The Other Guy by Cary Attwell Read Free Book Online Page B

my knees up to my chest. The sunset was different this time, burning the sky a deep orange. It was still beautiful, and I took my requisite picture of it, a souvenir of a lazy, unremarkable day.
Something about it, about my solitariness, incited a bout of restlessness in me, and I abandoned the beach in search of something to assuage the tension.
I walked the nearby streets, passing through the area where hawkers were setting up for the night market. It wasn't totally dark yet, the street lamps still waiting for their chance to shine. I followed their trail, ending up on a row of busy restaurants and bars.
Competing rhythms of techno and house music blasted from several establishments, and their neon lights highlighted in Technicolor the stumblings of the recently drunk as they weaved from one bar to the next.
I turned around, not wanting to be a part of that crowd, resigned to a quiet night in my hotel room with a passable movie on TV if I was lucky.
"Chicago!"
Warmth flooded my chest so quickly it nearly burned. I whipped my head around, but Nate was nowhere to be seen.
I searched my surroundings, emitting a small, chagrined "oh" to myself, as I realized I was in the near vicinity of a sports bar that catered almost exclusively to foreign tourists. It had several large-screen TVs mounted on its walls, one of which, closest to the street, was showing a tape delay of an American baseball game. A couple of Sox, tiny on the screen in their pinstriped whites, rounded the bases to a massive home run. It was too early in the season, just about a month in, to tell where all the chips would fall, but anything that put runs on the board was worth a cheer.
And now that I thought about it, whoever had cheered hadn't sounded like Nate at all.
Embarrassed, even though it was likely nobody even saw me attempt to give myself whiplash, I shuffled away from the bar and back the way I came.
I passed through the night market again, now in full swing, and stopped to buy a coconut waffle with which to distract myself from feeling things.
It didn't work; a few stalls down the row Nate was buying something inevitably tasty, and the thrill in my chest sparked up again in full bloom. I couldn't decide whether to spend the next few seconds trying to tamp it down or simply laugh at myself, at this night, ridiculous both.
Momentarily rooted to the ground, I watched as Nate came away from the stall, pleased with whatever he'd just purchased, poking at the contents of his Styrofoam container with a plastic fork. I chewed my waffle and waited, rocking on my heels while people weaved around me.
A slow smile spread over Nate's face when he spotted me, and we met somewhere in the middle of the distance between us.
"Hey, man," he said, and we did that dumb fistbump thing guys do when we can't articulate sentiments like How lovely to see you again . He peered at my waffle. "What've you got there?"
I traded a bite of my waffle for one of his green mango salad, and for a moment all was right with the world. I did mention I was ridiculous?
We roamed the street together again, buying more sweets, as he regaled me with all the cool things he'd seen that day out snorkeling; it sounded exactly like one of those tourist brochures from the hotel's front desk come to life, crystalline waters and exotic fish, swaying anemones and delicate coral. I kind of wished I had gone too. But mostly I wished I had gone with him.
"You want to grab a beer?" he asked suddenly.
"Sure," I said, always happy at the prospect of beer.
We turned toward the end of the street where I'd had my episode, and I resolutely ignored the sports bar that had unwittingly stolen my identity for a second. Passing up some of the louder bars, we ducked into one that seemed better suited to the temperament of the handful of tourists not particularly keen on blacking out in the street later on.
A few ladyboys were milling around at the entrance, chatting and laughing among themselves. On sighting us, a couple