Her fingers wrap around mine. Instead of relinquishing the drink, I let her hold it, and me, for a few quiet seconds.
“You deserve the Knob Creek. Or this local distillery’s latest?—”
“I’m good.” I put my other hand over hers, sandwiching it on the glass and holding her still. “Thanks.”
When she looks at me, she’s breathing hard enough to move her chest up and down, quick and somehow dramatic, reminding me of those old black and white movies my dad played in the diner when I was a kid.
“Okay.”
“Sit and have a drink with me.”
She eyes me another minute, her gaze searching my whole face for some answer she seems to find before she gives in with a sigh and a quick, brittle lifting of her lips that looks nothing like a smile. “I could use another, I guess.”
I hold off on drinking until she’s strained up to grab a sealed bottle from the literal top shelf and blown the dust off, then served a glass for me and another for herself. She keeps the bar between us.
Even if you don’t know exactly what I’ve done, I suppose I can be a scary fucker.
“You all right being here alone with me?” I ask, then watch closely as she considers how to answer.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
Her eyes spark in the warm, dim light above the bar. “On what it is you want exactly.”
“What makes you think I want something?”
4
Kit
Oh, he wants something all right. I just can’t for the life of me figure out what it is.
But there’s something a little too direct about his gaze right now and, suddenly, I can’t backpedal fast enough. I’m too shaken and buzzing and more than a little intrigued by this big man taking up more than his allotment of space at my bar. And none of that is a good thing.
“Never mind.” I shove the freshly-poured bourbon toward him and grab my own, raise it and wait for him to clunk his glass to mine. “Cheers to another shift down.”
“Cheers to you,” he says, watching me closely. “Happy birthday.”
I pause. “How’d you…” Horror takes over when I realize exactly what he must’ve overheard on the bluetooth speakers. “Oh, shit.”
“Hey. Forty’s not that old.”
“That’s not what I meant, you… Wait. How old areyou?”
His weirdly light, intense eyes focus on me, a sudden spark of humor heating their depths. A warm weight flips around inmy stomach before settling. “What, you didn’t memorize my employment information?”
I think back to the papers I copied and filed away. I remember thinking he was young. “You’re in your thirties?”
“Thirty-two.”
“Must have been young when you met Frank.”
“We were convicted the same year.”
“But you got out.”
A pause. “Yeah.”
