As We Know It
Chapter 10McKellan's was more than a dive, it was something of a super dive- a place that may someday strive to be the kind of establishment you could proudly turn your nose up at. This was more or less the reason that, when Laura had broken up with Isaac and smashed his heart into tiny bits and piece in the process, he chose this particular bar to drown his sorrows. If he was going to get shitfaced over this, he figured it would be best to go to a place no one he knew would set foot in - and if they did, they'd never admit to seeing him there.
Isaac knew that things hadn't been right with Laura for quite some time - with only a week left until the tour started, he was more than ready and willing to put everything behind him and try to fix things with her. He refused to accept the idea that he would have to leave her behind and go on the road without at least trying.
He had planned things just so; he was like that, he was a planner, and he had envisioned the way that things would turn out in his mind ahead of time. He liked to be prepared for these kinds of things. He had bought the perfect flowers for her, the same ones that he had bought on their first date together, and he had worn exactly the right suit for the occasion. In his mind, he knew how this was going to play out: he was going to go to her apartment, knock on the door, sweep her into his arms and kiss her as romantically as he could manage, and he would make things right again.
What he hadn't planned was arriving at her apartment, knocking on the door, and seeing her answer it, completely unmoved by his presence there. He hadn't planned to have her turn him away, to tell him that things just weren't working out for them, and he certainly hadn't planned to hear a voice in the background that sounded muffled and distant, but very clearly male.
Twenty minutes after he arrived, and he was pretty sure he was drunk. That was just the caliber of a place like McKellan's, really, Isaac thought to himself as he set back another shot. He heard a hazy, familiar sound - a bit of laughter - behind him, and turned around to face its source.
There was a group of girls sitting at a table in the far corner, and their laughter stopped as soon as Isaac turned to face them, as though they were all noticing him at once. One of the girls, red haired and striking, smiled in Isaac's direction before gesturing for him to come lover.
He really must have been drunk to think that they were noticing him. He really must have been to even consider going over there and embarrassing himself, which he was roughly 90% sure he was going to do.
Isaac went, regardless. He wasn't planning on remembering this the next day anyway.
"Hey," the redhead said, her voice a low murmur against the cacophonous atmosphere of the bar. "What's your name?"
"I'm Isaac."
"Well, Isaac, what's someone like you doing here by yourself?"
"I, uh..." Honesty didn't seem to be an option in this case. "No reason."
"You won't mind joining us then," she said. "I was about to grab some more drinks, what are you having?"
Isaac looked at the nearly empty glass in his hand.
"Looks like some kind of drain cleaner. Tastes like it anyway."
"You're cute," she said with a smile, and stood up to walk back towards the bar, leaving Isaac alone with the remaining three. They all watched him, and Isaac was reminded a little of the sort of thing he and Zac would occasionally watch on the nature shows, where animals were stalking their prey. He cleared his throat.
"Are you girls from around here?" he asked, clearly too drunk to think of something better to say, yet not enough to simply bypass the whole ordeal altogether.
"We're sort of here and there. Everywhere, really." the girl who spoke now had dark blonde hair and a cigarette hanging from her lips.
"So you travel a lot... I don't know why you'd be in Tulsa. Everything here sucks."
"Oh,, there's a certain charm about a city like this. I hate suburban towns, they're so... clean." She flicked her half finished cigarette to the ground without a second glance.
"Clean sucks too," Isaac muttered.
Another girl, one who, once Isaac took a real look at her, seemed almost impossibly thin, grinned. She reached over and wrapped her bony fingers around Isaac's wrist; despite looking like she'd crumble if the wind blew the wrong way, she was remarkably strong.
"I could just eat you up," she said. Isaac noted that she looked hungry enough for that to be a real possibility.
"I probably taste like drain cleaner too," he said, and drained his glass.
One of the girls hadn't spoken at all yet - she sat on the far end f the table, quietly watching them. She was dressed head to toe in black, but not quite in the high school goth fashion that Isaac had come to expect from girls that visited this bar. She was something else entirely. Next to her, a potted plant was wilting. This wasn't so odd, considering the regular clientele, and Isaac was quite sure that he himself had poured a beer into the pot at some point in the past. The fact that it was a plastic plant did make it slightly more questionable.
The girl, with her dark clothing and long, wiry limbs gave Isaac the vague impression of a spider. He was briefly considering telling her this when the redhead returned.
"Drink up," she said, setting a glass in front of Isaac. In back of them, Isaac heard a loud commotion, mostly shouting, and then the distinct cracking sound of a chair being broken over someone's head. The redhead seemed particularly perky over this turn of events.
"Are they fighting?" she asked brightly. "Men are always fighting over me."
"We should probably do something," Isaac said, his attention diverted as a third man joined in on the brawl.
"We certainly should," the girl said, not taking her eyes off of Isaac as she pushed forward his glass. "We should all drink and have a good time. We have a lot to celebrate, after all."
"Yeah? And what's that?" Isaac asked.
"Oh, it's nothing you'll need to worry about for long," she said. The redhead looked to the others, who all in turn brought their attention to the one dressed in black. She was quiet and thoughtful for a moment before a smile crossed her features, stretching them into a strange, manic grin.
"Go on, girls. Have a little fun with this one."