He sliced the sandwich, plated it beside the soup bowl, and slid it across the counter toward me. He poured soup into both bowls and leaned his elbows on the opposite side of the counter.
"So, let's say you had a good game," he said, "do you get a treat? Or just less self-loathing?"
"I don't hate myself."
He looked at me as he sipped a spoonful of soup. "Of course you don't."
I picked up my sandwich. We ate. The kitchen stayed warm from the stove while Sully talked.
There was a regular at Carver's who ordered a sidecar every Thursday and called it a Cosmo without awareness that they were different drinks. He'd stopped correcting her in week two. Now he just made it right and let her have the name.
"Does that bother you?" I asked.
"Nope. She's happy. The drink's correct. What's the argument?"
I didn't have one.
He refilled his soup without offering me more. He'd clocked that I was nearly done.
A few minutes later, unprompted, he said: "I used to think I was a night person. Turns out I just don't like the end of the day."
When I set my bowl down, he collected it and stacked it on my plate.
"Thanks for the key thing," he said.
"It was the practical solution."
"Still." He turned to the sink.
"Goodnight, Sully." I let myself out.
Back at my place, I drank a tall glass of water and went to bed.
In the dark, I ran back through the game. Holt narrowed the gap. I didn't have to correct for it. All of it sat cleanly in my mind. The system worked.
What I had nowhere to put was the rest of the night.
A single knock came from the other side of the wall. Not the two-rap signal. Just that.
I closed my eyes. I'd fully accounted for the game.
I wasn't even close on the rest.
