It was just one of those off nights. It was the kind I was hoping not to have for the duration of our time in this God forsaken city. But that was just silly wishful thinking. Rich had been my best friend for the last seven years, and up until six months ago, my boyfriend for the last two years. We were in a transition phase now, going back to a relationship of just friends. Tonight was one of the nights where we had difficulty on our journey of getting back there, just three days into our extended stay in a new city. Under normal circumstances, people in our situation would move on separately. They didn’t have to keep hanging out. They didn’t even have to be civil to each other. But our circumstances were different. There was more on the line. We were bandmates.

My friends and I started a band when we were 16. Rich and I shared vocal duties. He played keyboard and sometimes percussion. I always played bass guitar. We made it out of our local coffee shop, out of the skatepark, out of the community hall, out of Victoria. My three closest friends and I—we went on tour with our other friends throughout Canada. We added another band member along the way. We managed to go on tour through a good portion of the United States. We hadn’t been home for more than a few months at a time since we were 19, and we were happy. Somewhere along the way Rich and I decided we would be even happier if we were together. And for a long time we were.

My breakup with Rich was amicable. That was probably what made it harder. I didn’t have any ill will toward him. I just knew that our relationship, as a couple, it stopped working. We both knew it. We probably held on for longer than we should have just because it was so comfortable. But breaking up still sucked. It still hurt. And I knew in my heart Rich and I weren’t just returning to friendship for the sake of the band. It was so Tragic Kingdom. We still needed each other. We relied on each other. But that didn’t mean, post-breakup, there weren’t times when we wanted to strangle each other.

Tonight, for instance, he wanted to change venues and go to a house party. I wanted to stay where we were so we didn’t look like assholes the next morning, when we had to spend the whole day working on a demo. Neither of us wanted to budge.

We were in the very early stages of putting out a new album. Our producer, a transplant Californian who was actually a Canadian, promised to record our album at a 60% rate of his normal studio fees. There was one condition: we had to record the album in the new studio he’d finished building over the summer. In Edmonton.

Grant, our producer, lived and produced in LA for most of the year but a vacation home on the prairies of Alberta turned into more when he realized its potential. Grant bought an acreage property on the outskirts of town, in nearby Sherwood Park. It was a tiny old ranch, one of the few pieces of land so close to Edmonton proper that hadn’t been developed into one of the newer Sherwood Park subdivision-like communities. Over the last few summers, he’d taken to the task of completely insulating and heating the barn, then turning it into a multi-room recording studio. Having finally completed his labor of love, Grant was excited and eager to record a whole album basically in his own home. Plus, his wife was six months pregnant—they weren’t heading southward until after their baby was born.

My band and I had just finished a small gig at a bar in downtown Edmonton, a 25-minute drive from Grant’s place, Prairie Barn Studios. We intended to stay busy and active throughout the process of recording our new album. Whether we were in Los Angeles or Edmonton, we wanted to play a couple of our songs for an audience at least once a week, no matter if they responded or not. Playing our music live was our lifeblood.

Once our gear had been loaded back into the tour van, and once I’d argued with Rich for a couple of minutes, I took a seat at the bar, frustrated. We’d grown up in Victoria and moved to Vancouver shortly after we graduated from high school. Either way, Edmonton was a pretty long way from home and since we were only temporary residents for eleven weeks, of course we were travelling as a band. If Rich wanted to leave to go to a party, with our three other bandmates and our van, and if I was stubborn enough to stay where I was, I was going to have to figure out a way back to the ranch on my own.

And I was stubborn enough. It was one of those nights.

Jack, the bartender that we’d met earlier in the evening, produced my small canvas backpack—which doubled as my purse—from under his side of the bar once I sat down in front of him. He nodded when I smiled my thanks. I unzipped the front pocket and pulled out my two drink tickets. Earlier in the night, before the live music had started, he’d handed them out to all of the bands that were getting stage time.

I glanced at the person beside me. He’d pulled his elbow in toward his chest when I sat down and started cluttering the bar top, as if he didn’t want to impose on my personal space, even if I was taking over some of his. He was too close for me to see any distinct features out of the corner of my eye. I saw large knuckles nursing a beer. That didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

“Can I get a beer—Kokanee—and a whiskey sour?” I asked Jack.

“You got it,” he answered and went to work, sweeping my drink tickets off the bar.

The Kokanee appeared in front of me quickly. Jack slid my cocktail across the bar once he’d mixed it. The friction of the wooden surface stopped it right at my wrist without spilling. I wondered to myself if he’d gone to bartending school and if they taught any physics there for him to get that skill down perfectly.

