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Brienne thinks this entire thing is stupid from the get-go. The second Sansa and Margaery tell her they’re going out to a brewery slash coffee shop, her brain rejects it like the plague.
Why ruin a perfectly good coffee shop by making it a brewery?
Why ruin a perfectly good brewery by making it a coffee shop?
She’s had coffee stouts in the past, beer and coffee simply shouldn’t be mixed.
Still, it’s a Saturday night, and she knows her roommates won’t leave her at home alone, no matter how much she insists that she’ll be fine at home catching up on her shows.
Reluctantly, she gets dressed and escorts them out to this… coffee beer monstrosity.
Brienne doesn’t know why she puts herself in these situations. She already thought this was stupid, but once they arrive, it only gets stupider.
Sansa and Margaery each appear to have gotten drunk off of what can’t possibly be more than two beers each. Of course they have; they’re tiny and thin and beautiful, and the kind of girls you don’t have to spend too much money on during a date, because it doesn’t take much for them to feel full.
Not like Big Brienne . She feels horribly out of place with them at times like this, no matter how much she adores them both.
While they drink and giggle, Brienne has opted for coffee instead, sitting back and keeping a clear head so that she can keep a close eye on Margaery and Sansa.
They try to include her; they’re good friends, that way. But Brienne’s already not that interested in tonight’s frivolity, and it only gets worse when they come up with the bet .
“We should see who can get the most free drinks between us!” Margaery proposes as she bats her eyes prettily at the bartender. Sansa gasps as if it’s the most brilliant idea she’s ever heard, like it’s some fun game, to have the attention of every handsome brewery/coffee shop patron upon them as they see which ones like them enough to buy them things they’re perfectly capable of buying themselves.
They’re so excited , though. The train is already in motion, and Brienne knows there’s no stopping it now. Sansa and Margaery are about to go on their ‘free beer’ mission, whether Brienne participates or not.
And she most certainly will not.
It’s not their fault, that they don’t know why Brienne hates bets. It’s humiliating , what’s happened to her in the past; she doesn’t want her closest friends feeling sorry for her, and she doesn’t want them trying to empathize when she knows they can’t possibly relate.
Besides… even if she didn’t hate bets on principle, she’d hate this one. What a joke . Vivacious, stunning Margaery, and sweet, beautiful Sansa, they’d have no trouble scoring free drink after free drink compared to ungainly, mannish Brienne. She wouldn’t have stood a chance anyway. Better not to even try.
Sansa and Margaery of course waste no time in finding the most beautiful man in the entire room. Emerald green eyes that stand out even from far away, golden hair that Brienne can imagine glimmering in the sun, an air of confidence that she can’t help but envy.
She sees Sansa flirting with him first, but she can’t stand the sight of it. She can’t see the man’s face any longer, but she’s sure that he finds her friend delightful. Everyone finds Sansa delightful, they can’t help themselves.
Brienne stares resolutely into her coffee, swirling it around with a spoon even though she’s taken it black and there’s nothing to even mix.
The next time she looks up, it’s Margaery with the golden, godlike man instead, tossing her hair over her shoulder, laughing warmly. Brienne finds it a bit odd that they’re both getting the same man to buy them a drink, but perhaps there’s a strategy to it that she doesn’t care to dwell on. She’s sure they’ll explain it later, when this ridiculous game of theirs is done.
With a sigh, Brienne looks away again, and this time picks up the beer list to distract herself.
She needn’t distract herself with the beer list for too long. She senses a shadow hovering over her, and she bristles. People don’t approach her, not really. Not unless they’re the assholes of the world like Ron Connington, there to inform her how ugly she is, or they’re men with fetishes for big women like Tormund Giantsbane.
Or worse. They could be men like Hyle Hunt, only being kind to her so he can win a bloody bet .
The shadow clears his throat, and she looks up, her heart stuttering in her chest when she realizes it was the beautiful man from before. Margaery’s beautiful man, or maybe Sansa’s. Maybe even both . Brienne narrows her eyes at him, confused as to why he’s now over here with her .
He doesn’t ask , he just takes a seat at the bar beside her, joking, “Someone’s not having any fun, are they?”
Brienne grimaces. Of course she’s not having fun, but she hadn’t expected anyone to come over and mock her for it. She categorizes him quickly into the asshole type, which figures. Why would someone that good-looking need to be nice?
“I’ll tell you a secret,” he says, leaning in closer to her. “I’m not having very much fun, either. Let me guess: the obnoxious drunks getting to you, too? They’re a bit much, aren’t they?”
He looks in Sansa and Margaery’s direction, and Brienne’s too intrigued to be annoyed that he’s insulted her friends. She’s been called a great number of things in her life, plenty of them nasty; obnoxiously drunk is probably the worst thing anyone’s ever called Margaery and Sansa anyway, and it’s quite a tame insult, all things together. They can change their behavior. Brienne can’t do too much to change the awkward body she was born into.
