Page 7 of Falling

“So good,” I mumbled around a mouthful. Rude, maybe, but I thought he’d take it as the compliment it was.

“Good.” Holmes smiled at me.

I liked the way he smiled, lopsided and a little shy.

“So, I still haven’t caught your actual name,” I said with a burst of confidences. “Unless your actual name is Sherlock Holmes.”

He chuckled, leaning back behind the bar. “Name’s Booker. Everyone calls me Book.”

“Oh,” I said, straightening my back. “I love books.”

Booker laughed again. “Right, because you’re a librarian.”

I was glad he’d gotten the joke—again—because as soon as I’d said it I was afraid I sounded like an awkward weirdo.

I sounded like an awkward weirdo more often than not, after all.

“Don’t remind me,” I said wryly. “I have to go back there tomorrow.”

“Not everything you hoped and dreamed?” Booker asked.

I looked up at him again, another forkful of his incredible gnocchi halfway to my mouth. “It’s not your problem.”

“Some people say I’m a good listener.”

“Seth said great, I think.”

Booker shrugged. “Or I could leave you in peace.”

“No,” I said, too quick and too desperate. But I felt so alone and overwhelmed right now that any company, any comfort I could get, I wanted to hang onto it.

Then I felt guilty, because I got the impression Booker was kind of a community sounding board. That he was the sort of man people brought their problems to. People did that with bartenders.

He was waiting for me to say something now, though.

“I didn’t have any hopes or dreams for this place,” I admitted. “I just… well. I got fired—they said laid off, they were polite about it—from my last job, because, umm. This is complicated.”

“Try me,” Booker said, with a hint of a smile again.

I would’ve bet anything that smile got him what he wanted more often than not. It was the kind of smile I couldn’t have said no to, anyway.

“So I was engaged to a woman, Robin,” I started. “She was, umm. Our families had been close since forever, and we grew up together, and everyone just assumed the two of us would get married someday. Anyway, so did I, I guess. Until she made it clear that she was a lot more interested in my sister.”

Booker’s eyebrows shot toward his hairline as I stabbed at a piece of gnocchi. It really was perfectly pan-fried.

“I’d come back for this,” I added, nodding to my loaded fork. “If you put it on the menu.”

“Consider it already on the menu,” he said. “So, your sister…?”

“Oh, she was horrified. I mean, she’s very gay, but Robin was supposed to be my fiancée, you know? And I don’t think Evie—my sister—ever liked Robin as much as Robin liked her. I don’t… I mean, if she was a lesbian the whole time, that… firstly, explains a lot, and secondly…” I paused to sigh. “I’m glad she’s not stuck with me. And…”

I hesitated, meeting Booker’s eyes for a heartbeat, trying to decide whether or not I could say what was on my mind to him. What I hadn’t been able to tell Evie yet.

“I’m relieved, too, to be honest. I never actually… I mean, I was just expected… I didn’t feel like I had a choice. And now I’m free, I guess. Anyway, her dad was on the board of the university where I used to work, and breaking off the engagement meant…”

I trailed off, leaving him to use his incredible powers of deduction to fill in the rest.

“Ouch,” Booker said. “That’s not fair.”