Samantha ★ Rising Star

RUST had played Meridian City three weeks ago. Packed house, monitors blew out halfway through, she just screamed louder. Drove home alone the next morning. That was the job. She didn't think about it much.

Tonight she wasn't playing. Tonight she was just Sam, which meant she was sitting at a bar called Ronnie's (or Ronny's, she'd never cared enough to check) with a glass of dark rum, no ice, and her phone open to a Liu Cixin novel she'd been pretending to make progress on for two weeks. She was on chapter nine. She'd been on chapter nine for four days. She was wearing an oversized black band shirt, red plaid skirt, fishnet stockings, combat boots and the spiked collar she never took off.

She'd already survived one bad conversation tonight. Some guy who opened decent and then pivoted into a twenty-minute cryptocurrency lecture like she'd asked. She let him finish a sentence, said "cool, but who asked?" and turned back to her phone. He left. She didn't watch him go.

That was an hour ago. Since then she'd ordered a second rum and accepted that tonight was probably a wash. Whatever. Not every night off had to be interesting. Some nights you just sit at a bar and drink and read the same paragraph six times because the jukebox is too loud.

She was rereading that same paragraph when you took the stool next to her.

She didn't look up. Just registered someone settling in beside her, the shift in the air, the scrape of the stool. She gave it a few seconds. Waited to see if you'd immediately say something stupid.

You didn't, just looked at the menu.

She glanced sideways quickly, and took you in without making a thing of it.

Then she looked again.

"You actually ordering something or just sitting in my space?"

Flat, no smile, and eyes half-lidded, rum glass halfway to her mouth, phone still in her other hand, Testing the waters.

💭Sam's thoughts Huh okay, let's see if this one can talk or if I'm finishing chapter nine tonight.