Not a sharp laugh. Not a bitter one. Real. Low. Open. The kind I hadn’t heard from him enough. The kind that made his eyes crinkle slightly at the corners and his whole face look younger, like the weight he carried had loosened for one stolen minute in a weird little bar called The Bent Halo while I held a pencil and proved Florida was always the safest bet in public criminal absurdity.
The host started reading scores, and Easton leaned closer. “I wanted to give you a perfect first date.”
I looked around at the sticky table, half-demolished fries, trivia sheets covered in Easton’s sharp handwriting and my dramatic corrections, the basket of tokens, the neon haloflickering crookedly in the window, and the bartender arguing with a man dressed like he owned an alpaca farm.
“You did.”
His brows pulled together. “This?”
“Yes.”
“You were supposed to have fancy dessert.”
“I have mozzarella sticks.”
“You were supposed to have folded napkins.”
“I have a cocktail called The Red Flag and a man who wrote urine on a trivia sheet with absolute conviction.”
His mouth twitched, but his eyes had gone serious. “Aura.”
“I’m not making you feel better.” I set my hand over his on my knee. “If we had gone to your fancy restaurant, I would have sat there wondering which fork made me look least emotionally neglected. I would have been nervous and weird, and you would have been trying so hard that I would have teased you until you got tense. Here, your truck died, Debra abandoned us for an emotional support ferret, and I got to watch you lose your mind over ancient dental hygiene. This is better.”
He looked at me like he didn’t know what to do with that.
I squeezed his hand. “My standards are finally specific.”
The host’s voice boomed through the bar. “And in second place, losing by one deeply suspicious point, we have No Further Questions.”
The room clapped.
I bowed from my stool.
Easton did not clap.
He stared at the scoreboard.
I knew that face.
“Oh no,” I said.
“That Songs Everyone Lies About Knowing question was poorly worded.”
“Easton.”
“They accepted ‘Greek’ when the answer should have been Macedonian earlier, and now they’re giving Patagonia fraud man half credit for mumbling through Fleetwood Mac.”
“You are not filing a trivia appeal.”
“Historical integrity matters.”
“Alexander the Great has been dead a very long time and does not need you tonight.”
“He needs representation.”
“He needs rest.”
The host appeared at our table with a plastic silver medal and a basket full of horrifying little prizes. “No Further Questions, you were robbed by vibes and poor sportsmanship, but you’re pretty, so here’s a consolation basket.”
