Page 107 of Ruthless Claim

The bar smells like old wood and spilled beer and something underneath it. Old places have that smell. The Duke of York has been there since 1868, apparently. I know this because a sign boasts that fun fact the moment you enter the establishment.

She’s already at the bar when I arrive. Dark hair cut blunt across her jaw, showing off sharp cheekbones. Brown eyes that go straight to me when I sit down then back to her drink. She’s drinking something dark—Guinness or stout, I can’t tell in that light. She has a book on the bar that she isn’t reading.

We don’t talk the first night. We are both just there, occupying adjacent space. When I arrive a second day, she actually speaks to me. “You’re not from here.”

“No,” I say.

“What are you doing here then?”

“Work.”

She tilts her head, glossy brown hair falling across her face as she studies me. “What kind of work?”

I look into her dark eyes, trying to figure out her angle. It appears she was just genuinely asking because she’s interested.

But she doesn’t need to know what I do. That’s classified.

“It’s boring.” I take a drink of my Guinness.

She laughs. “That’s what everyone from away says.”

We talk about nothing consequential—the city, the bars, a film she’d seen that she had strong opinions about, whether the bar’s reputation for its whiskey selection was deserved or just tourism. She’s funny in a dry, quick way. She doesn’t push on my career and I don’t ask about hers. We’re both there to not think about our days and we understand that about each other without saying it.

I don’t remember the exact sequence of events that leads to the rest of it. I’m twenty-seven and it has been a very bad week. Claire is interesting and I’m interested in forgetting everything. Her flat is small and smells like coffee and some kind of vanilla candle she has burning on the windowsill. The curtains are not thick enough to block the late northern light.

I go back over and over again for the span of six weeks. Or was it longer? I’m not paying attention as long as it distracts me from work.

When I return home, I think about her occasionally for about a month, then I don’t anymore.

I don’t remember much else. I’ve tried since the phone call to go back and find more than that, and there isn’t more.

She was a person I liked for a short time in a city I was glad to leave.

She’s at the corner table when I walk into the coffee shop in Queens.

It’s a small place, something that hipsters and Gen Z’ers probably love, with mismatched chairs and the smell of burnt espresso layered over something sweeter, a candle or a diffuser somewhere.

It’s quiet as I’ve arrived sometime after the lunchtime rush.

There’s only a couple of people on laptops and the hiss of the machine behind the counter.

Gone is her short bob.

Her dark brown hair is past her shoulders now, with some silver strands glinting in the light. She’s in a gray wool coat over a dark sweater and she’s sitting with a Styrofoam coffee cup in front of her.

There are fine lines at the corners of her eyes that weren’t there before.

She looks like, well, she looks tired.

The past nine years haven’t been that good to her, based on her face.

She sees me and her whole body tightens, like she’s bracing herself.

I walk over to the table as she starts to stand, the reflex you have when someone approaches.

Then she stops halfway. We both realize at the same time what this is: two people who slept together nine years ago and haven’t spoken since.

There isn’t a normal greeting for that.