We ended up downtown at Luther’s, the spot Shawn put me on. New place, still figuring out its identity, but when we walked in, Teaghan’s smile went wide enough to handle the job for it. The karaoke night sign was blinking, and the house was full, and I wasn’t sure I was ready, but I was willing to try for her.
“I thought you said you ain't feel like coming out.”
She looked at me sideways. “Oh you think you cute tonight,” she joked, smile getting even brighter.
“I am not singing Houston. I will sip and eat, but I will not be getting on that stage.”
“Nobody asked you to. Just vibe with me.”
She cut her eyes at me, and I pulled out her chair, and she sat down. I watched two men at the bar notice her the second she walked in, and look away when they caught me looking back. We ordered drinks and settled in, and a woman in a green sequined jacket took the stage and launched into something that Anita Baker had never heard in her life. Teaghan leaned forward with her elbows on the table and watched her with genuine delight.
“She's feeling it,” Teaghan said.
“All the way. Shit, too damn much.”
She snickered, and so did I. “It doesn’t matter that it’s not…she’s feeling it.”
“That’s the whole point. Gotta expose yourself sometimes.”
She smiled at that and sat back releasing and relaxing. I watched it happen the way you watched weather change. The tightness leaving her face. Her shoulders finding their natural place. By her second drink she was laughing at a man in a button up who had dedicated a Boyz II Men record to his wife at the bar and the wife was covering her face and loving every second of it.
Teaghan shook her head and looked at me, pointing across the table.
“Tell me something.”
“Tell you what? When did you start being so skeptical? That’s my job.” I joked.
“Houston please. You act like you don’t have it in you. Sit there all quiet and reserved and then you show up at my door looking like that and bring me somewhere that knows exactly what I needed and I’m sitting here trying to figure out your angle.”
“No angle.”
“Everybody has an angle, Houston.”
“Maybe I’m just trying to step my damn game up.”
She studied me. “I don't think you can outlove me. I want you to know that up front. I love hard and I love specific. And left every single time because of it. Men take what I give and go build something with itsomewhere else.” She tapped the table lightly. "You hear what I'm saying."
I heard her. Every word of it and everything underneath it.
I picked up my drink and tossed it back. Set it down. Stood up.
She frowned. “Where are you?—”
I walked to the bar and put my name on the list. I came back, picked my drink back up like nothing had happened.
Her eyes went wide. “Houston McGraw.”
“Mm.”
“Do not.”
“Already done. Drink your drink.”
“I will get up and walk out of this establishment if you get up there sounding like Ice JJ Fish. I'm going to Showtime at the Apollo you off that stage.”
“Teaghan, you gon learn there ain’t much I can’t do.”
She looked at the stage. Looked back at me. Picked up her drink.
