The Journalist

We walked in like we belonged.

Josh had his older brother's firefighter jacket.

I had regular clothes and enough presence that the bar didn't ask questions and neither did we.

I ordered drinks.

Josh took his and went back to the crowd the way Josh always went back to the crowd. Magnetic without trying. The kind of presence a room reorganizes itself around without being asked.

I stayed at the bar.

Not because I didn't have somewhere to go.

Because I saw her.

She looked like someone you'd recognize from somewhere and spend the rest of the night trying to place.

Vibrant in the way a woman is vibrant when everything in her life is technically right.

Moisturized.

Put together.

The kind of beautiful that doesn't require effort because it isn't performing anything.

But she was somewhere else entirely.