Lauren laughed at that as she walked from the storage facility. She'd come home thinking about wedding bells. She'd come home, instead, to find her life fall apart yet again.
Lucy had told Lauren , in no uncertain terms, that she had no interest in waiting another year to be in an actual relationship with someone. Lauren had tried to explain her situation, tried to convince Lucy that she loved her and that she was going to be back shortly for their life together but Lucy was having none of it. She'd made up her mind. Worse yet, Lucy had told her there was someone else. Lauren didn't hear much past that. Feeling numb, she'd left Lucy's house, checked into the only motel she could afford, and had spent the last few days in a daze, getting her few meager possessions out of Lucy's house and into the storage unit.
As Lauren walked the streets of the downtrodden area the storage unit was in, she shook her head at her situation. Again she had nowhere to go. The city was the one Lucy lived in and even then Lauren had only grown to know the neighborhood she shared with Lucy. She didn't recognize any of the street names of the blue-collar area. She felt exactly as she had when her father had died, only this time she was in her late twenties with no prospects and no home. She had four days left before redeployment.
As Lauren idly walked through the streets in the direction of her motel, she realized that she needed a drink worse than she'd ever needed a drink before.
After a few blocks, She found what seemed to be what she was looking for. It wasn't much to look at. A small, grimy, two-story brick building with dark windows and a heavy door. It didn't look like much, but then again Lauren wasn't looking for much. The sign above the front door read "O'Flaherty's Pub" and a smaller neon sign pronounced that they had cold beer. It was enough for her. If she was going to spend her last four days alone and miserable, she might as well spend them drunk.
Pulling the door open, She was even less impressed with the interior of the establishment than she'd been with the exterior. At least the bar itself was nice; near ten feet of long, dark wood in front of what looked like a pretty varied collection of liquor bottles. The rest of the place did not do as well in Lauren's estimation. Weak looking tables surrounded by varying numbers of chairs, a few beat-up looking booths. The best seats in the place by far seemed to be the sturdy looking stools in front of the bar.
Not that vast seating seemed required. She knew that even the busiest of bars would not have been packed in the afternoon on a Tuesday, but O'Flaherty's seemed especially deserted. There was only one other person in the bar from what She could tell. An old, rough-looking man in what Lauren guessed to be his mid-fifties sat on one of the bar stools, sipping at a beer bottle and watching the small TV above the bar.
She shrugged and took a stool on the opposite end of the bar. She was no snob, she'd been drinking in dives before, and this place seemed especially reflective of her current mood. The idea of being surrounded by young, happy, successful people making a lot of noise made Lauren sick to her stomach.
The man in the bar took no notice of her. She sat idly for a second, wondering if he was the bartender or just a patron, before the small door at the back of the bar opened. Walking out of it was what Lauren assumed to be a woman with what looked to be nice legs. She had to guess as the person was carrying several stacked boxes of beer, obscuring her completely from the waist up. Confident that service was forthcoming, Lauren turned her attention upwards to the TV. Some sort of trivia show was on. Lauren idly watched as she waited to be served.
"What'll you have?"
She looked up, intent on ordering a shot and a beer, and was immediately sent reeling. Standing in front of her was the most jaw-droppingly beautiful woman she'd ever seen. She was short, Lauren guessed her to be almost 5 feet, with a thick, luxurious tumbling of silken hair. Lauren wasn't much for colours but she'd have gone with a light brown or deep brown to describe it. More than that, there were wide, bright, sparkling chocolate brown eyes, a cute button of a nose and thick, full, bright red lips. Her face was tan and smooth and made her look barely old enough to be in a bar, let alone working in one.
