Cute.
By the time she comes back, she’s composed again, fresh pint in hand. She sets it down in front of me with just the slightest tremor in her fingers.
“Here,” she says. “Let me clean this up.”
I laugh low, quiet. Watch her work. She drags her gaze back to me between each movement.
“Jumpy much?” I tease.
Her mouth parts, but no words come out. That blush returns, hotter this time. I watch her fight it, watch her try to keep that bartender composure. I lean in just enough that she can smell the cigarette smoke on my jacket and the motor oil on my hands.
Someone once called it abad-boysmell. I’ve been using it ever since. You never know what tiny thing girls will decide is sexy, but they’ll always find something.
You just tick off as many tiny things as you can think of and reel them in.
Her fingers tighten around the bar’s edge. She’s fighting a smile now, eyes locked on mine like she’s afraid to blink.
What is she, some small-town good girl who wandered into the wrong part of the world?
Can’t help it. Gets me interested.
I look like a fox, and I guess I grew into the part. You see a blushing girl, what else are you gonna do but bite?
“Don’t worry.” I let my voice drop, soft, just for her. “Didn’t come here to cause trouble. Not unless you ask for it.”
Ah, the way she bats her lashes… It makes me want to lean across the bar and see how red I can make those cheeks get.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
“Talon.”
“Pretty name. Sounds a bit edgy.”
“Yeah, well. I have claws sometimes.”
She laughs. It’s not even that funny, but she laughs.
“Where are you from, Rhea?” I ask, rolling her name slow on my tongue.
“Here and there,” she says. “I was in school a while back. Nursing. Didn’t work out. What gave away that I'm not from here?”
“Want me to be honest?”
Her brow furrows, but there’s a spark behind it. “Yeah. Might be good to know what to mask next time.”
I take a sip, let the pause hang.
“Don’t know if you could mask something like that.”
“What is it?” she asks.
“The light in your eyes.”
I say it like I’m guessing, but I’m not. She’s not hollow. She’s got this glow, like she’s made half out of sunlight. The longer we talk, the more I see it, and fuck… I guess I’m some back-alley plant that clawed its way up through sewage, because when that light hits me, all I want to do is bask in it.
Or at least inhale it in.
“That’s poetic,” she says. “And extremely vague.”