“Those drunks are my friends,” Brienne informs him, though, lest he think it’s okay to say anything worse about them. The man arches an eyebrow at her in surprise.
Of course he does . Why wouldn’t he be surprised that someone as beastly as her is here with two people as beautiful as them?
It’s the same, everywhere she goes. The reaction shouldn’t sting, but it still does anyway, and Brienne pushes her hands on the countertop, moving to stand and leave.
“Why are you leaving ?” he asks, sounding surprisingly distraught. “You’re the first interesting person I’ve found all night. The only one that’s different .”
He catches her off guard again . She’s not sure what to make of him, but he’s not enamored with Margaery and Sansa, and he’s not being cruel to her, not yet. On the surface, she supposes that makes him different, but her skepticism wins out. She doubts he’s different at all; he’s probably just another pretty boy, wanting something from her, expecting something.
“What is it you want , Mr…” Brienne ends up demanding, although it loses its effect when she trails off, not knowing his name.
“Jaime. Just Jaime,” he tells her, reaching his hand out to shake hers. Those green eyes of his seem to sparkle when she shakes his hand firmly, like he’s impressed by her strong grip, but that’s ridiculous . Brienne doesn’t impress people. Scares them, maybe, at worst. Intimidates them, more realistically.
“Fine. What do you want, Jaime ?”
He raises a hand to his heart, like she’s wounded him deeply. “All I want is to know your name. And perhaps for you to protect me for the evening; there are lots of girls like your friends here, and I don’t fancy having to keep turning people down.”
“Brienne,” she says back through gritted teeth. He’s still beautiful, but he’s a bit obnoxious, isn’t he? Flaunting the fact that women here are fawning all over him, drawing attention to how large and unconventional she is by asking for his protection .
Experience has taught her to guard herself, to wait for the other shoe to drop. But Jaime just persists with a winning smile, no trace of malice in his eyes.
“What do you do for a living, Brienne? Body guard? Body builder? Do you work for one of those ridiculous moving companies? Lady Hunks Moving Junk ?” he asks her, and she wants to be annoyed. She really does. His words themselves are a bit insulting, but he seems so genuinely intrigued, like he didn’t mean for them to hurt her feelings at all.
It’s confusing, the attention he’s paying her, and there’s a part of her that wants to get up and go home before this can devolve into the usual sort of nightmare. But her eyes scan the room and see Sansa and Margaery, still concentrating on their game. She can’t very well leave them here, and so, she resolves to stick it out.
She can try to trust this man for another hour or so, can’t she? Or at least until he finds something better to do and leaves her be.
“I’m actually a fencing coach at a local private school. And a PE teacher; nothing terribly interesting,” she says, sure that he’s got some glamorous life. He frowns in response to that, and Brienne assumes again that she’s right: that he’s some ass who agrees that a low-earning teacher isn’t anything impressive, that whatever respect he seemed to have for her a moment ago has flown out the window.
He surprises her again, though. “That’s nothing to scoff at. I wish I could work with kids, or people who don’t suck in general. I got stuck working for my family business, and I’ve never quite managed to find a way to get out of it. It’s soul-sucking office work; stick me with kids and their dodgeballs anyday.”
“Dodgeball’s not allowed these days,” Brienne reminds him with a roll of her eyes. She doesn’t comment on what he’s said; it doesn’t sound like something he wants to elaborate on. It does sound like she’s got him pegged all wrong, though. Like maybe he isn’t some arrogant prick, and that the looks aren’t the only thing appealing about him.
Talking to him might actually be fun , Brienne thinks, absurdly. Beautiful men in bars don’t typically talk to her, and logic dictates that this shouldn’t be happening, but it is. He’s made an ass out of her and her assumptions thrice already; maybe it’s time for Brienne to stop assuming and just let herself enjoy it.
She glances around to find Margaery and Sansa, hoping they aren’t planning to interrupt her. They’re together, giggling and toasting each other with the drinks that various men around the bar have presumably purchased for them. They look like they’re going to be here for a long time, and for the first time that evening, Brienne doesn’t absolutely hate that idea.
“What, sick of my company already?” Jaime asks, wounded. “Here, let me buy you a real drink, make it worth your while.”
Brienne thinks nothing of the offer as Jaime waves over their bartender, Bronn, and declares that whatever the lady would like to drink is on him.
Reluctantly, she picks a beer off the list and orders.
Once they start drinking, they get to talking. Like really and truly talking. They find out that they’re both medieval history buffs who’re constantly scouring the internet for traveling exhibits to go see. They bicker playfully about what team’s going to win the world series this year, and about whether or not poker matches should be featured on ESPN. They talk about the island she grew up on, and he says he’d love to see it someday; he’s traveled loads of places, but never to Tarth.
