Page 36 of The Drifter

"That's two words, and neither of 'em was about your hair."

I had something loaded. I never got it out. He wasn't alone at the bell stand, and the man he was talking to had turned around.

Clint Dane.

He'd come to a stop the way he does, which is completely. He was looking at me from across my own lobby with his hands at his sides.

He didn't say anything for a moment.

And I had nowhere to put my hands.

"Miss Benning," he said.

"Mr. Dane."

Something crossed his mouth. "We had a deal about that."

"I don't recall shaking on it."

"That's fair."

There it was again. That thing that wasn't a smile. It went through me exactly the way it had gone through me across the marble. I stood there and let it happen.

I had made a promise. I had made it standing mere feet from where I stood right then.

He is a guest in this hotel, I told myself. I am not on shift. This is a public room.

"You're not working," he said.

"I'm not working."

"Then, why are you here?"

Otis made a small noise. I didn’t look at him. I didn’t have to look at him to know what was on his face. I haven’t wanted to strangle that old man so badly in all the years.

"I forgot something," I said.

"What'd you forget?"

I opened my mouth.

"She forgot nothin'," Otis said.

"Otis."

"I'm answering the man's question."

"You are stirring a pot."

"Miss Benning," Otis said, with the gravity of a bishop, "I have been stirrin' pots since before your mama pinned your bib on, and I intend to die stirrin' one." He turned to Clint like they were old friends, which, they, apparently, had become. "Now. Where was I?”

"Boots," Clint said.

"Boots." Otis nodded. "So there's a place out to the mall⁠—"

"Absolutely not," I said.

They both looked at me.