So it shouldn’t really embarrass me. Besides, this isn’t about me anyway.
This is about my sister, Sarah.
“Where’s my sister?” I ask, swallowing down all my selfish emotions. “Where’s Sarah?”
The mention of her name changes everything.
It changes the air, the light, the noises of the bar.
Sarah.
Like her name has so much power. Over him. Over me. Over the things around us.
“I’m guessing she’s back in LA,” he says in a soft voice.
But that’s the only thing soft about him.
The rest of him is hard.
His shoulders, the sleek, sculpted things, are rigid. His eyes are harsh.
So are his cheekbones.
And it’s so strange that I have my next question completely mapped out and planned.
It’s on the tip of my tongue, but then he chooses that moment to adjust the rim of his baseball cap and I notice something about his knuckles.
They’re swollen and cut up, the skin flayed and rolled into tiny curls, and the words on the cusp of escaping completely change. “What happened to your hand?”
My question sort of surprises him, I think. But only for a second. After that, his expression shutters.
That bruised fist of his becomes tight as he brings it down to his side.
“I punched a door,” he says in a low voice.
“What?”
“Repeatedly.”
“Why?”
“Because I was drunk and pissed off.”
“Because you were drunk and pissed off?”
“Yeah. Apparently, I’ve got anger issues.”
He’s lying.
He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t get pissed off. And he absolutely doesnothave anger issues.
“No, you don’t,” I tell him. “You don’t get drunk. You’re not even drinking right now and you’re in an establishment called a bar.”
“If I get a drink, will you leave me alone?”
“And you absolutely do not have anger issues either,” I say, ignoring him.
At my vehement answer, a surprising thing happens.
