2002

Spokane, Washington State 

Love was little habits, Joshua would come to learn, and he had plenty of love for the lights of a dying marquee.

It started its heartbeat song. Sure, it didn't sound much like the life-affirming dub-dub. Not at first, at least. No, it was a life-taunting shriek that could be heard close to the entrance in the interlude between two songs.

But goddamn, if it didn't have the spirit of a heartbeat.

The bulbs - those that hadn't been broken by rocks thrown by drunks - started to sing. The news took a while to get through the wire from the box office to the marquee itself, but Joshua spared no time rushing into the rain to see it happen first-hand.

Dub-dub, dub-dub. There it was - not the sound, but the spirit. Light to dark and back again, and then the lights settled on shining for a few moments. Joshua raised his hand like a visor to block out the rain, holding it high on his forehead, not unaware that it looked like a salute as the marquee might finally succumb to closing time.

He smiled. Even as he knew he was being watched.

Joshua blinked twice, hoping that when he turned around, the figure would be gone. November this year had proved kind to many, with an uncharacteristically late wet spell that left all but the farmers happy. Then the downpour started to make up for lost time, flooding roads on the coast and cutting power inland. Here at the bar, that meant the distribution was different, but the average came down to the same. Some would funnel in shaky and wet, and would leave is quickly as they appeared. A hot shower and an early night called to them.

But the youngest and oldest of the drinkers would find something cozy at the bottom of a whiskey glass. By the time the staff started cleaning, started longing for their own beds, liquor-bellies proved sturdy on their seats.

He sighed.

He turned around and waved his hands together in a crossing motion. We're closed, he yelled over the downpour. He couldn't make out much of the man in the dark, but he could make out that his steps forward were about as straight as cursive.

Great.

"Sorry man," Joshua said, louder, hoping that his first words simply got swept in the rain... but suspecting they were rather ignored. "We're closing up for the night."

"You like the lights," the man said.

Joshua couldn't stop himself from swallowing spit and rainwater. He took a step back, trying to get under the marquee. The high-pitch hum was even louder there, and the lights still shone on the tarmac. That meant one thing - that the rusty old switch under the table in the box office had startled, not strangled, them. It happened at least once a week, and because that meant they had reset to full shine, he'd have to fight with the switch until it got the message.

He took another step back. Urgency, and a little discomfort. If everything had gone right, he would have closed the gate at the front door by now.

"Kitchen's closed, bar closed," Joshua said. "Everything's closed."

He took another step back, and the man took one forward, revealing that it was never some tipsy-topsy tread. It was something even more dangerous. A swaying, showy kind of stride that didn't befit anything that wasn't some villain in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Joshua thought he was a little too tall, a little too scrawny, a little too skittish, to be playing bouncer.

He was also broke as shit, so play bouncer, he felt he had to.

"Listen kid," the man said. "I'm just... I'm not here to try my luck. Can I at least..."

He signalled to the roof. He took a step forward, and finally, he was under the screaming light of the marquee. A charcoal suit and well-cut brown hair caught Joshua completely off-guard, but it was his face that gave the most pause. Joshua pretended to wipe some droplets off his cheek, and then he looked back again. No, the man's jaw wasn't as strong as it appeared. It was the trick of a clever shave, a trick of the light.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Yeah, yeah," Joshua stammered. "Yeah, that'd be fine."

The man softened up as he came closer. There, in the box office, where the girls would wear revealing white crop tops even on nights like these, especially on nights like these, where the free-falling Fahrenheit froze everything rock solid. They'd take a couple of bucks from the guys, and they'd smile and tell the girls it was free entry, and then they'd take that metal box filled with hundreds of dollars to the manager after pocketing some spare change. The manager had long-since suspected what they were doing, so one of the bartenders or waiters were stationed outside to watch over the girls.

The girls liked Joshua, because Joshua never told.

And Joshua liked sitting with the girls, because that was where the lights were.

"See?" the man said, combing his fingers through his hair. "Much better."

He was only a foot or two away from Joshua, and Joshua, terrified of revealing something he didn't comprehend himself, looked at the door, saying that his manager was going to be pissed if he let a stranger after closing time.

