Tonight is Leila’s last night before the move.

It’s not the easiest thing in the world, but we’ll make it somehow, I’m sure of it. These last days have been phenomenal.

After bringing one fantasy of hers to life, we agreed to try again with another. I’m still not a fireman, but picking her up in a bar should suffice for now.

I’ve been waiting here a while, though.

That’s not wholly unexpected. She said that she had some errands to run before she’d be able to make it, but that anxiety over her leaving so soon after we really found each other is starting to grip my veins.

“You good over here?” the bartender asks.

“How about a tequila sunrise?” I ask.

The guy gives me a bit of a look, but shrugs his shoulders.

I’ve never actually had one, but they’re Leila’s favorite. It might prove to be a good icebreaker for when she arrives.

The bartender makes the drink and hands it over. I pay him and take my first sip.

It tastes good, no doubt, but it’s a little fluffy for me. I’m one of those assholes that likes to taste alcohol when I’m drinking alcohol.

“Could I get a shot of vodka, too?” I ask before the bartender finds someone else to inebriate.

He smiles and brings me the shot.

I drink it down and take a look out over the dance floor.

I’m looking for Wrigley just as much as I’m looking for Leila.

Wrigley promised that she’d back off, but I know better than to simply take her at her word.

I sat down at the bar next to her and ordered a drink.

We just kind of sat there for a few minutes, neither one of us even looking at the other. It was awkward, but finally she broke the silence.

“What do you want?” she asked. “Have you finally come to your senses and realized that your Vestal Virgin doesn’t have all the appetites that you require?”

“She’s not a virgin,” I said. “That’s really not the point, though.”

“Hold on,” she said. “I don’t think either one of us is anywhere near intoxicated enough for this to be a comfortable, pleasant conversation.”

“I’m really not planning on staying that long,” I told her, but she insisted.

She ordered up a couple of shots and, before I could start talking again, she ordered up a couple more.

We were about five shots in when the bartender told us to slow down, but that was the wrong thing to say to me. I have a tendency to take warnings like that as a challenge.

In retrospect, I probably should have listened, but as soon as Wrigley told the bartender, “We’re not children. We can handle our shit. Now, pour, fucker!” I was set on not only out-negotiating Wrigley, but out-drinking her as I did.

The next couple of shots came and went so quickly I don’t really recall whether there were two or three of them.

Finally, as the liquor started to really sink in, I decided that I’d better say what I went there to say and get the fuck out before I started losing IQ points.

“We need to talk,” I told her.

“Yeah,” she said, “you mentioned that.”

“What are you doing? It’s not very dignified, is it?”

“Dignity’s overrated,” she said. “I’m just a woman who knows what she wants, and you just happen to be the man that has it hanging between his legs.”

“Do you really think this approach is ever going to work, though?” I asked. “All you’re doing is making me never want to see you again under any circumstances.”

“Well,” she said, “we don’t want that, certainly.”

The bartender started to walk off, but I called him back, ordering yet another round for Wrigley and me.

“Are you really that into her?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I really am.”

“Then why were you so quick to go for having a relationship with me?”

“I was confused,” I said. “I didn’t think that Leila even liked me, much less felt the same way that I did. After you stormed out of the car that night and went down on the cab driver in my rearview mirror, I went home and found her making out with a friend of hers. Then, while you and I were doing it on the roof, I don’t know, I guess I was just overwhelmed. Look,” I said, “it’s not that I don’t like you, and it’s nothing personal. Leila’s just who I really want to be with.”

“What I don’t get,” she said, ordering another vodka, “is why that means you can’t be around me anymore.”

“It’s not that I can’t be around you,” I tell her, “it’s that I can’t be with you, not in the way we used to be.”

“Come on,” she said. “You’re not married. You’re hardly even with her. Besides, I have pussy seniority.”

“You come up with some of the weirdest phrases,” I told her.

I tried to order another shot of vodka, but the bartender informed me that we were both cut off.

After he walked away, though, Wrigley leaned over the counter and grabbed the nearest bottle. It was dark rum, but hey, it was alcohol.

After a stolen shot, I continued.

“You’re a beautiful woman,” I told her. “You can have any guy in the city. I bet there are a ton of guys out there who are into the things that I’m not. That has to have crossed your mind.”

“It’s not the same, though,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Like I was telling your roommate, it’s a sexual compatibility thing. You can be with someone—”

“When did you talk to my roommate?” I asked. Leila hadn’t told me.

Wrigley shrugged and said, “You can be with someone who technically does all the things you want to do, but if you’re not sexually compatible, it’s never going to feel anywhere near as good. You, for as much of a pussy as you are, rub me the right way, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

She poured a couple more shots and we drank them.

The bartender, though, noticed and that’s when we got kicked out.

For a while, we just walked and talked.

I told her, “I’m not the only person you’re going to be sexually compatible with.”

“I know,” she said, “but until I find someone else who is, I don’t think it’s fair for you to just leave me hanging in the breeze.”

“I’m sorry,” I told her, “but that’s just the way it is, and that’s the way it has to be.”

We talked some more after that, and I do remember her apologizing for coming on so strong with Leila, though she didn’t really go into too much detail about what that meant.

It wasn’t looking like I was going to make any headway until my liquid brain spat out an idea.

“You know,” I told her, “Leila’s moving out of the city, and there’s a good chance that we’re going to break up when she does. I don’t know that for sure, but things aren’t looking like they’re going to last. If you keep doing what you’re doing, I’m never going to want to be around you again, much less back inside.”

“And what if she leaves and the two of you stay together?” she asked.

“If that happens, then that’s what happens. Truthfully, I hope that is what happens, but if you don’t back the fuck off, I can tell you right now that you and I are never going to be an option again, even if Leila and I do break up.”

She thought about it for a minute.

“I had all sorts of shit planned, though,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind,” she said. “Just some ways to convince you that you were going to bed in the wrong vag, you know.”

“Wrigley…”

“Just tell me two things,” she said.

“What?”

“Is it love?”

“Yeah,” I told her. “I really think it is.”

She nodded.

“What’s the other thing?”

She looked at me. “What’s that like?”

I smiled. I very clearly remember smiling.

“It’s the most wonderful feeling in the world. Everything is better. It’s like being on ecstasy all the time, minus the comedown and health implications. It’s something you never want to let go of, and it makes everything else in the world seem so small, so trivial.”

“Huh,” she said. “That sounds nice.”