It was a beautiful summer Saturday evening, hot and humid but not too much so. I'd been at a get together with some buddies but they started to make their getaways around seven and since I still had a couple of beers in my pack and wanted to enjoy the evening I decided to sit down somewhere quiet on my own for a while.
I quite liked to be alone. At 23 I felt kind of strange to enjoy time by myself or talking about deeper things than who did who and what cars are the best and worst. On the walk from home I had to go through a park and conveniently it had a bench to sit my down on and have a beer in peace.
I opened a bottle and taking a pull from it I noticed an older gentleman walking along the park path with his own bottle in hand. He looked around and asked if he can sit down with me since there was only a single bench in sight.
"Sure why not there's plenty of space" I answered.
"How's it going anyway? I was just on my way home when the thirst caught me and I decided to get a cold one for the road" he continued. "Sounds good. Same idea here although mine isn't so cold anymore." I replied.
He looked about sixty and relaxed. Just a tipsy bloke who had a few drinks leading to being overly social. He had shortish silver hair with a belly but I could tell that he still fought against the time by exercising. The man looked tidy and friendly enough with strong arms.
"Well thanks for sharing your bench, what are you doing here by yourself? I got tired of listening to my friends complain about their wives and children and decided that it's a too nice evening for that old lot. How about you?" He asked.
"I'm going home, just wanted to finish these beers first since the weather's nice and that doesn't happen so often."
He agreed about that point and we talked about my studies and it turned out we were going for a similar profession. He had sold his company some time ago and was now semi retired doing some consulting work here and there as a "hobby" as he called it.
We got along surprisingly well, and when I had finished my beer it turned out we were living in the same direction so we could walk the same way for a while. When we came to a bar he asked if I was up for one more with company and I agreed and said that it sounded nice and in we went. We looked for a table in the busy establishments and managed to get one from a corner. He told me to wait and that he would get us something from the bar. He returned with two beers and two jaegers in hand. I thanked him for buying and we toasted for the summer.