"Then I'll have to take it up with him," the man said.

"I figured you might want to see him," Joshua said, deciding he had looked left and right too much, and the only option being to look down. "Since you said you don't... you're not here to drink or eat. That, or to use the bathroom."

"I could use a lighter," the man said. "The rain claimed mine."

He took one out, hitting the striker with his thumbs a few times, as if to prove himself.

"I don't smoke," Joshua said.

"Still, you should carry a lighter," the man said. "Easy way to get in on conversations. Someone comes to you and asks you for one? You get to be their saviour. See someone that you find attractive? You head up to them and ask them for a lighter."

Joshua looked up, but the man was looking away. Inside the lion's den, the conversation had turned crass between the other staff members. Liam and Benji were arguing over something to do with a sex scene in a movie, and Jared was making gagging sounds as him and Scott cleaned up some puke behind the bar.

"You always want to work here, kid?"

Joshua rolled his eyes. The man saw it, and Joshua felt rude, but a chuckle broke the tension.

"Of course you don't," the man said. "Riff's Rock Bar. You got a place like this in every town - gets the kids when they're young and poor and desperate for gas money. Before long, they realize it's been five years and they're no closer to getting where they wanted to go."

"You said you could use a lighter," Joshua said.

The man cocked his head to the side.

"You said you could use it," Joshua said. "But that's not why you're here."

Joshua realized his voice was unsteady. It could be easy to chalk it up to the weather, but the stranger had been in the rain longer... and his voice was much more measured.

Confident. Steadfast.

The man smiled.

"Just wanted to know what you like about the lights, is all," he said.

The lights. Yes, the lights. Joshua had plenty to say about them.

"I like the way they shine," Joshua said. "Simple as that."

He had hoped that darting around the sentimental, the sappy, the oversharing, would be the best. But the stranger seemed a little disappointed by the answer, managing only a small smile that showed no teeth. Teeth. His teeth was whiter than his eyes. Joshua had only seen that with his grandmother's dentures, but these didn't look like those. Straighter than nature was inclined to provide, sure, but still natural.

"I'd like to make you an offer," he said. "A crazy one. If you have any sense about you, you'll think it also sounds unsafe. I wanted to ask, if you'd really like to leave this place, well, I'm... I have a venture a little ways out from Seattle. Well, over in Oregon, but still closer to Seattle than Spokane is. It's on an airfield that I'm developing, and I want - frankly, no, I need - some help from people who still give a shit. Old enough to drink but not the kind to drink on the job, I guess you could say."

Joshua had sense. Sense enough to think about an indirect way to reject the offer.

"I... I hate planes, sir," Joshua said, giving an awkward smirk. Sir. Joshua was in his early-20s, but some people just looked like they would always be sir in his mind. Sometimes it was age, but sometimes it wasn't. "Yeah, I don't like planes."

"Then you're perfect," the man said. "And kid?"

"Yes?"

"Don't call me sir," he said. "Nathaniel on my birth certificate, Nathan to close friends, and Nate to those even closer than that."

He chuckled, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a business card. Joshua instinctually reached out to take it. He noticing that his hands were trembling.

He almost jumped back into the wall when the man grabbed his hand.

"I'm handing you this," he said, staring into Joshua's eyes. "But I don't want you to look at it until you get home. Then I want you to sleep on it, look at it again, and only then make a decision. Okay?"

A nod was all that Joshua could muster. Nathan to close friends, Nate to those even closer, he had leaned in when he had grabbed Joshua's hand. Joshua knew what it might look like if Benji or Jared or - God forbid - Liam caught sight of the scene. They'd tease him forever.

Oh fuck. Forever. Here?

Nathan to close friends, Nate to those even closer. He smiled and let go of Joshua's hand. The rain was still falling hard, making the puddles boil, and he was gone just as soon as he had come, leaving Joshua to confront the fact that he had not only frozen up...

He looked down.

The denim jeans were just barely containing the truth. His whole body felt like it was cooling down, revealing that he had gotten warm, no doubt from a heart that wanted to dub-dub so hard it would blow out of his chest.

Blow. Just like the bulbs on the marquee, glass and rain becoming one, as he realized he had forgotten something.

Blow, just like...