Samantha was right there next to her. Smiling. You know you want it.
One of the men at the counter gave up his stool. Serena slid onto the warm seat and took his place. She was alone and attractive, and the men all noticed her. So did the women. Even the younger ones shot her unpleasant stares, as if new female competition wasn’t welcome. It made her feel good. It made her feel not forty-three years old for a while.
The bartender noticed her, too. He was younger than she was, no more than his midthirties, and he had a tall, lean physique and a very handsome face. He wore his thick, wavy brown hair combed back on his head and short on the sides. His eyes were dark brown, his nose pointed and slim, and he had a long face with a smooth, dimpled chin. He wore a crew-neck T-shirt that fit him like a second skin, revealing muscled arms and a taut stomach. It was warm inside the bar, and his skin had a faint glow of sweat.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
He propped his elbows on the varnished counter and leaned closer, ostensibly to hear her over the noise, but she knew his real goal was to get his face nearer to hers. She didn’t mind. She found herself liking the attention. His smile was wide and confident, and the arch of his thick eyebrows gave him a devilish sexiness. One diamond stud glittered in the lobe of his left ear.
“Are you Jagger?” Serena asked.
The bartender rocked back and studied her with surprise. “I am. Who are you?”
Serena flipped the lapel of her leather jacket to reveal her badge pinned to the pocket. She saw a faint shadow of worry cross his face. Every innocent person saw the badge and wondered what they’d done, but the bartender recovered quickly. His cocky smile returned.
“You’re a cop, huh? I like the look. You’ve got that Mariska Hargitay vibe going on.”
Serena refrained from pointing out that Mariska Hargitay was fifteen years older than she was. “Serena Stride,” she told him. “Curt Dickes gave me your name. He says you may have some information that can help us.”
Jagger chuckled. “You know Curt, huh? Lucky you.”
“I don’t think I’d go that far.”
“Yeah, he’s one of a kind, that’s for sure.”
“Do you have a few minutes to talk?” Serena asked.
He looked around the bar with a frown. “Somebody called in sick, so I’m the only one back here, and it’s still pretty crazy. Tell you what, we close in about an hour. Can you wait until then? At that point, I’m all yours.”
“Sure, I can wait,” Serena said, because she had nowhere else to go.
“Let me get you a drink of something. On the house. Even cops can drink on Saturday night, right? You look like a cosmo girl, and believe me, I make a hell of a good one.”
Serena closed her eyes for a moment, absorbing the atmosphere of the bar. The memories of Las Vegas, of hot nights off the Strip, blew through her like sand on the breeze. Her breath caught in her chest. And just like that, she was gone. Done. No hesitation, no regret, no self-doubt. She’d already known when the day began how it would end. What scared her was how easy it was to throw away years of sobriety, to accede to years of want and temptation. It felt natural, normal, right, as if the last time she’d been drunk was yesterday, and it was no big deal. She could feel how the glass would fit in her hand. She could hear the clink of the ice and smell the scent of lemon like a breath from a California grove. And then the vodka would be cold and smooth sliding into her chest, and all her pain would be banished.
Jagger watched her, as if he could hear some unspoken dialogue going on in her head. “You okay?”
“I’m fine. Give me an Absolut Citron. Two ice cubes.”
“Lady knows what she wants.”
“Yes, she does.”
She watched him walk away like some kind of man-god in his tight shirt and jeans. He grabbed a lowball glass, dropped in exactly two ice cubes. He was a man who knew drinking, knew what customers wanted. His hand reached for the thick Absolut bottle, gave it a little Tom Cruise twirl, and drew it back high over the glass as alcohol spurted from the stainless steel pourer. Serena almost moaned at the sight of it. And then he brought it to her, and his fingers grazed hers as he put it in her hand. The whole experience had a sexual power that felt like electricity exploding in a shower of sparks.
The glass, the liquid, the ice, caught the light. She swirled it. She let it waft into her senses.
6,608.
That was the number. She glanced at the clock on the bar wall and saw that it would be midnight in ten more minutes. One more day. One more number. One more night without a drink. But this time she wasn’t going to make it. There would be no upward click to 6,609. This was the night she’d known was coming sooner or later, the night when nothingness won, but it felt so good to have the drink in her hand that she wondered why she’d denied herself this pleasure for so long.
She brought the glass to her lips and took her first cold, strong, blissful sip. Time melted away, and just like that the new number of the night was in her head.
Zero.
17
Serena had forgotten how high the high was. How amazing it felt. After one drink, which took her no more than a minute or two to finish, she felt as if a lake wave had washed away all of her cares. Relaxation spread through her body, made her skin tingle, made her happy. She felt strong. Confident. She pointed a finger at the man named Jagger, and he read the desire in her face and brought her another drink, which disappeared just as quickly.
The third drink made the second seem distant and far away. The fourth brought a smile that was as wide as the bartender’s. That was the insidious thing. She’d always been a cheerful drunk. There were those who got angry, or morose, or foolish, or numb, but alcohol unlocked Serena. She saw the world more clearly, with a kind of twenty-twenty vision into the recesses of her soul. She’d never felt better or more in control than when she was drunk to the point of oblivion. It was only when the alcohol wore off that she crumbled into nothingness, and cried, and shrank, and screamed. Her head would split open; her stomach would turn over, and she’d wake up covered in her own vomit. But that prospect seemed so far off, so unlikely, so impossible, that she couldn’t worry about it. What mattered was right now, and Serena felt incredible.
“What kind of a name is Jagger?” she asked the bartender in a flirty voice, when it was one fifteen in the morning, and the bar was closed, and they were the only ones left inside. He was cleaning up, wiping down the counter with a towel, and she was watching her seventh drink float in front of her eyes.
“I’m a rolling stone,” he replied.
“Yeah, right.”
“Well, it’s true, actually. I’ve lived in the same apartment in Duluth for about five years, but that’s one of the longer times I’ve spent anywhere. Before that, I was in Boston. Before that, Amsterdam. Before that, Dubai. Before that, Auckland, Honolulu, Bali, a few other places. Before that, Wichita.”
“Wichita?”
“Born and raised and quick to leave at eighteen.”
“Why Duluth? Why not Helsinki or Barcelona or some new exotic place?”
“Why do you think?” Jagger asked, showing her his white teeth again.
“A girl.”
He tapped a finger on his sharp nose. “Ding ding ding. Her name was Dayan. I met her in Amsterdam when our bicycles collided. I moved back to Boston with her, mostly to make her college girlfriends jealous, I think. Then I followed her to Duluth when she had some pipeline to protest. But she got bored of that and bored of me and moved on. I think she’s in Alaska now.”
“Bored of you?” Serena asked.
“I know, hard to figure, right?” Jagger replied with another grin. “I’m still deciding where to go next. For now, I kinda like it here. Anyway, that’s the fun story of my name, but the real story is that I’m called Mick Galloway. Mick became Jagger during one long night with some punk band while I was in Jakarta, and the nickname stuck.”