I keep talking because that road leads somewhere I ain’t ready to ride.
“Mike laughed so hard he almost fell off a picnic table. Said I rode like the damn Derby if the horses were drunk, mean, and trying to die. Then he called me Derby in front of everybody.”
“And it stuck.”
“Names usually do when enough assholes repeat them.”
She glances at the old photo again. “So my maybe-father named you.”
“Yeah.”
“Does that make this weirder?”
“Darlin’, we crossed weird before breakfast.”
She laughs softly and takes another drink.
The bourbon is starting to warm her. Not drunk. Not even close. Just loosening the tight edges enough for the woman underneath to peek out. She slips off the leather jacket, and my eyes betray me by dropping to the curve of her shoulder, the line of her throat, the way the orange top shows more cleavage when she breathes.
She catches me.
Again.
“You keep doing that.”
“What?”
“Looking at me like that.”
I should deny it.
I don’t.
“You look pretty.”
Her face changes so fast it hurts.
Not pleased first.
Suspicious.
Then pained.
Then almost angry.
I hate Jeremy Vale more with every breath.
“You don’t have to say that for the act,” she says.
“I ain’t.”
She looks down at her drink. “I don’t know what to do with compliments.”
“Most people say thank you.”
“That feels like agreeing.”
“You can agree.”