Page 10
“That came out wrong.”
She swallows before looking at me. “Did it?”
“I meant we’re strangers, and I’m leaving Houston soon.”
The truth is out before I decide how much I’m willing to share. Her expression changes enough to tell me she understands the correction for what it is.
“How soon?”
“A few days.”
“Moving?”
“Something like that.”
She watches me long enough to notice the limit in my answer, then nods without pressing against it. “That explains the bourbon.”
“It does?”
“You’re drinking like you’re mad at the glass for not fixing anything.”
I let out a breath through my nose, unable to argue with how accurately she’s described the last hour. “And you’re drinking like finishing yours will prove something.”
“It will. It’ll prove that I can finish something.”
“That’s not proof of anything except poor survival instincts.”
“Sometimes completing the task is the victory.”
There’s humor in her voice, but she grips the glass as though finishing it matters far more than the joke suggests.
“You don’t believe that.”
Her brows rise. “You’ve known me for ten minutes.”
“That’s been enough.”
She opens her mouth to throw my answer back at me, then stops. The guardedness I mistook for indifference when she first sat down tightens around her expression, and suddenly she looks a lot less soft than I first thought.
“Maybe I believe finishing something is better than admitting I couldn’t.”
The bartender moves past us to help someone at the other end of the bar. I could ask what she failed to finish, but she hasn’t pushed me for answers, so I owe her the same restraint.
I nod toward her glass. “Then you picked an easy opponent.”
Her gaze drops to the vodka soda, and the tension around her mouth loosens. “I’m starting small. I plan to work my way up to bourbon once I’ve lost the will to live.”
“You’re already in a sports bar voluntarily. You may be closer than you think.”
Her head turns so quickly that several braids slip forward over her shoulder. “I’m not here for the sports.”
The force behind her answer surprises me, though the bartender barely glances in our direction. Whatever brought her into this place, what’s on the televisions may have almost kept her out.
“I gathered that because you looked personally offended by the suggestion that you were watching the game.”
“I have a complicated relationship with grown men chasing balls for money.”
I choke down a laugh, hiding it behind the rim of my glass. “That covers a lot of sports.”
