Page 9 of Holding Penalty

“Eight,” I answer, a little taken aback by the random question. “Why?”

Without answering, Nash pulls into a strip mall and parks right in front of a shoe store that’s improbably still open at this hour of the night.

“Just stay here,” he tells me, unbuckling his seatbelt. “You can’t hobble around on that broken heel anymore.”

I’m too bewildered to react as Nash exits the truck and strolls into the store, his long legs eating up the distance in a couple quick strides.

Not too quickly for me to get an eyeful of his firm butt in those broken-in blue jeans, though. A muscle tugs low in my center.

A few minutes later, Nash walks out, shoebox in hand. He hands it to me when he gets back into the truck.

I open it to find a pair of comfortable-looking New Balances. They’re even the style I’ve been meaning to buy for my next pair of sneakers. Who knew Nash had decent taste in shoes?

“Almost perfect,” I say.

Nash side-eyes me as he backs out of the parking space. “Almost?”

“I’d have gone with the silver instead of the blue.”

Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t dignify me with a response.

As Nash drives us through the busy streets of Austin, I replace my heels with the new sneakers. When I lift my right foot to slide on the new shoe, the hem of my dress rides up, revealing a long, bare expanse of my leg. I can feel the burn of Nash’s gaze on my exposed thigh while we’re stopped at a red light. My cheeks heat.

I’m more convinced I’m not just imagining it when the light turns green and the truck stays stopped for a couple seconds, not moving until a car behind us honks. Nash lets out an embarrassed grunt before driving through the intersection.

Nash maneuvers the truck through the busy streets of Friday night Austin, on the lookout for a suitable destination. Then he turns down a new street, and I spot a place in the middle of the block.

There’s a shabby-looking door built into a shabby-looking brick building. A neon sign saying nothing but Bar glows above the doorway. There are two windows next to it, covered with too much iron mesh to see through, with the weather-worn backs of portable air conditioner units sticking out above them.

Exactly the kind of place that suits my mood right now.

“There,” I tell Nash.

“There?” I can hear the skepticism in his voice.

“There,” I say again, with a definitive nod of my head.

Nash shrugs beside me. “If you say so.”

He finds a spot to park on the street, and we get out. Wow, these shoes really are comfortable.

When we get to the entrance, I find that the old wooden door is covered with carvings. Names, dates, curse words, propositions, phone numbers, slogans, and other markings.

One line of text catches my eye right as I grab the door handle. Broken Hearts Welcome, etched with thin letters into the aged wood.

Even if everything tonight went wrong, at least I’ve found the right place to mope about it.

The interior lives up to what the exterior promised. Dim, smoky, neon-lit, old, and full. We find two stools and take seats at the bar.

Next to us, a customer walks up and orders “a beer and a shot,” and the bartender efficiently fills the order as if this place is only serving one beer and one kind of liquor, so she didn’t need to ask for specifics.

I order the same thing. I’m usually a sucker for a fancy cocktail when I go to a bar, but when in Rome. Nash follows suit.

Nash holds up his shot glass, the whiskey matching the amber tone of his eyes. “Should we toast to something, or …?”

“Fuck it,” I pronounce, before throwing back my shot and letting the liquor burn down my throat in one gulp.

I clench my jaw and screw my eyes tightly shut to keep it down. Once the worst of the burning passes, I cough. “Wow, is that bad,” I grit out, wincing.