“Again, you make a good point.” I prop my elbow on the edge of the bar. “Okay, shoot. Ask me a question.”
She stares at me for a moment before saying, “Really?”
I nod. “Really. You get one question.”
She nibbles her lower lip, her brow furrowing. “Now I can’t think of anything. My mind is blank.”
“Awww…” I cluck my tongue. “That is unfortunate.”
All of the sudden, her face lights up. “Oh, I know.”
“Shoot.”
“Why did you come here tonight? Instead of going to Beau’s like the rest of the town.”
The question surprises me. I expected something about where I grew up or my parents or if I have any siblings, but not this. It’s a question I don’t particularly want to answer.
I raise a brow. “Out of all the questions you could ask in this world, this is what you want to know?”
She thinks about it a moment before nodding. “Yeah.” She jabs a finger at me. “Be honest.”
Now I should say something like I wasn’t in the mood to be around other people tonight, and that would be true, but it’s not really the truth. I contemplate, then decidefuck it. She wants honest? I’ll give it to her.
I lean forward, far too close. “I came here to avoid you.”
She locks those steel gray eyes onto me. “You did?”
“Yes.”
She scrapes her teeth across her lips. “I came here to avoid you too.”
“Then this is pretty unfortunate, isn’t it?”
She sighs, all wistful and dramatic. “You have no idea.”
6
Cat
I’m drunk.
I pretended to be buzzed the night we played cards, right along with everyone else, but I’d made sure to stay sober. I hadn’t trusted myself, and I don’t trust myself now, but I’m giving myself a pass because it was an accident.
And the truth is, I haven’t been drunk for a long time. In my haze I can’t help thinking I should do it more often. I’ve forgotten how freeing it is—how it makes everything funny instead of worrisome, how it makes you not care about all the things you should.
I’m enjoying myself, and I haven’t enjoyed myself in what feels like forever.
The man across from me isn’t helping matters.
Now that my teeth aren’t grinding down, and I’ve surrendered to my inebriated state, there’s no one else I’d rather be sitting with.
We’ve abandoned the shots in favor of just beer, so I now sit right on the cusp of happy drunk. I keep meaning to go home, but two hours have passed, and I’m no longer fighting with myself to leave, temporarily giving up the long war I have ongoing with my body.
Caden and I are playing darts, and it’s my turn.
I line up, aiming the dart in a little swaying swirl.
He’s standing in back of me, and I concoct a fantasy that he’s watching me, his eyes on the curve of my hip in my tiny shorts. I imagine his gaze settling on the strip of skin between my top and the waistband. How would those rough hands feel on me?