Page 9 of Together

“Sorry. Did I say something offensive? Sometimes I do that and don’t realize it at the time. I have no filter.”

“No. It’s just that my sister said something almost exactly the same. Almost word for word, actually.”

“It sounds like your sister’s brilliant.”

He chuckles. A deep gruff sound that sends a ripple down my spine.

“If you don’t mind, I won’t tell her you said that. She has a big enough head as it is.” His smile is crooked, sending another ripple. He thanks our waitress who brings by my beer. Neither of us need more alcohol at this point, but we have plenty of food yet and I’m hoping it will soak up some of the alcohol.

I reach for some more fries and place them on my plate. “I wouldn’t know any different,” I remind him, then add on, “if you tell her or not, you know? Chances of us seeing each other after tonight are pretty slim.”

“You don’t live around here?” he asks and sees my hesitation in answering him. I’m sharing a meal and drinks with the guy but we’re in public. “Don’t answer that. That’s not my business.”

I start on my new beer, having lost count how many drinks I’ve now consumed. I’m feeling perfectly buzzed, but not drunk so I figure I’m good to keep drinking. Though, I do need to pee. Quite badly. “No. It’s fine. I actually just moved to town two months ago.”

“Please tell me you didn’t move for your ex.”

“No. Thank goodness. My move here might have actually been what spurred the breakup, actually.”

“Wrong. The move happened because you needed a good orgasm that wasn’t brought on by your own hand or a toy.”

I snort out a laugh, spitting and sputtering all over. Some beer dribbles down my chin. I’m such a mess.

“You’re a mess,” he says, teasingly. I look up to see his bright white teeth gleaming at me from his bright smile and his dark eyes twinkling. “Wanna play darts?”

“You think it’s a good idea to throw sharp pointed objects right now?”

“They’re the ones with the magnets on the ends.”

“They make that sort of thing?”

“Apparently. Good thing, too. Come on. Let’s burn off some of this food.”

I look around the room to see how busy it is in the bar. Admittedly, I’m not an overly self-confident person and often struggle with not allowing myself to enjoy life because I don’t want to embarrass myself or the people I’m with. Sometime during my life, I got it in my head that I could only do something if I was perfect at it.

Harry stands up and extends his hand down to me. “Come on, Sally. Let’s go play some darts. Imagine the board is your ex’s face.” Then, as if he could read my mind earlier, he adds, “It’ll be fun. Who cares who’s watching?”

Without worrying a second more, I place my hand in his and stand up, dropping my napkin on the table, but not leaving my beer behind. He might not care who’s watching, but a little liquid courage might help me get there, too.

“Fine,” I grumble but am not really disgruntled at all. “But first, I need to pee.”

He chuckles. “Sounds good. You realize now you’ll have to keep going all night, though, right?”

“That reminds me of high school field parties when my friends and I would try not to break the seal.”

He barks out a laugh. “Break the seal? That’s a term I haven’t heard since high school.”

I nod, a little embarrassed that I just said that but also not caring. Now that I’m standing up, I realize that I’m drunkity-drunk-drunk-drunk. I stumble a bit, tripping over absolutely nothing but my own two feet and he catches me by the elbow.

I steady myself by planting my feet on the floor, not moving a step forward. “You good?”

Nodding, I look up at his handsome face. He really is good looking. I can’t imagine a woman not wanting to look at him for the rest of her life.

“She must have been blind, right?”

“Huh?”

“If she didn’t want to look at me the rest of her life?”

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