“It’s tequila, the same alcohol that’s in your drinks.”
“Okay.”
I hold my nose and start slowly start sipping on the clear liquor.
“We’ll be here all night at this rate,” my new drinking buddy chuckles. “Throw it back.”
“Ugh, all right. I bet you were a bully in school.”
“I didn’t have to bully people to get them to do my bidding.”
I bet he didn’t.
After I finish the shot, he leans over and uses the pad of his thumb to wipe a few granules of sugar off the corner of my mouth. It’s the most startling yet intimate thing a man has ever done to me.
“Is he obliterated from your consciousness, yet?”
I blink twice to get my brain to fire up again.
It’s frozen.
I think I need to call Dena to come here and extract me from the building, because this jobless wonder is looking even more tasty than he did five minutes ago.
“I want him to be,” I say in earnest.
He takes a swig of his beer and grins curiously at me, as if I’m some sort of incredibly unique bird.
“What’s your name, darlin’?”
Our conversation is interrupted when the bar suddenly erupts in a unified cheer, followed by some random clapping.
“What on earth is everyone so excited about?”
“The game.”
“What game?”
The last time I checked, The Wild Boar wasn’t a sports bar.
“Hockey.”
“Oh, did the Yankees win the World Series or something?”
He laughs yet again at me, but this time I’m not bothered by it. This time his amusement is infectious.
“What did I say?” I ask, grinning.
“The Mets, not the Yankees, won the World Seriestwodays ago. Both are baseball teams, by the way.”
“Oh.”
“Tonight everyone is watching hockey. The Rangers look good this year.”
“Oh,” I repeat again feeling a bit like a nerd.
“You don’t follow sports at all, do you?”
“Not one bit.”
