The King's Head was the kind of pub that smelled of old beer and older regrets. Morgan pushed through the heavy door, the briefcase a familiar weight in his hand. He settled into his usual corner booth, the scarred leather a welcome solitude after the day's corporate noise. He'd just taken the first smooth sip of his whiskey when a booming voice cut through the murmur.
"Morgan Hole! Well, I'll be damned. Slumming it with the common folk?"
Morgan looked up to see David, a boisterous former colleague from his early days, grinning down at him. David, never one for invitations, slid into the opposite seat, his own pint sloshing. "So, you're at Sterling & Grey now? How's the land of the high and mighty?"
"The same," Morgan said, a faint smile playing on his lips. "Full of people who confuse panic with productivity."
David barked a laugh. "Some things never change! Still causing trouble?"
"I prefer to think of it as… providing clarity." Morgan took another sip, his eyes glinting with a private amusement. "We had a server meltdown today. Absolute pandemonium. Albright was having a coronary, people were crying. It was a full-blown circus."
David leaned in, eager for the story. "And you, I assume, were the ringmaster?"
"In a manner of speaking." Morgan set his glass down. "The whole office was losing its mind. So, I decided to… make some tea."
David's grin faltered in confusion. "Tea?"
"I opened the case," Morgan said, the memory clearly delighting him. "Pulled out my little red teapot, the electric kettle, the whole kit. Right in the middle of the trading floor. Steeped a perfect cup of oolong while the world burned around me."
The image dawned on David slowly, and then his face split into a wide, incredulous smile. "You didn't."
"I did. The silence was deafening. You could have heard a pin drop. Sarah from Accounting just stared at my teapot like it had landed from Mars. Old man Albright's jaw was on the floor."
A chuckle rumbled in David's chest, then erupted into full-blown laughter that turned heads at the neighboring tables. "You madman! You brought a tea set to a server fire!"
"And then I told him where to find the backup files," Morgan added, finally allowing himself a genuine, broad smile. "The look on his face… priceless. It was worth the price of the whole set."
They both laughed then, a real, hearty sound that cut through the pub's gloom. For a moment, Morgan wasn't the aloof "asshole" , just a man sharing a brilliant joke with an old friend.
David's laughter faded into a long, weary sigh, a genuine one this time. He swirled the dregs of his pint. "Yeah, well, my life's a different kind of circus these days. The kind where the clowns are all lawyers, and the main attraction is my bank account getting eaten alive." He gave a wry, lopsided grin.
"Theresa, my ex...she ...took the house, the dog, and my will to live. But hey, I got the court bills and a lifetime subscription to my kids' allowance. It's a great deal, if you don't mind living on instant noodles and regret."
He flagged down the bartender for another round, pointing at Morgan's glass too. "My solicitor's new car has a personalized plate," he joked, the bitterness softened by humor. "I think it spells 'DAVIDPAID'. Cheers to that." He clinked his fresh glass against Morgan's. "So yeah, while you're solving corporate crises with a teapot, I'm over here just trying to remember what a savings account looks like."
Morgan, uncharacteristically, felt a stab of something akin to sympathy. "David... that's..." he began, searching for the right words, a tool his own suitcase didn't contain. "That's genuinely terrible."
David looked at him, at the rare and awkward display of concern on his friend's usually impassive face, and a slow grin spread from ear to ear. "Oh, don't give me that look, Hole. You look like you're trying to solve a math problem on my forehead." He leaned in, his voice dropping to a mock-conspiratorial whisper.
"Besides, it's not all bad. I'm now a recognized expert in sixty-seven different ways to prepare ramen. I call my signature dish 'Alimony Noodles'. The secret ingredient is tears."
He winked. The sheer absurdity of it, delivered with David's trademark humor, broke the tension. A chuckle escaped Morgan, then another, and soon they were both laughing hard enough that David had to wipe his eye.
"See?" David said, catching his breath. "Even my tragedy is a comedy. Another round?"