It was the first night in a couple of weeks since I’d last sung in front of an audience and the sour in my whiskey felt good going down my throat with my first sip. I sat silently, facing the neon Corona Extra sign on the brick wall, while I drank and wondered how I was going to get back to the band’s digs.

Sherwood Park wasn’t the easiest place to get to without a car. It was a Wednesday, which meant that there was transit access between the hamlet and the city, but only during peak hours. I could take a cab, which would cost me about half a month’s worth of my savings for my whole stay in Alberta. More practically, I could just text Parker, the drummer of my band, and designated driver for the night, and ask him for the address of wherever they were. Surely the party was within city limits, and maybe by the time I got there on the bus the guys would be ready to pile into our van and call it a night. Of course, if Rich was drunk, we would probably argue again.

The whiskey was polished off and I was halfway through my beer when I was disturbed from my own thoughts. “Can I buy you another drink?”

It was the guy to my right, the one with the wide knuckles. I turned my head sideways, facing him. It was dark in the bar. His eyes were light. He was one of those “guy’s guys”—classically handsome, well built, probably enjoyed fishing trips on statutory holidays. He probably had a RRSP. He was a little bit lumberjack and a little bit clean cut: a good portion of his face was covered in stubble that looked to be the beginning of a successful beard, no visible tattoos or piercings, and very run-of-the-mill short hair. He wasn’t the kind of guy that usually offered to buy a drink for a girl like me. Not that I was unconfident (or overconfident, for that matter) about any of my features, but guys like him usually went for the girls that were on trend and legs for days.

I smirked. This could be fun.

“What if I want to do shots?” I asked.

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Then I guess I’ll buy you shots. Whatever you want. But no more Kokanee, okay? Kokanee sucks.”

My laugh was immediate. It wasn’t that I loved the brand of beer I’d ordered twenty minutes earlier, but it was so common throughout all of British Columbia that it was the standard to me. It might have even been the first beer I ever tried in my first experience of underage drinking back in high school. If I’d taken a moment to think about what kind of beer I actually wanted to drink, I probably would have gone with some sort of amber lager.

“You’re not going to drink with me?” I wondered.

“Now who’s going to make sure you make it home safely if I get drunk with you?” he replied to my question with a question of his own.

I smirked. “Wait, you don’t even know my name and you already want to take me home?”

He chuckled. It was a deep, rumbling sound. “I never said that. Getting you home safely and taking you home are two different things.”

My smirk turned into an honest smile. I’d found my ride home. I motioned Jack over.

My hero spoke again. “I’m Ben, by the way.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Ben,” I shook the large palm that he extended to me and briefly got a closer look at his wide knuckles, too. “I’m Delia.”

He was lying about the shots. He did them with me. We did three tequila shots each and I felt calm wash over me, forgetting that I’d even been angry when I first sat down. I did most of the talking after that. I felt like I talked his ear off. He smiled a lot and nodded his head in agreement, or to show that he understood whatever I was hammering on about, about tour and my favorite cities to stop in. He didn’t add much to the conversation but he was a great listener.

After I told him about how being in a band on the road, we had to rely on the kindness of strangers for the majority of our alcohol consumption, and that I could never turn down a free drink, Ben stopped me. “I don’t think you should get drunk tonight if I’m drinking with you.”

I knew what he was thinking and he was right. I was short and curvy in the right places, a pretty small girl, and the Patrón was on top of the cocktail I’d already had. A few more shots and I would be on my way to a hangover in the morning.

“Should we get out of here?” I half-asked and half-suggested.

Ben nodded and produced a credit card from the wallet that came from his back pocket. I gathered the contents of my backpack and strolled outside. It was a cool night, similar to the previous few nights that my band and I had been in town, but thankfully there was no strong breeze. The hum of chatter could be heard along Jasper Avenue, bar and lounge patios still open in the late September air. I wondered where Ben had parked. Parking downtown in any sizeable city had to be a hassle, even in the middle of the work week.

Behind me, a door opened and I heard sounds of the place I’d just come: clinking glasses and billiards balls. Ben was much taller standing beside me than I thought he would be. He was probably a whole foot taller than I was. He wore the cardigan-like jacket that had been draped over the back of the barstool he’d sat on. It looked expensive.

“Where’d you park?” I asked.

“I…” he paused. “I walked.”

My brow creased. “You walked?”

“I live just around the corner.” He pointed across the street at two high-rise residential buildings among the downtown skyline. “The shorter one.”

We walked the distance to the end of the sidewalk of the block we were on. He hit the pedestrian crossing button with his hand a few times. Okay, so he wore nicer clothes than the people I hung out with, bought drinks for strange girls, and lived right in the downtown core. Was he just a Good Samaritan or a creep?

“How do I know you’re not going to murder me?” I quipped.

