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“Sure.”
She returns with two glasses and plops both down in front of me, the ice clinking as they’re jarred. I add a splash to each.
“Better be more generous than that, Finchley. Especially if we’re ‘covering it all tonight’.” She throws up air quotes.
“Finchley? How’d you go from sweet and sated to ornery this fast?”
“And I quote, ‘we’re covering it all tonight.’ That’s how.”
“Just so you know, darlin’. I don’t mind your sass. It does it for me, actually, so keep it up. And we’re not getting drunk tonight. I have plans for later that involve watching you take my cock and I want you sober enough to enjoy it.” I lift my glass and toast her, tossing back the sip I poured myself.
She toasts me and tosses hers back. “Why Luke Combs?”
I tip my head and grin, before adding a splash to her tumbler and one to mine. “Because Bill Withers didn’t move you the way it moved me. Because I am a fool for you. Because it was the only way to get you to listen after Lorrie Morgan. My turn… Why did you ghost me for three months?”
“Not enough vodka in the world for that question. Next.”
“Bright.”
“Next!”
“Why Cash’s “Sunshine”?”
She tosses back her vodka. “Because you said—” She steels her spine just as the doorbell rings. “You said I wasn’t worth the trouble.” She turns on her bare heel and heads to the front door, with her ass cheeks peeking from the bottom of those tiny shorts as she walks away, leaving me in her kitchen, glass aloft, before draining its contents and pouring myself another round.
She returns with two brown paper bags and drops them on the kitchen table. She moves around me to grab plates, silverware, and napkins and then rips open the bags, pulling out the containers and setting them up like a buffet.
She doesn’t acknowledge that she leveled me with her last answer. She doesn’t even act as if it rattled her.
But we both know better.
She’s served her plate and sits, staring down at her food.
When I get to her, I slide a hand to the base of her neck and tilt her head until she meets my eyes. “I’m sorry, Brighton. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She swallows, and her throat visibly bobs. She breaks eye contact just as I see emotion rise in her.
I drop my lips to her forehead before letting her go with a squeeze at her neck. “Eat up, baby. Don’t let it get cold just because I was an ass.”
“You ordered my favorites.” Her voice is quiet, almost wondrous. She waves her hand not holding her vodka toward the spread. “Everything I love on the menu. How’d you know, Eli?” The boldness she so often has is gone. Her question is timid. Raw. Vulnerable.
Peeling back the layers of Brighton Ranger is a conundrum—each layer more complex and more delicate than the previous one.
“You want me to answer all your questions while you answer none of mine?”
“I answered Johnny Cash.”
“You did.” I pause. The attorney in me knows how to plead my case. The thing is, she isn’t the judge. She doesn’t need a litany of facts. She’s the jury. I need to paint the picture, create the scene, lead her to where I need her to go.
“Well?”
“How many times have we had Giovanni’s?”
“Including tonight? Let me count.” Here comes the sass. “Um. Once.”
I point my fork at her plate. “Eat.”
She stabs a bite and groans a little when the pasta hits her tongue.
