p: miller – pianokeysandbowties back up

miller.

Boat Pants sidling up near his stool answered most of his questions. First, that this was the Blaine dude he was supposed to meet. Second, that those were indeed boats and he hadn’t imagined it. Miller’s throat emitted a low noise as he wrapped up the last of his cigarette so he could crush it out. He turned with a quick stream of smoke out to better assess the guy with a quick passage of dark eyes behind the darker rims of his glasses. “Yeah. I think I follow.”

“You play here often? Seems like the people know you.” His head jerked at the adoring fans still smiling and raising their glasses as if they were closely related. One woman even looked like a proud smiling parent. Jesus.

Not that Miller was here to judge. He lived a life of relative anonymity. It was precisely what he preferred. And he was pretty damned good at blending in when he wanted to. In fact, his ability to occasionally vanish into the crowd was downright supernatural. Not that he wasn’t without his own notoriety among his peers. The psychic emptied his shot glass and slapped it down on the bar.

“This bar is way less haunted than it looks like from the outside. Is it one of those new trendy places where they made it appear more vintage than it actually is? Because a place with this much weathering on the wallpaper normally has a spook or two attached.”

When he started talking about ghosts it usually turned off people’s interests fast. So it was often a tactic he used to test the waters. The worst that could happen was that Blaine would return to the piano and he would go find a cab. Either way, he got a couple of drinks out of the occasion already. “You ever seen one? A ghost?”

Yes. Those were, indeed, boats. Little white sailboats against a navy blue background. On his legs. Blaine hooked the edge of his shoes against the rung of the chair as he made himself comfortable by stealing the seat next to the tall, lanky guy he barely knew. Not one for cigarettes, he watched as the smoke disappeared overhead then glanced over his shoulder at the crowd.

A brow lifted and he smiled towards them before glancing back. “Five nights a week. Six if I have nothing else to do.” Which happened to be most of the time lately, but he wasn’t going to point that out just yet. Might as well not come off as a complete loner (as voluntarily as it was most of the time) right off bat. “So, yeah, a lot of them know me.”

Bewilderment filled his expression, turning his brows towards one another and his eyes squinted at their corners. A spark of interest lit them up at the peculiar question. “Um. I think it’s as old as it looks but far as ghosts?” Yes, his voice dropped a fraction when he said the word though he failed to recognize it consciously.

“I think Joe,” he gestured towards the old man with the round belly and thinning gray hair/mustache behind the counter who caught the subtle flick of Blaine’s fingers and shot them both a wave–and Miller a side-eye, “would intimidate them into staying away. If they aren’t a paying customer.”

Grinning as he shrugged Joe’s supicious glance off–a huff of laughter and a shake of his head later, he whispered a rushed apology. “Sorry. He warms up eventually,” then switched gears back to their conversation flawlessly, “Have a I seen a ghost? Umm..” Olive skin dusted pink over his cheeks and nose. “No? I don’t think so.. Why? Have you?” And look! Two sets of toes dipping in the water! But, like Miller thought, what was the worst that could happen?

miller mayfair.

Exchanging a series of text with a random dude definitely wasn’t the strangest thing Miller had ever done. Being here in New York, dealing with the obligations of visiting with family, he’d welcome the amusing distraction from his normal routine of staying in his hotel room watching whatever convenient marathon of shows they had on their most interesting channels. The buzz of it quickly wore off, and he’d almost written off the guy completely, until his cellphone screen flashed up with the most magical word of all: bar.

A bar was precisely the cures to all his ails. Plus, it wasn’t like there was anything all that bizarre about meeting a stranger at a new location. Miller did it all the time. Simply par for the course in his line of work. And it wasn’t like this was some kind of blind date type of deal. More like.. blind bros. A potential to commiserate with alcohol and conversation with someone who didn’t strike him as a total shmuck.

When he arrived, the first thing he did was amble over to the bar to place down a credit card for a tab. Naturally, the account attached to it belonged to his boss – who would be footing the bill for this entire trip, but it was okay so long as he wrote it all off as being for ‘Research Purposes’. Ada would probably raise her eyebrows at him for daring to try to pass off a bar bill as part of his field research. Still. This place was probably haunted. So it counted.

Every place in New York was just a little bit haunted.

Miller grabbed the first drink of the night, whiskey in the glass that he thumped down on the counter near the piano. There were enough people gathered around that spot that he could pretend he wasn’t drinking solo. He squirmed on the stool to tug out his pack of smokes and lighter, after a quick inspection of the place indicated that it mercifully allowed smoking inside still. Thank fuck.

