One drink, maybe two

The weird thing about this gig was how much time it gave you to do absolutely nothing. A couple days without rehearsal sounded great on paper, but after the first 24 hours, I was just pacing my apartment like a dog whose owner left with the keys. No scripts to memorize. No emails to answer. Just me, my cluttered coffee table, and the quiet hum of boredom that made me question every career decision I'd ever made.

I stared at my phone for the third time that hour, scrolling past news I didn't care about, DM requests I wasn't going to open, and half a dozen unread text threads I didn't feel like replying to. Eventually I landed on her name.

Natasha Lyonne.

She hadn't texted me since the read through. Not that I expected her to. We barely talked that day, and when we did, it was quick, mostly related to the scene, and not particularly personal. But I'd noticed her. Not just in the obvious way, yeah, she's famous, yeah, she's got that voice, but in the way she carried herself. Like she knew more than she let on but couldn't be bothered to show off about it.

I stared at her contact for another ten seconds before typing.

Me: "Hey, we've got a couple dead days. Wanna grab a drink or something?"

I hovered my thumb over the send button like it was a detonator. Then, with a tiny huff of air through my nose, I hit send and tossed the phone face down on the couch.

Three minutes passed.

Then five.

Then a ping.

Natasha: "Only if it's a shitty dive bar and you promise not to ask me what Russian Doll really means."

I smirked.

Me: "No promises."

The place we ended up at was a small dive on a side street in Chinatown. The kind of joint with flickering neon beer signs, stools that rocked when you sat down, and a jukebox that sounded like it was haunted. Natasha was already there when I arrived, sitting in a booth at the back, cigarette tucked behind her ear even though it was a non smoking bar. Her leather jacket was thrown over the seat beside her, and she was mid rant with the bartender when I walked in.

"...like I'm just sayin', if it's called Happy Hour, why does it end? That's fucked up, right? The whole thing's a lie."

She spotted me before I could call her name.

"There you are," she said, sitting back. "Lookin' like you just wandered outta an indie film."

I slid into the booth across from her. "You always open with a jab ?"

She grinned. "Only if I like you a little."

The first round was whiskey, her choice. The second was beer, mine. By the third, she was throwing her legs up onto the seat beside her, leaning back like she owned the place, and I was starting to see what people meant when they talked about Natasha's energy. She had this way of talking that made you feel like the two of you were sitting on a park bench at 3 a.m., swapping theories about time travel and whether ghosts have unions.

"So what's your deal, anyway?" she asked, swirling her drink lazily. "You one of those actors that actually wants to be famous or just, like, trying not to go broke?"

"Somewhere in between," I said. "I like working. I don't love being looked at."

She laughed, loud and unapologetic. "Amen. That's the tagline of my career."

We kept drinking. And it wasn't even that I was trying to keep pace with her, she just had this rhythm, this pull, like every sentence was a dare. I wanted to see where they went.

By round five, she was buzzed.

By round seven, she was wrecked.

She kept talking, louder and faster, interrupting herself mid thought, jumping topics like her brain was sprinting ahead of her mouth.

"You ever notice," she slurred slightly, head tipping as she pointed at me with the tip of her glass, "how the worst people you meet are the ones with the best posture?"

I blinked. "I, what?"

"I'm just sayin'. You ever trust a guy who sits perfectly straight at a dinner table? He's either a cop or a serial killer."

I burst out laughing. "That's not a real rule."

"It's my rule," she said, slapping the table with the palm of her hand. "I live by that shit."

Her words were starting to slur together, her eyes glassy. She leaned forward to grab her drink and missed, knocking it with her knuckles and spilling whiskey across the cheap table. She looked at it like it had betrayed her.

"Shit. That was my drink."

"Alright, you're done," I said, reaching across to gently slide it out of her reach.

"I'm not done," she protested, frowning.

"You're definitely done."

She sighed, dramatically. "Fine. But only 'cause you're cute when you pretend to be responsible."

"Okay," I said, standing. "Time to go."

⸻

She stumbled on the way out, and I had to catch her by the elbow to keep her from faceplanting into the door. Outside, the air hit her like a slap, she winced, squinting under the streetlamp glow.

"Where do you live?" I asked, thumbing open my rideshare app.

She blinked at me. "What?"

"Where. Do. You. Live."

She made a face like I'd asked her to recite the Gettysburg Address. "Uhhh...somewhere in the East Village, but I don't remember the number."

"You wanna crash at my place?" I asked, before I could really think about what that meant.

She gave a half laugh. "You tryna kidnap me?"

"I'm trying to keep you from vomiting in a Lyft."

"Ah," she said, wagging a finger. "That's fair."

⸻

Back at my place, I got her inside without too much effort. She didn't pass out right away, she kept trying to tell me stories. Rambling ones about old movies, weird dreams, strange parties with people whose names she couldn't remember.

"...and then Lenny was like, 'You can't put a turtle in a microwave,' but the thing is, we didn't, it just looked like, wait, what was I talking about?"

I guided her gently to the couch. "Storytime's over."

She groaned, dramatic and half asleep. "You're no fun."

"I'm the most fun person you know," I said, tossing a blanket over her.

"Debatable."

She mumbled something else I couldn't catch as she shifted, curling up like a cat in a leather jacket and boots, and then, finally, quiet.

I stayed there a minute longer, watching her sleep. Her makeup was smudged, her curls flattened on one side. She looked so unguarded. Not glamorous. Not like the person people imagined when they talked about her. Just a person. Drunk. Human. Vulnerable.

I turned off the lamp and went to bed.

⸻

The next morning, I woke up to silence.

I checked the couch.

Empty.

The blanket folded, weirdly neat. A glass of water was half drunk on the coffee table. A note, no, a receipt from the bar, with something scribbled on the back in red lipstick:

"Sorry for disappearing. You're a real one. N"

A few seconds later, my phone buzzed.

Natasha: "Had to bounce. Thanks for babysitting. Drinks on me next time."

I sat down, holding the receipt.

Next time.

There was going to be a next time.

And I didn't know what that meant yet, but I wasn't in a rush to figure it out.