Dan hated this bar, but it was halfway between his best friend Joe’s work and his own apartment, so when neither of them had girlfriends this was where they spent most Friday nights. Maybe he hated it because he’d spent so many Friday nights here with Joe.

They were halfway through their first beers when Joe stopped halfway through a sentence and gestured behind Dan. Turning, Dan saw an extremely pretty, dark haired woman standing beside him, staring intently, an empty glass in her hand.

He choked back a laugh as he heard his buddy swear softly. Dan knew what Joe was thinking: this girl was exactly Dan’s type- she was olive-skinned, she was petite, and she looked angry. Strange as it was, Joe was always teasing him for liking “tiny mean girls,” and this dark-eyed beauty seemed to fit the bill.

She also looked drunk. Dan wasn’t surprised at all that her words were slightly slurred as she finally spoke, in an arrestingly husky voice. “You know,” she said, “you look like my jackass ex-boyfriend.”

Not exactly a pick-up line, but she at least was talking to him. Ignoring Joe’s snort of laughter, Dan took a long, slow sip from his beer before answering. “Was this ex an ugly jackass?” he finally asked.

She looked straight in his eyes. “No.”

He smiled and shrugged. “Well, then, I guess that’s all right then. I’m Dan, by the way,” he said.

“Karen. I’m Karen.”

“Karen. Can I buy you a drink to make up for reminding you of the jackass?”

She stared at him for a long moment. He thought she was going to refuse, to take her empty glass and go back to her friends. He wondered if she would remember this conversation in the morning, cringing about the stranger she’d marched up to who looked like her ex. He wondered if the ex was why she was drinking.

“OK,” she finally said, surprising him. He smiled as Karen climbed clumsily up onto the bar stool beside him, and he turned to wave down the bartender. Suddenly, she placed a small hand on his arm. “Wait,” she said.  “Wait, wait, wait. First, you have to tell me something.”

“OK.”

Karen leaned forward, and Dan was struck by the pain in her expression, and the soft strength in her eyes. “Are you in love, Dan? With anybody? Even if it’s hopeless, or she’s- she’s far away, or married to someone else, or- or anything? Are you in love already?”

A shiver ran across the back of Dan’s neck, like a cool breath of air on a hot day.

“Not yet,” he said.