“What? How do I know you’re not going to murder me?” he echoed. “Don’t think I didn’t see the tattoos you’re hiding under that jacket of yours while your band was playing.”

It was true, I was one of those indie band girls: dyed black hair and mismatched tattoos. I had a half-sleeve on my left arm and a couple of big tattoos on my right forearm, and there were more that he hadn’t seen. There was some assorted ink on my back and on one of my legs, too.

We both laughed, standing under the light cast by the streetlight right above us. I knew that I’d only known him for an hour but I didn’t distrust him. Besides, I’d seen far too many episodes of Law & Order to know that paying for a bar tab with a credit card, like he had done, was an absolute no-no if one planned on committing a crime after. So far what I knew about him was that he’d bought me drinks and lived in a high-rise condo. It didn’t seem creepy. Maybe a little lonely.

Ben held his hand out. “Give me your phone.”

I raised an eyebrow but didn’t ask why. In my buzzed state, it took me a few extra seconds to locate it in the front pocket of my backpack. We were crossing the street as I hit my cell phone’s home button and typed in my passcode after sliding to unlock the screen. I handed it to him.

When we were across the way, under the streetlight of the next street, I stopped again while I waited for him to return the iPhone to my possession. He tapped on the screen a few times, using only one of his thumbs. He held it up in front of me proudly at eye level when he was done, a smile on his face that showed off a row of perfectly straight teeth.

The screen was set on the numeric phone dialog. He’d entered in a short code phone number. There it was, at the top of the screen: 911. I guffawed.

“If you feel worried about your safety at any point,” he chided, “all you gotta do is dial.”

With the shake of my head, I hit the button on the top side of the phone to turn the screen off. I slid it back into the pocket that I’d taken it out of. When I looked back at the man in front of me, he was watching me expectantly, waiting for me to say something or make the next move.

“I don’t think I thanked you for the drinks,” I told him. “And thanks for this…helping me get home.”

He nodded. The reflection of the streetlight make his eyes sparkle when he bobbed his head. They were a pale shade of blue. As I took in the sight of him, I still didn’t know what had compelled him to butt into my business that night. He kind of looked like a grown up jock and here I was in my short polka dot dress, black tights, black-on-black Vans, and Members Only jacket. I took a small step closer to him anyway. He was cute and I was the right amount of buzzed.

“Don’t thank me just yet,” Ben replied with a shrug. “I’m actually pretty new in town too so…”

And there it was. He was a little lonely.

“Ben,” I said softly, touching his arm.

He responded by leaning in and lowering his head, staring, so I knew I was reading the signals right. Our foreheads almost touched. “You have the most adorable nose,” he told me, tone so low that I would have missed the sentence entirely if we weren’t standing so close.

When guys hit on me, and used my appearance to do so, they usually didn’t begin with my nose. The more obvious place to start was with my eyes, bright green, earned from the perfect union of my parents’ ancestry. But my nose, it was entirely from my father, who was a descendant of the Coastal Salish indigenous people. The compliment Ben chose wasn’t exactly what I anticipated he would say. I probably expected something a little dirtier, something about my cherry lipstick or my hips and what they were begging for.

Still, I smirked and leaned forward and upward, so that there was no space in between us. I pressed my lips against his and was met with the slightest taste of tequila on his breath. I kissed him only once, and lightly, so that I could brush it off easily if he didn’t reciprocate. It was like a kiss between just friends under the mistletoe. After all, he could think I had a cute nose without wanting to kiss me.

But he did. He locked an arm around my waist to steady me and gave me a proper kiss. I closed my eyes and stood on the balls of my feet to lessen the height difference. His stubble was scratchy against my face when he caught my bottom lip between both of his own.

“Delia.” It was his turn to say my name when the kiss ended all too soon. “I’ve been drinking. I don’t think I should be driving right now.”

“You’re not going to leave a girl stranded, are you?”

“No. No way. You can stay at my place tonight,” he answered immediately, then added, “You can even have the bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

If Ben was trying to flirt with me or get me to sleep with him, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. But his arm was still anchored around my waist and he was drawing circles on my side. I didn’t mind at all.

“No need,” I kissed the corner of his mouth and then whispered in his ear, “we can share.”

Notes

Don't ever write about your favorite 4th liner and definitely don't make your timeline more than 6 months back of present day. He might have a concussion history and maybe not want to fight as much anymore. His team might acquire another player like him, put him on waivers, and there's a chance no other team will claim him, and he'll get sent down to the farm team, probably to never return again. Don't do it. It will just make you sad when you start posting your story.

Thanks so much to all that subscribed from Shell Games! Thanks for reading. I really look forward to seeing what you think as I move forward with this one. Your feedback is always appreciated.

Extended Chapter Notes