretended to be a sexy temptress on the prowl. “That’s a poisonous flower, you know. Did you pick it in hopes of getting other people intoxicated with your poison? Should I be worried about it?”
I giggled, finding her temptress voice a little funny. “I didn’t. That’s my actual surname.”
“Bullshit!” she laughed, dropping the act.
“I kid you not!” I took my ID from my purse, and handed it to her.
“Bloody heck, it’s true,” she had her eyebrows raised as she inspected the card. “Lucky bastard, I wish I had a family name like that…” then she stopped for a moment. “You’re twenty-five?”
“You seem surprised,” I remarked, before taking the card from her hands and putting it away.
“Well, yeah! You look like a college freshman.”
I laughed heartily at that.
“Excuse me,” said the manager. “Sorry for interrupting your conversation,” he told Val, very politely, and then turned to speak to me: “Hey, Gigi, your table’s been vacated, so you’re good to go. Can I bring you the usual?”
I felt slightly disconcerted at being called that in front of Valerie.
“No, thanks, Rick. I’ll just have some lager tonight.”
“I want her usual!” Valerie surprised us, saying. “You’re Rick, right?” she asked the manager. “Can I get Gigi’s usual?”
I frowned, but Rick nodded in agreement, before going back to the bar. I looked at Val and nudged my head sideways, asking her to follow me.
I always sat at the farthest table by the window, if I could choose. That’s because it’s usually also the farthest from the noise and the confusion at the dance floor, and the music wasn’t too loud there, so it was easier to make conversation. Also, that was close to where Rick usually stood, and we had a code for him to rescue us in case some nasty drunk guy began hassling me or Beatrice.
Usually, I sat there with Bea. This time, I was with a beautiful stranger who also liked girls. I can’t say I disliked that turn of events.
“So… what’s with the nickname?” she asked me, once we had sat down.
“It’s just a nickname. No story behind it, or anything.”
“It’s cute,” she admitted, “but I don’t think it suits you. It’s nowhere near as pretty as Giulia.”
Hearing Valerie say that made me somewhat embarrassed, so I tried to shift the focus of the conversation off myself.
“Why Sunset, then?” I asked her. “I know that it isn’t your family name.”
“Ooohh, so you’ve done your homework, I see,” she joked, before explaining it in a more serious tone: “Sunset’s my mother’s old stage name. After she passed away, I adopted it for myself as a tribute. Something like that?”
Rick chose that moment to arrive with our drinks. He handed me a mug of beer, and placed a familiar drink in front of Valerie. She sipped it, looking surprised.
“Is this gin?” she asked.
“And tonic, yes,” I informed her.
She giggled. I raised my eyebrows at her, wondering what in that situation she regarded as funny.
“Sorry, sorry… it’s just… you don’t look the type. You look like one of those teenage girls who only ever drink at parties. I had assumed your usual drink was going to be something very colorful with fruits and syrup.”
“Never judge a book by its cover,” I told her, sipping my beer.
“Can we swap?” she asked me. “I’m not fond of gin.”
I agreed, and replaced her drink with my mug of beer. She drank a large swag of it, and sat back, relaxing.
“Ahhh… much better.”
I took a sip of my drink, and decided to make small talk. “How’s the band doing?” I asked her.
“Good. Very good, actually. We’re getting the last couple of songs done for our new album.”
I nodded, absentmindedly, and realized I had to say something. “Err… Congratulations?”
She chuckled. “You really aren’t a fan of ours, are you?”
I shook my head, honestly, and smiled. “Not really, in fact. What gave me away?”
“Well,” she began to tell me, “usually when we tell fans that we’re recording new songs, they go all hyper and start begging us for more details.”
“Fair enough,” I told her. That was definitely the kind of thing Beatrice would have done, had she been there in my place.
“So,” said Val, “what were you doing that time at the arena? You never told me.”
I shrugged. “You want the truth?”
“And nothing more.”
I took another sip of my drink.
“My friend’s a fan of you guys. Of you all in general, and of ZAK in particular. She was looking sad after a breakup, so I told her I’d get her an autograph from him to cheer her up.”
That seemed to surprise her. She flashed me a sly smile.
“My, aren’t you the dedicated friend? What? Are you trying to get in her pants?”
Val’s comment made me wince. “You know,” I snapped at her, “you really sound like a jerk when you start assuming things about other people like that. It’s not like everything in my life revolves around sex, Valerie.”
Valerie seemed unfazed. She only smiled.
“Tell me I’m wrong, then.”
I averted my gaze, distraught. There was an awkward moment of silence between us.
“…she’s straight,” I told her, finally.
Valerie laughed. “I knew it.”
“Shut up!” I said, blushing.
“Ohohohoho, Gigi, you’re so predictable. Was it her you mentioned that night after the concert? The one you went to pick up at the arena?”
I sighed. “Yep, that’s the one.”
“Ahh, poor Gigi. Cheer up, girl, she’ll be yours someday.”
“What part of ‘she is straight’ you didn’t get?”
“Well, if that doesn’t work out for you, there’s always other people who would be interested,” she looked away from me, and sipped her beer to hide her embarrassment.
