“I got dressed for you this time,” I said, the buzz of the liquor loosening my tongue. I held my arms wide, bottle still in one hand, like I was showing off some kind of fashionable outfit, when really it was a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, both I’m pretty sure were nice at one point. But now the jeans were frayed, the shirt torn to shit, no better than a dishrag.
"Better?" I asked.
“Not really. When’s the last time you showered?”
I’d showered this morning after several hours in the pool, and several more of failed writing.
But let her think I was filthy. I was, in other ways.
"Newfoundland,” I recited from memory, as I topped up my glass. “A geographically significant island off the East Coast of Canada, Newfoundland considers itself distinct from the rest of Canada. The population boasts its own lexicon.”
She shifted so her right hip cocked this time. It was mesmerizing, the softness of her body. I needed to be careful lest I start staring like a dog.
“Did you study that?” she asked, sounding a little impressed. Or disturbed.
“I have a good memory.” Too good. I lifted the glass to my lips, taking a long pull of whiskey.
Winona set her purse down on the counter, bringing her hands up to her hair.
Despite the liquid I’d just swallowed, my mouth went instantly dry. What the fuck was she doing?
But she was just piling the platinum strands on top of her head, twisting them into a knot.
“Well, good job, Sherlock.” Finished with her hair, she lowered her hands to her hips, tapping a fingertip on the soft convex curve next to her hipbone.
I deserved a medal for keeping my eyes on hers.
I took another swig of whiskey. I should have felt good. But suddenly, I felt like everything bad. Like a pervert. Like a failure for the way she thought about me. Pathetic, for thinking she might stay when I was cocking it up so completely.
Waste of space, Mitchell.
There went that perfect memory, reciting my father’s voice. I’d blocked him out for years by working myself to the bone, but here, writing this book, he was all I heard. And here, this woman’s eyes so frankly on me—a person who wanted nothing from me for the first time in years—I was coming apart.
But she washere.Somehow, I’d gotten her here, and despite her unrelenting gaze, in this fraction of a moment, her being here was the only thing in the world that was good.
I kept my eyes on her as I drank.
When I finished, I wiped my mouth with my wrist. “Have I driven you?”
Her lips quirked. Just a ghost of a smile, but I saw it.
“That’s not how you say it.”
“How do you say it?”
“‘Ya got me drove’. It means you’re driving me crazy. You can’tdrovesomeone else.”
I picked up the bottle again, pouring whiskey into the glass. She watched me fill it much too high.
“You sure you don’t want some?”
“Not before dinner, thank you.” She narrowed her eyes again. “Have you eaten anything today?”
Not before dinner. Did that mean shehadn’tbeen on a date?
I finished pouring. “You a plumber or my mother, Winona?”
Her cheeks flushed. Then she surprised me. She strode toward me and took the drink out of my hand. Then she carefully poured it back into the bottle, not spilling a single drop. She slid the bottle away from me, the sound of glass on granite sharp in the silent kitchen.
