Page 6 of Whiskey Throttle
“It’s inappropriate.”
“Probably.”
“And it means nothing.”
“Does it?”
I looked up. His eyes were darker now. Not with anger, but with something quieter. Something deeper. Understanding. The kind of darkness that says, “I see you anyway.” It unsettled me. I took another sip, and he downed his. I set the tumbler on the table and let the silence wrap around us.
“I'm sorry you had to see that.”
“I'm not.”
His gaze didn’t waver, unflinching while staring at me. Trying to figure out if he could take whatever I had left to give.
“You shouldn’t be embarrassed, Ms. Barrett.”
“Babs, please. Hearing you say Ms. Barrett makes me feel old.”
“You’re definitely not old, Babs.”
I pressed the handkerchief harder against my eyes, willing the sting to fade with his generous words. My lips trembled with the effort to hold everything in.
“It’s humiliating.”
I didn’t intend for my voice to come out in a whisper.
“No, it’s not. What he did was humiliating. What you’re doing is human.”
A soft exhale slipped from my mouth, part disbelief, part relief. The clock across the room chimed, late in the night, as the muffled sounds of the gala continued.
“He was supposed to love me.”
His jaw tensed, just a flicker, but enough to register. “I think he only loved what you made him look like.”
“What did I make him look like?”
His leg dropped to the plush carpet, and he leaned forward. Not too close. But close enough that I could feel the warmth of him. We shared the same air. Intimate and youthful.
“Valuable. Worth his weight in gold because you were beside him. But now, he’s rot in polished shoes.”
That made me laugh, a jagged, broken sound that cracked through the heavy quiet. I covered my mouth, surprised. He smiled, small and real. It tugged something loose in my chest. He didn’t ask me to stop crying. Didn’t reach for me. Didn’t try to fix it. He just stayed. Solid. Unmoving. Present.
“You’re nothing like your friends, Babs. You’re the only good in this place.”
“Oh?”
I glanced at him through the fringe of my lashes. His shirt was slightly wrinkled, the collar askew. His jaw was faintly shadowed with stubble, like he’d had more important things to do than shave. He looked too young to belong in this world, and yet somehow too right to be anywhere else.
“I couldn’t let you fall apart in front of people who don’t deserve to see you like that.”
“You think I fell apart?”
“I think you cracked.”
His voice dropped, gentled, and a bit seductive.
“And I think it made you more beautiful, Barbara.”
