She picked up her glass, took a sip, set it down, and looked at me over the rim.
"Can I tell you something?" I said.
"Is it going to make me mad?"
"Probably."
"Go ahead."
"You're the most beautiful woman I've seen all day, and I would’ve asked you out three months ago if you weren't the most wound-up person I've ever met."
She didn't flinch. She didn't blush. She set the glass down on the table and looked at me dead-on.
"Can I tell you something?"
"Is it going to make me mad?"
"Definitely."
"Go ahead."
"You're the most attractive man in this backyard, and I'd have said yes three months ago if you weren't the most arrogant person I've ever planned a wedding with."
I held her look. She held mine. Neither of us moved. The honesty sat in the air between us like something physical, like a door that had opened a quarter inch, and we were both standing on either side of it, deciding whether to push it the rest of the way.
We didn't push it.
We sat with it.
"So," I said.
"So," she said.
"What do we do with that?"
"I don't know."
"Me neither."
She picked up her glass. I picked up mine. We drank without looking at each other, and the string lights hummed above us.
She stood up to leave ten minutes later.
She wobbled.
My hand was at her elbow before I'd thought about it. Same place I'd caught her on the porch steps last night, when her heel went between the boards and she'd almost gone down the stairs face-first. She looked down at my hand on her arm and then up at me, and for a second, neither of us said anything.
"I'm fine," she said.
I let go.
She bent to pick up the heels from under the chair, straightened with them in one hand, dangling from two fingers, and dug into the small clutch she'd been carrying all night. She came out with her keys.
"You're too drunk to drive."
"I didn't wobble. I adjusted."
"Callahan, you wobbled. You're not driving." I held my hand out. "I'm driving you home."
