“Can I get you another round?” he asked. This was it, then. Time to go. But the line was behind her, drawn across the floor, invisible but there, and she didn’t want to leave. She had to choose. Dan’s apartment or this bar. Before or After. “Maybe,” she said. “Do you have a wine list?” “I think we’ve got one somewhere in the back.” His disapproving tone made it clear that no one ever asked for a wine list here. Which, yes. She might not know Manhattan, but she knew bars. This was not the sort of place where you asked for a wine list. “Can you look for me?” “Sure.” He put his rag down and walked toward a door marked PRIVATE. She saw him roll his eyes as he passed the guy. The guy didn’t look up. He wasn’t interested in the bartender any more than he was interested in her. But his companion wasn’t here yet, and maybe wasn’t coming. He could talk to her for a few minutes, buy her a drink. It wouldn’t kill him. May hopped off her stool, sucked in her stomach, and approached. “What are you reading?” she asked. The guy canted the book so she could see the cover, but his hand covered most of the title. All she could read was the word Dying. Awesome. “Any good?” He didn’t look at her. He was a bent, dark head, an ear, a declaratory elbow. When she heard a low voice, it took her a second to understand that it belonged to him. “They’ve got their mother’s corpse in a coffin in the back of this wagon, and they’re taking her into town to bury her. The youngest kid thinks the dead mother is a fish, but he also thinks she can’t breathe, so he bores holes into the coffin and right into her face.” The bridge of her nose wrinkled. A totally involuntary response. “One of the two older sons is going insane,” he added. “The other one’s broken leg is starting to rot, and the sister’s knocked up.” A few beats passed. She tried to think of some kind of segue into normal conversation. The best she could do was “Yeah, but is it any good?” “It’s super.” He injected the maximum amount of sarcasm into the word. Sarcasm didn’t scare her. Her sister, Allie, had spent her freshman and sophomore years of high school dripping it all over everyone. “I’m May.” She extended her hand. He looked away from the book then, though not at her face. At her hand first. Then down at her shoes, which made him frown. She allowed him some leeway there, because she was wearing dark green leather flats with the bows on the toes, and she didn’t like them much either. When he lifted his gaze, it got stuck on her breasts for an uncomfortable period of twelve to fifteen years. “Ben,” he told them. This offense was harder to forgive. Men had been addressing her breasts since she was thirteen. Her breasts had yet to respond. I’m up here. She didn’t say it aloud, but his head came up, and he finally looked right at her. He had sort of sleepy eyelids that went with his broad-planed face, his full mouth—a face that made her think of bear-taming and those male dancers in the tall black boots and flouncy white shirts who crossed their arms and stuck their legs out. Slavic, that was it. His eyes were brown, lighter than they should have been in the middle and rimmed with black. Weird eyes. Weirder still, he didn’t seem embarrassed to have been caught boob-ogling, and he didn’t take her hand. She had to retrieve it from the air in between them and find a place to stow it along the seam of her pants. “What’s with the jersey?” he asked. “Hmm?” “Season doesn’t start until next week.” Oh. Oh. The stupid jersey. Not her breasts. “Believe me, I know.” “Plus, Einarsson is a douche.” Right. That. Even back home, she sometimes got flack about continuing to wear the old jersey of a quarterback who’d abandoned the Packers for the Jets, only to lead his new team to a Superbowl victory against the old one. She might as well be sporting a pin that read, I support Benedict Arnold! Still, douche seemed a little harsh. Ben sat up straighter, his eyes refocusing on something over her right shoulder. He slid off his bar stool and raised a hand. May turned just as another man came off the last basement step and into the bar. A blond, good-looking man who actually knew how to smile.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Nov 2013 07:13:15 +0000
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