Two drinks

Chapter 2

It's Saturday. I wake up when my phone goes off. I get up. I take my meds. I check my emails. I make eggs and toast for breakfast. I watch the morning news, looking for traffic and weather.
I sigh. I never have anything to do in the mornings, especially on the weekend. I always end up watching the news and checking social media over and over again, until it drives me mad.
I decide to go over to my desk and pull out my laptop. I pull up this document I use to keep track of my games. I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons since middle school, and I still play with a group of friends from high school and college. It's fun, and it keeps me in touch with them. These days we struggle to make time, due to everyone's busy schedule. Despite this, I still try to write stuff, so that when we do play, there's something to do.
I struggle to find anything to write about, inspiration just out of reach. Eventually, I just start watching videos on YouTube, mostly people playing video games, something I do whenever I can't figure out what to do with myself.
After a while, I get bored of even that. I walk over to the kitchen, if you could even call it that, of my apartment and start washing dishes with a podcast playing from my Bluetooth speaker. There isn't much to wash, since I live alone, but I take too long anyway, wasting water and time.
Checking the clock, I realize I've managed to do almost nothing all day and it's already 5 pm. But suddenly, it hits me!
I'll just head to the bar!
~~~*~~~*~~~*~~~
Walking into the bar, it looks a bit busier. I guess that makes sense since it is the weekend. I head over to my seat at the end of the bar, which is, miraculously, not taken. Kassidy quickly makes her way over to where I'm sitting.
"Hey, uh," she says, struggling to find her words, "Travis! That's right, Travis. How's it going, Travis?"
"It's going alright. My morning was boring, but I'm hoping I can fix that with a drink."
"So what'll it be?"
"I'll take a strawberry daiquiri."
"Is that all you ever drink?" She grabs the components from under the bar.
"That and wine, but I don't usually get wines at bars."
She serves the drink and quickly moves on to the next customers. Unlike last time, there's waitresses and another bartender here. Seems like this place is pretty popular on the weekends.
The TVs in the corners are playing a football game. I don't really get football, but my dad and I used to watch every game, at least until I moved out. I still watch every once in a while. It helps me feel connected to him.
Sitting there for a while, I do what I always do, check my email and social media, going back and forth for what seems like an eternity.
Suddenly, I realize that my drink is empty. I turn around to face the bar again and hold my hand up and signal to Kassidy to refill my drink.
"What's up?" She asks.
"I'd like a refill."
"Another strawberry daiquiri?" She has this look on her face like she'd rather not.
"You know what, no. Actually, I'd like a, uh, beer."
"A beer? Alright, man."
She grabs a tall glass and pours the beer, getting a perfect foam at the top.
"Thanks. I'm definitely going to drink all of this." I make a pained face before realizing and putting on a fake smile.
"Sure you are, buddy."
I grab the beer and take a sip. As soon as it hits my tongue, however, I gag, nearly spitting it out. Looking up, I see Kassidy smirking at me, stifling a laugh. Trying to show my strength, I chug the beer, getting it down in three gulps. When I look back at Kassidy, she looks stunned.
She quickly makes her way over, mouth agape. "Weren't you just gagging on it? How the hell did you do that?"
"Well, I lived in Texas, home of the beer drinkers. Me and a couple of cousins used to have contests to see who could down a pitcher the fastest. I never won, but I did get good at not gagging on beer."
"So you just ignored the taste?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
She laughs and leaves again, leaving me to watch football by myself for a couple more minutes before I'm interrupted by Kassidy, stepping into my view.
"Hey."
"What's up? Aren't you working?"
"Oh, no. I decided to get off work a bit early so I could do the rematch you obviously came here to ask for."
"How do you know I'm here for that?"
"'Cause you said you'd be. Now are we gonna play or not?"
"I guess. Same bet?"
"Sure, why not?"
She rushes over to the table and quickly sets it up. "Here you go," she says, offering me a cue, "you break it."
"Alright."
I'm more focused today, eager to win those two free drinks. I skillfully break the triangle, sending balls in every direction.
I quickly go for the stripes, hitting the 3 into the pocket on my first shot.
"Dang," Kassidy remarks, "someone's playing for real tonight!"
"Damn straight."
She also makes a move, hitting the solid 2 into the pocket.
"You'll never beat me," she brags, "I spend many nights here, honing my skills."
"We'll see about that!"
Taking my turn, I miss a tricky shot at my 7, but she follows up by sinking her 5.
"So what's it like?" I ask while lining up my next shot.
"What's what like?"
"Working at a bar. I've never done that. Never even did waiting."
"Well, you have to be pretty quick with your hands. You get a feel for where everything is. There are a couple of drinks I can make without even looking."
I take my shot, sending my 2 straight into the pocket. "I can do that with my computer."
"What do you mean? You can build a computer without looking?"
"Ha, no, I wish. I can do stuff on my computer without thinking about it. Like I memorized all the keyboard shortcuts I could. I can probably do everything without a mouse, now that I think about it."
"Wow, how impressive," she says sarcastically, "I can't imagine spending so much time at my computer that I feel the need to memorize the quickest way to do things."She quickly lines up her shot but misses.
"I only learned because of my job."
"I thought you said you worked at Caro Corp.? Don't they do..." she trails off.
"They do document retrieval, like for medical records. But I'm a regional systems manager. That means I work with their servers, cause if those go down, nobody can do any work." I pocket another ball.
"So you're a massive nerd."
"Pretty much, yeah."
We play for another couple rounds, switching leads until we both only have one ball left. We both were silent at this point, focusing on the game instead of talking. She hit her ball, scoring easily. I did the same but had to hope that she missed.
I stood there, waiting to see what would happen. I think she knew, cause it seemed like she took forever to finally hit the cue ball. When she finally did, I was disappointed, as she hit the 8-ball easily into the hole.
"Gah! I guess I owe you some cash."
"Yeah, you do. Man, this was fun."
"Same. My day was super boring before I came here."
"Really? That sucks. I'd have figured you'd go out with some friends or something."
"Nah, I just had a ton of work to do." I was lying.
"I guess that's fair. Well, if you wanna play pool again, or really anything else, I know this great arcade a couple blocks away. They got a bunch of cool cabinets and some traditional games too."
"Really? That sounds pretty cool actually. How about Monday at 2? I have a doctors appointment, so I took the whole day off."
"Huh?"
"Is that not what this is? Oh, sorry, I just thought this was a thing."
"It can be, I mean, it's not like I'm doing anything around then."
"Great! I'll meet you here."
"I- Okay, sure."
"Awesome. It's getting kinda late, so I should go. See you then."
I hand her 20 bucks as per our bet and decide to head out, once again excited to hang out.