he’s mostly cleaning glasses and popping the tops off of beer for the late nighters, since no one else would even touch the job after the last bartender got shot in the shoulder. No one said a bar was a safe place, and it’s probably why the owner finally hung a shotgun under the bar for easy reach if some wise guy came in stirring more trouble that he’s worth.
then there’s a fairly familiar face, even if the last time he saw her was on old colourless posters. And of course there’s a wry twist of a smile on his face at her following words, because when isn’t Fort Sumner a tourist destination? “Both are pretty lengthy, miss. I’d take 285 to 60, though. S’lots of empty land out there, but Vaughn’s a stop before you see the Sumner sign.” He gets her her drink, setting it beside the map.
“No problem.”
Thumb and forefinger gently pinched keno pencil. Connecting point to leaflet paper, she traced particular route with the heavy weight of her wrist until graphite lines were thickly pronounced. She placed the wooden implement back in it’s rightful slot and slender dactyls wrapped around the ice cold glass set in front of her. Eyes curiously tapered back to vaguely recognized appearance of the youthful bartender. He barely looked old enough to be working behind the bar. It was bothering her, – the nagging instinct in her stomach,– like she knew him, not personally but from afar. In cognizance of her visual inquiries possibly resonating with ill intent, as if she were some kind of predatory cougar, cerulean oculars mosied back to map to grant him semblance of space.
“Sure is a beautiful state,” in it’s own, desolate sort of way. She found comfort in the lonely, desert roads she traversed to get there. It was different and different felt good. Raylan would’ve been proud. "You live here all your life?“
It was a simple question which hopefully ruled out any possibility of the boy being a fellow Kentuckian. Bringing tiny red straws to her lips, she took a long swill as she exchanged pamphlet for wallet. Ava didn’t plan on staying long. It was late and much was planned for the day ahead. Besides, she was still working on a thing called sobriety. Her and alcohol were quite a dysfunctional pair and the last thing she needed was to find trouble this far from home.
