A cold bottle landed near my glass.
I slid it back without touching it. “I said no.”
His face shifted, subtle but immediate, as if rejection was a language he’d heard before but refused to study. “What, you too good for a free drink?”
I took a slow sip of my Diet Coke. The carbonation burned beautifully. “No. I just don’t want one.”
His jaw tightened. The alcohol on his breath reached me then, sharp and sour, already deep in his bloodstream even though it wasn’t six. That explained some things. Not enough to excuse them, but enough to identify the species.
“What’s wrong with you?” he snapped. “Too stuck-up for a beer?”
My eyes lifted to the bartender. Steady. Calm. Witness, please. “I don’t want trouble. I just want food.”
Carhartt leaned closer, close enough now that I smelled sweat underneath the cologne. “Then eat with me.”
Absolutely not.
My fingers tightened around the cold soda. I picked up the laminated menu like it was a shield and looked past him to the bartender. “What’s good?”
The bartender wiped the counter with a rag that had once been white. “Burgers.”
“Then make it a double cheeseburger.”
Carhartt smirked like my appetite had become his business.
The bartender pulled out his pad. “Want anything on it?”
“Everything.”
He lifted a brow. “Everything?”
“Bacon, onion, fried mushrooms if you’ve got them, extra fries, and whatever sauce makes it taste less like highway despair.”
The bartender scribbled. Carhartt’s nose wrinkled like I’d insulted him personally. His gaze dropped, doing the familiar inventory. Waist. Hips. Thighs. The quiet little caloriecalculation men made when women failed to perform dainty hunger in public.
I smiled sweetly at him. “Yeah, I eat.”
His eyes flicked back to mine.
I took a long drink of my soda. “Ever since I got off that GLP-1 stuff, I’ve been starving.”
His forehead creased.
I leaned in like we were sharing something intimate. “Tore my stomach up.”
His face tightened.
Oops.
I gave him a little shrug. “Sorry. Too much information.”
The bartender’s mouth twitched.
I kept going because apparently road fatigue had dissolved whatever filter my mother had tried to install. “I dropped a hundred pounds.”
Carhartt blinked. “Really?”
I nodded with solemn regret. “Loose skin’s a nightmare.”
