After the practice, I follow the strangers I've just met to the stupid restaurant that serves burgers. Turns out it's just one of the many small neighborhood pubs that pepper the streets.

Inside, the atmosphere is dark and hazy and it smells like bacon—the burger special of the night. I can practically hear it sizzling since the kitchen's door in the back is propped open. Not many people are here besides us, just a few lonely men sitting at the bar. There's a few pool tables in the back that some of the members of the baseball league are already occupying.

When I sit down at the bar, on the seat closest to the entrance and away from everyone else, the surface is slightly sticky and the rings of past drinks are outlined ever so faintly. Vintage beer signs hang everywhere along the walls, some illuminated in neon behind the bar while others look like they've been dug up from the ground yesterday. If this place didn't smell like bacon, it probably would have smelled like dirt and booze.

My wooden barstool creaks as I shift around, seeing that everyone is engaged in conversation except me. Nobody is even making an effort to come over and talk to me. Perhaps all of these older people are too set in their ways to even notice I'm alone. Or, they don't care.

Come to The Brick Corner pub, I text Axel, I'm here.

The message gets sent without a single second thought, something I'm surprised goes so seamlessly, but maybe I'm still riding the high from earlier.

After a few minutes, I flag down the bartender and look meticulously through the beers on tap. Finally, I settle on a double IPA. I watch her go through the motions: walk across the bar, grab the glass, walk halfway back, laugh with Jim (is he flirting?), fill up the glass (he's definitely flirting), walk towards me...

"Hey, I'm here."

His voice comes in unision with the beer getting set down in front of me. Startled, I whip around on the creaky old stool to find Axel, in a plain black hoodie and sand colored cargo joggers. His hands are in his pockets as he looks at me with a grin.

"Holy shit, that was fast," I say as my hand rests against my chest in surprise. He literally does appear out of nowhere sometimes.

"Yeah," he scratches his head nonchalantly, like this is all normal. Classic Axel. "This is a small town, remember? I was actually just a few blocks away when I saw your message."

"Doing what?" I ask, interest piqued while I take the first foamy sip of my beer. For some reason, it's hard for me to picture Axel doing anything except nothing. There is so much that has changed and so much I don't know about.

"Sitting on my couch. In my underwear," he answers without a hint of sarcasm.

It takes focus to not spit my beer out at his response, but somehow I keep everything down. "What?!"

Axel's expression starts breaking up into laughter, and then he tries to speak again through it all. "I'm dead serious, Orion. I live like two blocks away."

"You're not saying that very convincingly," I add with a chuckle. Axel shakes his head while cozying into the barstool next to me. He is most certainly being serious—ridiculous, but serious.

"Any good?" He asks, creeping his hand over to grab my glass and sneak a sip of the beer I ordered. His face scrunches at the taste and the entire thing comes sliding back towards me real fast.

"Not an IPA fan," he says with a cough, bringing his fist up towards his mouth.

"More for me, I guess!" I reclaim my drink with both hands around the glass.

"So what is this? Geriatric night?" Axel wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, like that will get rid of the bitter taste once and for all.

"No," I say, a bit defensively. "This is a baseball league I found on Facebook. For fun. I joined their practice today and hit a home run the first time up. It felt really good actually."

"Oh yeah? You did?" Axel nudges my shoulder twice with his hand, and it sends a spark up my spine, something I become immediately aware of.

"I sure did," I gulp, trying to forget the feeling of his touch—in such a platonic way at that. It shouldn't make me feel like the world is crumbling, but it does.

"You know, you didn't really need to come when I texted you," I say, refraining eye contact again to spin my beer glass around in circles.

"Huh?" Axel shakes his head. "What else was I supposed to do? You were pretty straight forward in your message."

My throat goes dry and the few sips of beer I take don't help. "Nothing, nevermind. I shouldn't have brought that up."

Axel taps his fingers against the sticky bar, looking forward blankly. I've single-handedly made this go from okay to awkward as hell in approximately two minutes. We both sit, just existing.

"Well..." he finally begins. "Should I leave or should we play pool?"

My eyes close as I take a deep breath, noticing the Def Leppard song that just began blasting from the juke box. Undoubtedly something Jim or one of his friends picked out, because they're singing along blissfully like it's karaoke night.

"Maybe I just finish this beer and then go home—or to the hotel—or whatever."

Axel considers my answer for a second, not looking convinced at all.

"Great choice. I'll go get the pool table set up," he says with a smirk, disappearing from my side as quickly as he showed up.

My shoulders slump forward, a wave of exhaustion suddenly crashing over me. I finish half of my glass in one big gulp, almost convinced I could finish the rest like a shot and then consume five more.

I turn to watch Axel set up the pool table amidst the sea of middle aged people. A small smile yearns to tug at my lips but it doesn't come to fruition. Seeing him locked in concentration as he puts the balls inside the triangle rack one at a time makes me feel nostalgic for something deep inside. Here we are, together. But is this all its ever going to be before I have to go back to California?

He finishes setting up, looking at the rack of balls with his hands on his hips like he's making sure everything is in place. Under this dark lighting, the shadows are in his favor, giving his face the perfect natural contour. Then, he licks his lips and looks up, directly in my line of vision. Like he wanted to catch a glimpse of me, but I caught one of him first.

Something flutters in my stomach, but it quickly dissipates when he begins enthusiastically waving me over.

"Here we go," I mutter to myself as I throw back the rest of my beer and call for a refill.

As I approach the table with Axel, he cracks his knuckles obnoxiously and reaches over to grab his cue stick. "I bet you didn't know I'm really good at pool."

I roll my eyes, crossing my arms against my chest. "Yeah, okay."

The bartender slides my beer across the bar, whistling to let me know it's ready. This certainly gets my attention, but also sounds normal when matched with the rest of the commotion going on. I walk over to grab it from the ledge of the bar, a trail of wet foam overflowing down the side. In the mere seconds my back has been turned, Axel managed to break the balls and get three in the pockets.

"You're stripes," he says smoothly, leaning his hip against the table as he nods in my direction. His gaze doesn't let up until I put my beer on a nearby empty table and grab a cue from the wall.

"I've literally played once in my life," I tell him, the heat rising to my cheeks as I try my best to remember how to start. In an effort to stall, I use the little chalk cube because that's the only thing coming to memory. This goes on for a few seconds too long, because Axel grabs the chalk from my fingers and guides me back to the table with a soft grip.

"Watch," he says, showing me how to correctly angle the cue stick. "You want to hit the striped balls. See that yellow one kind of close to the corner pocket there? Stand here and try to hit it. If you get it in the pocket, you go again."

He pulls me to the aforementioned spot, the heat still very much boiling in my face. Part of me wonders if I make him feel electric, too, or if this is all some twisted game happening in my head. In this moment, I'm still undecided if the alcohol is helping or not.

"Okay," I say, bending forward with the stick ready to hit the cue ball. I feel a sense of pressure, like all eyes are on me, but really it's just Axel's. Still, his presence feels like the weight of the world.

I bring the stick back and knock the cue ball, watching it roll slowly, just enough to pocket the yellow striped ball.

"Yes!" I exclaim a little too loudly, retracting the stick while I soak up my moment.

"Great, go again. This time I'm getting a drink and you're on your own."

Axel winks in my direction and turns to go towards the bar.

The smile from earlier finally creeps onto my lips.