Alex snorted. “You’d be broke in a week.”

Ian smiled that thin smile again. “Jenn?”

She sipped at her martini, pulled off an olive, chewed it slowly. “Travel.”

“Where would you go?” Mitch leaned forward.

“Everywhere. All the places I book trips for other people. Paris. St. Petersburg. The islands. I’d like to spend a while in the islands. A little cabin on the beach, someplace with screens for walls, where you could hear the ocean day and night. Drink coconut drinks. Live in a bathing suit.” It was strange hearing the words come out of her mouth, like this was a long-held fantasy. Truth was, she hadn’t known what she was going to say until she’d started.

“Sounds nice,” Mitch said.

“Sounds boring,” Ian said. “I’d be out of my head in a week.”

“Then you’re not invited. Alex, Mitch, you guys want to come to the islands with me?”

“And leave all this?” Alex laughed and picked up a cloth, started buffing the bar. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows, and the muscles of his forearms were knotted ropes. “At this rate, in just twenty short years, I’ll be full manager. At which point if one of you wanted to shoot me, I’d thank you for the favor.”

“Why don’t you quit?” Mitch said.

“Why don’t you?”

“I-well, I mean, it’s a job, right?”

Alex nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s a job, all right.” He glanced down the line, where a plump, tanned guy stood with finger crooked, a gaudy ring flashing on one finger. “Speaking of.” He dropped the cloth and started away.

For a moment, silence fell. Then Ian raised his glass said, “Fuck work.”

Laughing, they clinked glasses. Jenn leaned into the bar, feeling good, a little bit of that old energy swirling around, the kind she missed, the sense that the evening could go anywhere, that there were adventures yet to be had. Ian asked the next Ready-Go question: What was something they would never, ever, do? Ready, go-and she settled in, let the night flow.