Mona already had a little buzz going on by the time her sister showed up at Iggy’s. Soft jazz carried through the smoky interior of the bar. The music had been working on her for nearly two hours now, her nose pointed down into a glass of her old favorite, and somehow Jim had found his way into her thoughts. She couldn’t say how long he’d been there, but for some reason the sight of Pay hanging off of the two boys she had brought with her into the bar made a cold, slow anger knot in the pit of her belly. The girl was nearly falling out of her dress and it looked as if this wasn’t the first bar they had visited. They all stumbled their way over to where she was sitting, the taller of the two brothers staring down into Pay’s over-exposed cleavage.
The fight didn’t take long. Mona apologized to the bartender for the ruckus and slid an extra ten into the tab for her next drink.
“Thanks, miss,” he said.
She smirked and turned back to her glass.
She felt, more than heard, the man sit down next to her.
“Hey there.”