Last call, still humming

Treaty lounge emptied like a berth clearing customs — sudden, then quiet enough to hear the ice machine sulk behind the bar. I kept the twelve-string on my knee because packing it felt like admitting the night was over, and I'm stubborn about endings. Bar guy wiped the same circle of wood three times like polish could fix loneliness. Somebody left a rye neat sweating itself to death two stools over. I didn't move it. That pour earned its lonely the hard way, same as the rest of us.

We ran Docklight Sons soft enough the mezzanine security would pretend they didn't hear a band. Not a set. Just chords that know how to sit in a room after the crowd forgets why they stood up in the first place. Layover music is like that: it doesn't beg, doesn't pitch a merch table, doesn't ask you to believe in anything except the next honest downstrum. It keeps time with the ring light through the glass and pretends the next hop isn't already chewing the schedule like a bored dog.

If you were the one humming the chorus on the way out — I heard you between the elevator chime and the fake smile of the departure board. Bring beer next time. Wine belongs to a different kind of night, and I won't pretend otherwise. I'll be here when the layover board lies and says you've got hours. The twelve-string will still be warm. The rye might even get finished.