The back of his hand shoved absently at the corner of his glasses as he gave a dismissive look at the dude at the piano. This place wasn’t exactly his normal scene. Miller didn’t usually get wasted in bars where dudes wore pants with boats on them. He tapped out debris in a nearby ashtray while the guy sang, glancing around for a signal from the one he was supposed to meet here.

Then, while he stared a while longer at Boat Pants, it clicked in his head that this was exactly the person he had come to meet. Drink and a show. Welcome to New York.

As the last notes of She’s Always A Woman To Me finished with a round of applause with the small crowd that filtered in, Blaine plucked at a few more keys and gave the crowd a warm, appreciative smile. His tip jar was filling up nice enough that he decided to continue through to a couple more Billy Joel covers just to keep them coming. New Yorkers (and especially the tourists) loving that Long Island boy always made paying tomorrow’s bills a little easier. He’d get to his own music later on tonight. Bank account first, music you wrote and/or prefer after you’re sure the lights are going to stay on. Ahh, the burdens of adulthood.

Piano Man followed to warm them up. His eyes kept scanning the bar wondering if his mystery texter was already there. For some reason, the solo guy at the bar who was watching him and smoking like a chimney stood out from the others. Mainly because he was alone and the only people that came here by themselves were people he knew by name that had their preferred stools at the bar and drink orders in a could-make-them-in-his-sleep in Joe’s brain menu.

This guy wasn’t one of them.

Mystery texter identified? Maybe? As the vocals from his patrons picked up in time with his, Blaine dipped his head in a nod to Miller and then went back to making eye contact with those closest to him. He even encouraged them to sing louder with the occasional wave of his hand and bounce on his piano bench. New York State Of Mind rounded things out and just like that, he had his spending money taken care of. Thank you, Mister Joel.

Standing up from his perch, Blaine gave a promise to be back later, thanked them for putting up with him so far tonight and stepped around the piano. Bellying up next to Miller and trusting that his guess was right (or this was going to get awkward really fast), the singer brushed his hands on the outsides of his thighs so he could offer him a hand that wasn’t cramped up from banging on piano keys.

“Hi..uhm. Sorry to keep you waiting,” his eyebrows scrunched together just above that curious gaze reading back and forth over Millers, “Or did I guess wrong and you have no idea what I’m talking about?”

closed starter: @miller-mayfair

Blaine had no idea what he was getting himself into. A mis-text that ended up as an invitation for a complete stranger to come to the piano bar that he now called his home away from home. Not that his home was much of a place he wanted to be anyway. Not with it’s faded wallpaper, traffic outside that could drown out the sound of a train running by mid-mornings and wonky heater that never quite seemed to work enough in winter and yet always made a comeback to prove it could still make a room to a near boiling point in summer. Forget the AC. Unless it came from two fan towers he bought at Walgreens trying their damndest to make a difference and only managing to just swirl the hot air around.

At least the bar was cool and his boss always had a good meal waiting and the crowds were coming in if for no other reason than to grab a cold one and soak up some air conditioning. They always seemed to stay once Blaine started to play and the tips were good enough to pay the bills. Using his pointer to tap away the message to his mother (the fifth he only replied ‘i’m okay, i promise’ to this week in reply to her asking him if he’d let her send him something), Blaine lightly toyed with the raised embroidery of one of the sailboats scattered across the fabric of his navy blue pants with the other. Nearly a half an hour went by since he last heard from Miller. Who knew if the guy would show? But, hey, it was something new. An adventure to see what might happen. Movie quality weird and who knew what might come of stepping outside his comfort zone? Something he used to be good at..but now…didn’t really do so much.

Lifting his glass of bourbon and ice with his fingertips, the singer made his way back to the piano. The smile he caught from a couple snuggled in close earned them one back and a request of their choosing. A brow lifted and he gave them a cheeky grin. “You should keep her if she’s a Billy Joel fan,” he lightly teased the guy as he sat down on the piano bench and gave a few keys a testing plink. “Those are hard to come by and by my experience? They’re the best sort of people you can hope to meet. Mostly.” The woman laughed at Blaine’s sly wink and when the first notes touched his ears and his voice filled the room, he let his eyes fall shut and the world slipped away.
“She can kill with a smile. She can wound with her eyes...”