closing time - para 02
Lisbeth honestly wasn’t sure what she was doing packing her things up so slowly after the show. On a normal night, she would have had her instruments tucked away safe and ready to go in fifteen minutes flat. The group had played a good set, a healthy number of people trickling in and out of the bar as they had played. Tonight, she was dawdling, and she was grateful that none of her band mates had called her out for it, even though it wouldn’t have been too hard to guess that she had been distracted or stalling.
For most of the night, Lisbeth had settled on second string, not really jumping at or asking for opportunities to steal the show. For a band with multiple members capable of leading—instrumentally or vocally—they’d struck a good balance, but tonight Lisbeth considered herself lucky she hadn’t stumbled through half the set. She had shown up ready, but her mind had been elsewhere pretty much the entire night.
The sound of a growingly familiar voice ringing out last call grounded her again. She peered over her should at Ray momentarily, before turning her attention to packing up the sound equipment. She snapped the case shut and bid a few of her bandmates a good night, ignoring Seamus’ looks of mild concern as he resolved to call it a night himself. Only a handful of people were in the bar, swaying slightly with tiredness or drunkenness, Lisbeth wasn’t sure which.
The girl grabbed her guitar case by the handle, swaying just slightly like the others as she stood with it. It was a slight head rush—she’d been sneaking sips or accepting the small number of drinks smuggled to her throughout the night. Tonight it seemed to have added up more quickly than she thought it would, loosening her up just slightly more than she was used to on nights like this—other nights were an entirely different story.
Propping her guitar against the bar top, she slid onto one of the benches and waited for Ray to have a spare moment, arms crossed and resting on the counter. A trace of a smile altered her features just slightly as Ray approached. She was beginning to tolerate him. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were following me,” she mused, her accent making it a little difficult to distinguish between a joke or sincerity. “I know last call was a few minutes ago, but you can handle one more drink, can’t you?” She wondered if Ray remembered she was underage, if he cared. “I don’t have cash, but I can help you close.”