The temperature in the booth seemed to spike, then plummet. It was humid now. tropical. My shirt collar felt instantly damp against my neck.
"Don't start," Desi warned, pointing a cigarette at Greg. "Don't you dare start with the Sarah stories. I'm not drunk enough for the Sarah stories."
"She wore that perfume," Greg continued, ignoring her. He wasn't talking to us. He was just leaking words. "Vanilla and... something else. Rain? Yeah. She smelled like rain."
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The blister on the ceiling grew. The water coming down wasn't just a slow trickle anymore. It was a steady rhythm, tapping against the wood of the table like a metronome counting down to a disaster.
"Greg, stop talking," I commanded. I grabbed a stack of coasters and tried to build a small dam around the puddle forming in the center of the table. "You are exacerbating the moisture levels."
"We sat right here," Greg droned on. His voice was heavy, dragging us down with him. "She told Adam she needed space. Remember? She said he was 'too much and not enough all at the same time.' What does that even mean? It’s a paradox."
"It means she was high-maintenance," Desi scoffed. She flicked her lighter, but it wouldn't spark. The air was too wet. "Come on. Work, you piece of junk."
"It broke him," Greg whispered.
SPLASH.
A cup’s worth of water dumped from the ceiling, splashing directly onto my chest.
"Oh, come on!" I jumped up, shaking out my lapels. "This is Italian silk! Do you know the dry-cleaning protocols for this fabric? It’s a nightmare!"
"It broke him," Greg repeated, louder this time. The sadness in his voice wasn't just an emotion; it was a physical force. I could feel it pressing against my chest, making it hard to inhale. "He sat in his car for four hours after she left. He just sat there. He didn't turn on the radio. He didn't turn on the heat. He just watched the windshield fog up."
The leak widened. It was raining indoors now. A steady, gray sheet of water pouring specifically over our table. The rest of the bar was dry. The "tourists"—those blurry, faceless patrons in the background—were chatting and laughing, completely oblivious to the localized monsoon happening in Booth 4.
"Greg, you are literally flooding the zone!" I shouted over the sound of splashing water. "Change the subject! Talk about... talk about baseball! Talk about tax returns!"
"I can't," Greg said. He looked up at the leak, letting the water hit his face. He didn't blink. "It’s too heavy. I can't carry it anymore."
"I can fix this," Desi snarled.
She stood up on the booth seat, her boots squelching on the vinyl. She grabbed an empty beer bottle by the neck.
"Desi, sit down!" I yelled, trying to calculate the trajectory of her swing. "Violence is not a solution to plumbing issues!"
"It's a pipe, Leo!" she screamed, her eyes wild. "It’s backed up! The pressure is too high! If we don't break it, the whole roof comes down! We have to let it bleed!"
"It is not a pipe! It is a structural anomaly caused by Greg’s narrative output!" I tried to grab her ankle, but my hands were slippery.
"Let it out!" Desi swung the bottle at the ceiling.
CRACK.
She missed the main blister but hit a support beam. Dust and wet plaster rained down on us. The bottle didn't break, but the vibration seemed to shake the entire room.
"You're making it worse!" I grabbed a handful of cocktail napkins—useless, soggy squares of paper—and tried to press them against the ceiling, standing on my tiptoes. It was pathetic. It was like trying to stop a tidal wave with a postage stamp. "We need containment! We need buckets! We need a mop!"
"We need a sledgehammer!" Desi raised the bottle again.
"We need her to come back," Greg moaned from the table.
The water was rising on the floor now. It was soaking into my socks. I hate wet socks. It’s the most undignified sensation in the human experience.
I wiped my face, tasting the water that was running down my cheeks.
I paused.
I licked my lips.
"Wait," I said, freezing in place.
Desi paused, the bottle raised above her head. "What? Did you figure out a formula to reverse gravity, nerd?"
"The water," I whispered. "Taste it."
"I'm not drinking roof water, Leo. That’s how you get Legionnaires' disease."
"Just taste it!"
Desi scowled, wiped a drop from her chin, and touched it to her tongue. Her expression shifted instantly. The anger melted away, replaced by confused disgust.
"It’s salty," she said.
I looked at the ceiling. The water wasn't brown or rusty. It was clear. Warm.
"It’s not rain," I said, feeling a cold knot of dread tighten in my stomach. "And it’s not plumbing."
"It’s tears," Greg said simply. He put his head back down on his wet arms. "The whole house is crying."
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.