Chapter Text
Adelaide had to admit that taking a four hour trip up to Dalton wasn't her most favorite time of the year, but if it meant seeing her friends who were attending Dalton State, then she could probably deal with it.
It wasn't like Albany, not one iota. Dalton was smaller, the population significantly less and the place all the more nicer; Adelaide thought they'd got it all wrong nicknaming Albany The Good Life City, she didn't exactly hate it, but she didn't really like it either.
Her friends were cooped up in a tidy little two storey on Valley Drive that was less than fifteen minutes away from their college and Adelaide loved it. Valley Drive at this time of year was beautifully green with trees forming canopies over the roads and wild flowers blooming in the gardens in vivid pinks and yellows with neatly trimmed lawns.
Adelaide had three friends attending Dalton State; Adam, a skinny twig of a young man with shaggy brown hair and an affinity for denim jackets covered in pins, Esther who had a shock of pink in her otherwise platinum blonde hair and Georgina who had vividly blue eyes that looked through turquoise-framed polka-dot glasses.
They'd welcomed her warmly a few days ago and were finally heading out for the night together. Adam had picked the place; a ramshackle bar that looked like it was in a no good neighborhood called Castaways. It wasn't in a no good area, it was in an out of the way area and only ten minutes from Valley Drive.
They walked the short distance, laughing and joking before Adam held the door open for the girls to go inside. The place looked a shambles from the outside with peeling paintwork and a shoddy decking area, but inside it was cavernous.
There was a stage to the right of the bar and a dance floor that opened out in front of them surrounded with small tables and high chairs pulled up to the bar where the servers were chatting to their punters. A long wooden bar top jutted out from the wall, severing the dance floor from a games area where there was a table football game and two pool tables.
"What you drinkin' Addie?" Adam asked as they settled at a table just by the bar. "First rounds on me, since you came all this way just for us 'nd all."
"Ain't you kind," Adelaide gave a sarcastic smile. "I'll just have a coke for now, please 'nd thank ya."
Adam collected the orders from the others and took himself to the bar as Adelaide watched after him. There were three or four people around the bar chatting and laughing and one man sat solely on his own closer to the wall nursing a beer bottle.
"You comin' to dance Addie?" Adam's hand landed heavily on her shoulder, startling her from her look around of the club.
"Adam, I'm wearin' heels for the first time in who knows how damn long," she glanced up at him as she took a sip of her drink and Georgina and Esther gave a giggle. "You sure that's such a great idea?"
"O' course," he held a hand out to her and she slapped hers into it with a grin and stood up cautiously. "I'll catch ya if ya fall."
"Ain't fallin' I'm worried about," she gripped his hand tight and walked carefully. "S'your feet."
All four of them had dressed for the night; the girls in tight skirts, heels and sleeveless blouses and Adam in a sleeved blue plaid shirt, black jeans and sneakers. A fair few eyes followed them to the dance floor but Adelaide paid them no mind.
Throughout the evening, they swapped and changed places and people. Some of her friends friends had come down to see them and for a little while Adelaide sat by herself at the table and watched.
She knew they had lives up here and a home and everything else, but she'd made the effort to come see them, not them and their friends.
She crossed her legs over and got comfortable in the chair before she heard someone coughing at the bar. She peered over her shoulder hesitantly and saw that it was a man; he was hunched over, pale faced and spluttering into a balled up handkerchief that was spotted red.
Adelaide squirmed uncomfortably and tried to put it to the back of her mind as Georgina and Adam sidled over a little bit tipsy and offered to get her another drink. She nodded and Adam took off to the bar, leaning on it for support as Georgina sat next to Adelaide.
"Hey, Georgie?" Adelaide glanced at the man who was coughing harder than before and standing dangerously close to Adam. "Do me a favour, would ya?"
"Anythin'," Georgina slapped her playfully on the back.
"Y'all stay away from that guy, y'hear?" she nodded to him. "He don't look right."
"Nobody looks right when they leave here Addie," she laughed. "Come dance!"
"Later," she gave a singular nod and watched as Georgina ambled back to the floor, colliding with Esther as she did so.
Shaking her head with a smile, she thanked Adam as he placed another drink in front of her, gave her a nod and headed back to the floor to dance with some girl he probably knew.
-
The night wore on the mans coughing got gradually worse. He wheezed and choked, the cough wet and chesty as his skin gleamed under the light of the bar with beads of sweat.
Adelaide dragged herself up, tipsy on her feet from drinking whatever Adam had been fetching her and grabbed Esther for a dance. The music was loud with heavy bass lines and the floor was crowded with people. As Adelaide danced with Esther, she saw the man at the bar again, still sat close to the wall, still cradling the same beer, not that it was any of her business of course.