Jaime even reveals he used to fence, too, back in high school, and says he’d love to get back into it sometime. He even gives her a bit of a meaningful look, then, but Brienne refuses to think he means he wants to fence with her .
This is fun, what they’re doing tonight, but guys like Jaime don’t want to see girls like Brienne again .
When he orders her her fourth beer, he’s got a lopsided grin on his face. It makes Brienne’s stomach feel like it’s in knots.
“I’m glad that the more you drink, the less you distrust me,” he tells her, and she immediately sits up straighter, her guard back up.
“No, no, that’s the opposite of what I just told you I like. Why are you all… prickly looking again? Go back to laughing, I like when you’re laughing!” Jaime tells her, pouting ridiculously. He keeps doing that, tugging at her heartstrings, making her feel bad for bristling at his attention.
She decides to fuck it , then. She’s been thinking it all night, Brienne may as well voice her fears aloud. Over the last hour, he’s told her he was once afraid of Big Bird , for Christ’s sake. Her fears are much more understandable than fearing a man in a giant yellow bird costume.
“When you’re this ugly, you can’t really trust many people’s intentions,” Brienne says, and she’s pleasantly surprised when Jaime doesn’t argue with her. It would have felt false, if he’d tried to tell her she wasn’t ugly. She knows what she is; she knows how she looks.
“I have a little brother. Tyrion. He’s a dwarf, and… the world hasn’t exactly treated him kindly,” Jaime shrugs, understandingly. “There’s more to a person than how they look, though. Tyrion’s the smartest person I know. And a hell of a lot braver than I am. He got out of the family business. He runs this place now, actually.”
Jaime waves his arm around at the brewery/coffee shop, and suddenly, Brienne appreciates it a bit more than she did before. Coffee and beer still don’t mix ; her first beer had tasted atrocious until she was halfway through and her palette had adjusted. But there’s something nice about it, too.
Even if that something nice is maybe just the company she’s managed to keep.
Inexplicably, Brienne ends up telling him about the bet. Sansa and Margaery’s, of course, when he tells her that no offense to her friends but he’s quite glad he ended up talking to her instead. (She doesn’t take offense. She takes some odd, warm feeling away from his statement instead.)
But she tells him about the real bet, too. The traumatic bet, when Hyle and his friends had tried to flatter her into bed with them, just to see who could trick her into losing her virginity first.
Jaime doesn’t laugh, or offer her pity he doesn’t want. He just curls one hand into a fist, like he wishes that he could hit the people who had done such a thing to her, and then he steers the conversation back towards happier topics.
In the end, Sansa and Margaery grow tired of their game. They skip over to Brienne to tally up their drinks, where they find her still talking to Jaime.
“One, two, three… four,” Sansa declares, as she scrolls through her Untappd app to count up the beers that she’s tried over the last two hours.
Margaery does the same, her dainty fingers tapping on each beer one by one until she says, beaming, “ Five for me.”
Margaery is on the brink of declaring victory when Jaime, seemingly the only man who refused them all night, holds up the receipt for his bar tab in between the two girls.
“If you look at this, you’ll see that Brienne’s been bought seven drinks this evening. There wasn’t a rule about the drinks having to be from all different people, was there?”
Sansa and Margaery’s jaws both drop . They gape at him, surprised by the turn of events, and then Margaery says breathlessly, “No, there certainly wasn’t a rule against that! It looks like our Brienne has won .”
Brienne feels just as baffled as they are. They’d been out, flirting and winning affection on purpose , while she’d sat here and had the best conversation she’d had in ages with a complete and total stranger. He’d insisted on paying for beer after beer, but… she hadn’t been playing . How could she be the winner ?
Sansa and Margaery throw their arms around Brienne, so genuinely pleased for her that it’s hard to remember why she resented them so much just a couple of hours ago. Jaime stands up from his stool, winking at her.
“Hopefully I’ll see you again soon,” he says, squeezing her shoulder as he squeezes past them and makes his exit.
Guys like Jaime don’t want to see girls like me again , she thinks for the second time that evening, but Sansa has picked up the receipt Jaime left behind, and the next thing Brienne knows she’s literally squealing with delight.
“Brienne! He left you his phone number , you’ve got to call him!” she urges as they jump up and down, completely giddy about how her night has turned out.
Brienne doesn’t jump up and down, or giggle or squeal. At least, not outwardly. On the outside, she is merely wearing a stunned smile.
But on the inside… Brienne is
perhaps
feeling the way that Margaery and Sansa are acting. And she’s definitely already thinking of what she can say to Jaime later, once she gets home.