Nobody could accuse Val Sunset of not making it clear when she wanted something. Or in that case, someone.
I watched her in silence for a bit, her blushing face really was the cutest.
“Don’t call me Gigi,” I told her, after a while, “and maybe I’ll think about it.”
She giggled. “You really are playing hard to get, aren’t you?”
I smiled. “Is it working?”
My bold comment actually made Val’s jaw drop.
“Bitch!” she called me, grinning.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I told her, smiling deviously behind my drink.
This time I actually managed to leave her reactionless. Even though she was the one on the offensive ever since we first met, I found out that Valerie Sunset was surprisingly easy to disarm. After a long while, during which she just stared at me with a blank surprised face, and I simply drank my gin nonchalantly and smiled, I decided to ask her something else to shift the topic of our conversation.
“Say… Mind if I ask you a more personal question? Nothing too intimate, of course.”
She seemed to ponder about that for a moment.
“Well, sure, I guess. Go ahead.”
“What made you want to pursue a music career?”
She chuckled. “I get that a lot. Do you want the fancy answer I give to magazines or the actual reason?”
I shrugged. “Both. Start with the fancy one.”
“To pursue my lifelong dream of reaching into the hearts of people with my music,” she spoke as if she’d had it rehearsed beforehand. “To seek kindred spirits with the same desires and demons I have. To help release them from the shackles of an uncaring society, touching their souls as a means of offering them guidance, so that they may one day become better versions of themselves.”
I nodded, appreciatively.
“Poetic. And the actual reason?”
“So, I was a teen and one day I saw this band playing at school, and they had the hottest drummer. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to be like her or if I just wanted to do her, so I went and did both things.”
I grinned. “I can see why you chose to tell magazines the other version.”
“Right?” she smiled as well, and raised her glass in the air to meet mine. I laughed. It was a moment before either of us spoke again.
I drank in silence, staring at her inquiring eyes. She had the loveliest eyes, perfectly matching her olive skin and exquisite complexion. Her unruly hair fell around her face in waves, and gazing at it then eventually made me very tempted to run my hands through it. Her clothes weren’t too revealing, but definitely not what you’d don for a job interview. Her cleavage, in particular, was mildly enticing. I caught my thoughts going back to the recording of her in her swimsuit.
“So…” she began.
I snapped out of my trance. “I’m sorry, did you ask me something?”
She giggled. “Nevermind, then. Do you like what you see?”
It was my turn to blush. I averted my gaze and hid my face in my hands.
“I wasn’t—” I began to say, uselessly.
“Don’t worry. I actually don’t mind if you stare.”
I decided to change the subject again, and asked about her hobbies (apart from music, of course). She asked me what movies I liked, and some other trivial questions of the kind. It was just a friendly talk, like the one I had planned when I invited her out, but with the addition of the occasional light flirting.
We were there for three hours, making conversation and getting to know each other. At some moments it felt like meeting an old friend. At others, tension rose between us and it was like we were both just waiting for the other to make the first move. I didn’t dare, and neither did she.
Three hours past, even though I drank slowly so as not to get drunk, I could already very well feel the effects of alcohol in my system, and I’m sure that for Valerie it must have been the same.
“Tell me something else about yourself,” she asked me, at some point.
“What would you like to know?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Anything. Do you believe in horoscopes? Have you been with girls before? What’s your favorite food? Who would you take to a deserted island?”
“No. Yes. Anything with tomato sauce. And why would I want to go to a deserted island?”
“Wait, which was each of those again?”
We laughed together. That was definitely the alcohol doing.
Valerie Lira and I exchanged glances. I couldn’t help but notice it. At some point during our conversations, there began to sprout something between us whenever we looked at each other like that. A… sort of vibe. Something that drew us closer. It was becoming more and more perceptible every time it happened. This time, it had grown so much that it actually had us both blushing.
Val looked down at her phone, and her smile dropped. “Oh fuck!” she practically yelled, loudly above the music and the ambient noise. “I can’t believe this shit!”
She dropped her phone on the table with a sigh.
“W… what happened?” I asked, concerned.
“There’s a problem with the gig tomorrow. I need to sort out some documents and e-mail them to our manager or they’ll cancel the whole thing. Damn it all! Say, Giulia…” she looked at me with pleading eyes, “…you don’t think there’s anywhere around here where I can use a computer, do you? I… really need to do this. My laptop’s busted and I don’t want to cancel our concert tomorrow.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “At this hour?” I looked at my cellphone screen, which informed me that we were already moving past midnight. A thought occurred to me. “Well… I live just a few blocks away from here, you can use my laptop… if that’s okay?”
“Really?” Seriously, what was that sweet smile? “My god, Giulia, you’re a lifesaver!” Val turned around to call for someone.
“Hey, manager!” she yelled at Rick, who was behind the bar counter. “Can I have the check, please?”
“Just put it on my tab, Rick,” I told him.
Rick gave me a thumbs-up sign. I got up from the table and walked away. Seeing that Val was still on a daze at the table, I turned around, and shouted at her.
“Come on, Val!” I said, laughing.
She shook her head, grinning like an idiot, and followed me.
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