Chapter Text
T-minus 16:23:58
“I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.”
“Do what?”
Sansa flinched and gasped (literally, on both counts) at hearing the bartender’s question. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken her inner mantra out loud.
No surprise, though; she’d been saying those words in her head for weeks now, albeit in very different context.
“Um…” Sansa stalled, took a sip of her cocktail, and stalled some more.
The bartender rolled her eyes, though more in an ‘oy-yoy-yoy’ way than a ‘you dumb bitch’ way, but still – she was obviously pegging Sansa as one of those people who tipped even the rudest of service professionals.
Which, to be fair, she was, but she didn’t know what had given it away. Sure, in her normal attire, have at it. But Sansa was wearing one of her sister’s dresses, a walking exclamation of ‘I like hard rock and take my whiskey straight, and yes I like casual sex and if you try to shame me over it, I’m going to kick you in your twat and/or balls so hard your orgasms are going to be painful for a week.’
Then again, Sansa’s drink had a cherry in it. And cherry syrup.
“No need to answer,” the bartender eventually said, making a point of looking down then up Sansa’s figure, as well as she could over the bar top, “I’ve seen this before. You’re hunting for a hookup, even though one-night stands aren’t your thing. So you borrowed your sluttiest friend’s clothes and came to a bar off the beaten path because – let’s face it – you don’t want to chance running into your parents’ friends from the country club, or one of your coworkers or professors or what-have-you.”
“Um,” was – once again – all Sansa could say. Because the bartender was pretty damned close to being right.
Except that it was her sister’s slutty clothing, not her friend’s.
And it was an entire wedding party and a couple hundred guests – half of whom she wouldn’t know from a hole in the ground – that she was trying to avoid.
“Only question is,” the annoyingly astute bartender said, “You doing this because of a bad break-up, or because you’re sick and tired of your friends giving you shit for being a virgin at twenty-five.”
“I’m twenty-three. And not a virgin.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. Sansa didn’t like it.
“Hmm… You don’t look heartbroken to me. More like… lost? Yeah, I got it,” the bartender nodded to herself, “All the guys you meet at your high society parties are vanilla, and you have a hankering for chocolate.”
Once again, Sansa was alarmed by how close the bartender was coming to the bullseye, and yet how far it was from explaining why Sansa was here at this bar, dressed like Madonna, when she should be back at the hotel letting one of Mom’s sleeping pills pull her under.
Because all the guys she met – no, all the guys she was introduced to by her parents – were vanilla. Or at least they’d been trained to act that way for so long that they couldn’t easily break the habit, and with Sansa acting just as vanilla (for the same reason), they had little incentive to try.
But she actually preferred vanilla to chocolate. In ice cream, at least. And maybe in men, too. Sure, chocolate sounded fun, but vanilla was just… classic. It paired well with every imaginable topping.
And as for men… Well, she supposed it was all fine and good to date a guy who had a bit of an edge to him, but Sansa had had her shit together since she was in preschool, and she didn’t want some boyfriend who’d sleep until noon and be eternally ‘between jobs’ dragging her down. Nor did she want some guy who was so chocolatey that other women were always trying to have a taste.
Though, she supposed, under present circumstances? Maybe, just for tonight, chocolate wouldn’t be so bad.
Sansa stared at her drink while contemplating all that had led her to this bar on this night – the choices she’d made, and the choices that’d been made for her, albeit in a very nice, ‘only if it’s what you want, too, dear’ sort of way. (Operative word being ‘too’.)
She downed it in one pull, three hearty swallows.
The bartender gave her a look that said, ‘was I supposed to be impressed by that?’
“Actually,” Sansa said, “I’m getting married tomorrow to a guy I barely know because that’s how things work in families like mine, unless you’re my brother – in which case you elope with some chick because it’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission – or my sister – because she is entirely comfortable having neither. And my husband-to-be is perfectly nice and pretty friggin’ hot, but there is no spark there and I’m fairly certain it’s mutual but we’re both dutiful types who will go through with it anyway, and if I’m going to say vows to someone – no matter the circumstances – I’m going to keep them, which means this is my last night to experience… well, passion, I suppose. That thing I’ve denied myself by sticking to the list of boys approved by my parents.”
For about thirty seconds after Sansa concluded her mini-rant, the bartender only blinked at her with pursed lips.
Then the woman took a deep breath and, without ceremony, poured a shot’s worth of whiskey into Sansa’s glass.
Sansa lifted a brow. The bartender shrugged, “Might make it easier to accomplish your mission.”
Deciding the woman had a point, Sansa swirled the whiskey around in what was left of her ice cubes, then tossed it back in one gulp, forcing herself to only grimace a little bit.
“Atta girl. Now, you see that guy over there?” the bartender very subtly jerked her head to the right.
Sansa followed the motion, but she saw multiple male patrons sitting and standing on that side of the bar, perpendicular to where she was seated. She asked, “Which one?” but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew.
“The one who looks like someone just ran over his dog.”
Sansa nodded slowly without peeling her eyes off the man who was giving a thousand-yard stare to his nearly empty rocks glass even as his shoulders were bunched up with tension. His sour mood was obvious from a distance, but so was the fact that he was hot. His arms beneath the end of his gray t-shirt had that muscle that twisted from shoulder to elbow on the outside. Triceps? Whatever. His black hair was cheekbone-length and seemingly thick but straggly at the moment – either windblown or overdue for a shampoo but either way it was giving off Johnny Depp vibes, big time. He even had Johnny’s pouty lips though on a longer and thinner face – more like Luke Perry. He had a five o’clock shadow that gave him a dangerous look, and Sansa couldn’t help but feel like she was looking at the less smiley version of her girlhood crush – Waymar Royce.
“Uh, yeah? What about him?” Sansa finally tore her eyes away from the sulking man only to find the bartender glaring at her.
The woman’s eyes rolled again, “Never seen him around here before, so he’s probably just visiting the area. Girlfriend probably dumped him, and he thought a trip to Sunspear would lift his spirits, then realized that some ghosts will follow a person anywhere. I saw him turn down a brunette earlier, so he’s probably not a man-whore, in case that matters to you.”
Sansa shrugged, “Kinda.”
The bartender snorted, “Yeah. Anyway, all I’m saying is, if I was looking to get my brains screwed out, I’d go for someone like him.”
“But… why?” Sansa asked. She would gladly let this guy… fornicate… her brains out, but he looked too depressed to be vigorous.
Another snort, then, “Honey, the quiet ones will always surprise you. And he may just have a lot of pent-up resentment and no outlet for it. Some sexy stranger offers to let him fuck the daylights out of her? Well, sounds to me like a win-win.”
Sansa licked her suddenly dry lips, then took a deep breath. She nodded, more to convince herself than to agree with the bartender who was encouraging her one-night-only promiscuity show.
The bartender gave her a smile and poured another shot into her glass, “One more, then go get em’, tiger!”
Sansa couldn’t help but laugh as she swirled the liquor that would promote her from warm-and-almost-relaxed to downright tipsy. She thought back to the lunch dates with her fiancé. How he was nice, and attractive, but definitely more friend material than boyfriend material. Maybe he was doing the same thing tonight, right now. Having one last hoorah before getting hitched to his father’s newest business partner’s daughter, moving into the house that’d been in his family for fifty years, and impregnating his wife precisely two-point-five times.
Sansa threw back the shot of whiskey and decided that for one night only, she wouldn’t care about her name, her family, her future. She would just be…
Myself.
Assuming she knew how.