Once this was achieved, his eyes locked on mine.
“Next time you have a verbal catfight, you call me before you engage hostilities. Yeah?” he demanded.
Well, that didn’t take long to make the rounds.
“Uh…all right,” I whispered.
“Clear your plate or you’ll break my heart,” he ordered.
“I wouldn’t wanna do that,” I muttered, looking down at my plate.
It looked sensational.
“I hope not,” Sonny whispered and his whisper was chock full of something, so much of it, even though him whispering at all would make my eyes shoot to his face, it was the emotion that made them make the journey in record time.
When he caught my gaze, his, which was burning with the emotion in his voice, didn’t let mine go.
Then he nodded his head and stomped off.
I watched him go.
I was still doing it when Gray prompted quietly, “Tuck in while it’s hot, dollface.”
I looked to him.
Then it was me who nodded.
Then I tucked in.
VFW charity dinner or not, Gray wasn’t wrong.
It wasn’t only the best steak I’d ever had, it was the best meal.
I loved every bite.
* * * * *
“’Night, Janie,” Gray called.
I waved.
“’Night you two,” Janie called back also adding a wave and a big old smile.
Gray had his arm around my shoulders and was leading me out the door of The Rambler where, after a delicious steak dinner and conversation that, following Cecily’s warm welcome, included the whole table and that would be the rotating people who sat at it after folks finished and new folks arrived, we had a few beers and a half a dozen games of pool.
During which I wiped the floor with a Gray who didn’t mind even a little bit.
I figured this had to do partly with him watching me play pool not only with his eyes on my behind (which I caught more than once and it made me feel warm in a way I’d never felt before) but also just watching me shoot pool.
He was impressed and didn’t hide it.
It had always been a job, the hustle, second nature.
That night, playing pool and essentially entertaining a handsome, easygoing, often smiling man I liked a great deal and with every passing second liked even more, it became a whole lot more.
“Honest to God, you just picked up a cue and could shoot pool?” Gray asked.
Obviously, we’d chatted. After the first evasive maneuver I had to make to deflect his question about my Dad, Gray made an effort to keep it light, for me.
Not for him.
I learned when Gray was twenty, his Dad died in the car wreck that took away his Grandma’s legs. Tragic without additional tragic circumstances like joyriding kids or drunk drivers. It was a snowy night and they went head-to-head with another pickup, both caught ice and the results weren’t pretty. His Dad died, his Gran lost her legs, the other driver lost his arm.
I also learned his Mom left his Dad when Gray was five after suffering her third miscarriage after she had Gray. She disappeared for twelve years, no word, no sightings but then came back out-of-the-blue and tried to take up where she left off with both Gray and his father. Gray’s Dad, still alive then obviously, was not big on this option. Neither was his Gran. Neither was Gray who without evasion cared deeply for them both. His father loved his mother and her desertion of him and his son understandably didn’t go over well and her return was worse.
She gave up but didn’t leave. Gray told me he ran into her on occasion but didn’t give her his time. She was a nurse at the local clinic. Night shifts.
That explained his not getting stitches last night.
I also learned that I was right; he was twenty-five, twenty-six in March.
For my part, Gray learned Casey was twenty-seven, Casey had currently convinced himself he was falling in love and that I had a natural talent playing pool.
It wasn’t a fair exchange but I was new to this, I was going easy and I was scared.
I was who I was and I had a sense that he knew who I was and didn’t care.
That said, I didn’t expect he’d be all that hip on having a pool hustling girlfriend who traveled the continental United States with her brother, playing pool, hustling idiots and returning back infrequently to have steak dinners with him at the VFW.
I didn’t know what I was doing or where this was going.
I just knew right then, for the first time since I could remember, maybe the first time in my life, I knew I liked right where I was.
So I was living that moment and doing the best I could.
Gray didn’t seem to mind.
“Yeah,” I answered his question as we walked into the cold and Gray moved us down the sidewalk toward the hotel which was away from his pickup thus clearly stated we were taking a short walk. “I mean, I wasn’t as good as I am now but it isn’t far off.”
“You got a head for numbers?” Gray asked and I looked up at his profile, feeling his arm around me, my arm, which had slid around his waist, and thinking, strangely, walking tucked to his side and held by him, that it didn’t seem cold.
Not even a little bit.
“A head for numbers?” I asked back.
“Yeah. Stands to reason, you can naturally play pool, you got a head for geometry, physics. If you see angles, can instantly assess velocity, force, impact then you’d have a head for science, numbers.”
I hadn’t thought of that.
I also left school at twelve so I really had no idea.
That said, I was good with money, for instance, I could assess the percentage of a tip without even thinking about it. I could also without thinking take our bank and divide it knowing down to the penny how much time we had before we needed another score.
Maybe I was.
“Maybe I do,” I told Gray. “I hadn’t really thought about it. Just thought I could play pool.”
“You can’t play pool, dollface, you dominate. Never seen anything like it. It’s sensational. Like watchin’ a master at a canvas. A prima ballerina on a stage,” his arm gave me a squeeze and my eyes, which had drifted to our moving feet, went back to his face to see he was grinning down at me, “not that I ever saw either of those. I’m just guessing.”
I grinned up at him.
Then I replied quietly, “I haven’t seen either of those either but what you said was nice.”
His arm gave me another squeeze; I felt my arm should reciprocate the gesture so it did.
His grin turned into a smile.
I made note of that for future reference.
His eyes turned to face forward.