Page 20 of Lost Love on 6th Street

“Okay, gin and tonic, got it.” He lifts his gaze toward one of the bartenders.

I hurriedly reach into my bag for my wallet. “Don’t pull a fast one. This is on me.”

“Oh, of course, how could I forget?” Luke smirks.

I ignore the pretty way his lips contort and whip out my cardholder.

“Just hope you brought cash . . .” he trails off.

I furrow my brow. “What?”

Luke directs a finger to a sign hanging behind the bar. Sure enough, in red, vintage-looking font, the words, “Cash Only” are written.

My jaw falls. “I . . . who carries cash anymore?”

He chuckles and pulls out his wallet. “You’re in luck. I do.”

I drop my wallet back in my bag. “You hustled me.”

“See, most people would say hustling is trying to take money away from you, not the other way around,” Luke says, leaning in just close enough that his breath brushes up against my ear.

He smells amazing. I don’t know much about the notes of certain types of colognes, but it smells expensive and leathery.

However, he doesn’t linger long. The bartender comes over and takes Luke’s order. I watch him hand over some crisp bills in payment.

Across the room, the band begins their next song. I glance at the group and smile to myself. “You think I could take some pictures?” I ask Luke.

“Don’t see why not,” he replies.

I take my camera out of my bag and begin to adjust the settings to the lighting of the room.

“You take that thing with you everywhere, huh?”

I push my eye as close as it will go to the viewfinder what with my glasses in the way, squinting, cheek tensing. “Why wouldn’t I?” As I try to find my focal point, I land on a tall and lanky Black man with graying facial hair and gaunt cheeks who licks the reed of his saxophone in preparation to play. His eyes are shaded by a porkpie hat. I jerk my camera down. “Is that him?”

Luke follows my gaze. “Sutton? Yep. That’s him. Looks like he’s getting ready to blow the house down.”

Bobby Sutton plays a few notes on his tenor saxophone, almost like an unfamiliar, yet welcomed caress.

I pull my camera back up and snap a few shots of the band with Bobby as the focal point. Then I drop my camera down for a few moments to take in the scene.

“Drink?”

I jolt my attention over to Luke who holding my gin and tonic. “Oh, yes. Sorry.”

He frowns as I take the drink from him. “For what?”

“I always do this,” I say, lifting my camera up for emphasis and then placing it carefully on the bar. “I’ve been told I’m not very good company, what with the camera and all.”

“You don’t need to apologize on my account,” Luke says.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve been inundated with accents ever since I arrived in Austin, but Luke’s is just starting to settle over me. It’s very slight, but it’s there, the way his vowels scoop into the back of his mouth. A drawl, they might call it.

Very sexy.

“In fact, I like watching you. Makes me reconsider what I’m looking at, you know? I’d love to see the world the way you see it,” Luke goes on.

I’d like to ignore how that comment makes my heart flutter. I spent a good deal of my early twenties learning that people didn’t want to see the world the way I saw it. Rejection after rejection for shows and publications and competitions, over and over. “I can’t help but feel you probably have better ways to spend a night out rather than waiting to talk to a jazz musician with me,” I say before swigging my drink. Gotta get some of this liquid courage pumping ASAP.

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