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“Noon and his mom lived next door to my uncle’s place. She hated my uncle, likely because he wouldn’t give her the time of day, but she made sure I had a hot meal every night. And she’d let me sleep over whenever he was gone for too long. She had a nasty drinking problem, though, so it didn’t take much to convince Noon to strike out with me. His sister Deb lived with her father.”
Franky sipped at his drink thoughtfully, probably thinking my life was one long, bad movie. I trailed his gaze toward the stage behind us where an older man sporting a fedora and dark shades worked on piecing his saxophone together.
“That’s Stan,” I said. “He comes in a few nights a week to serenade the crowd for tips.”
Stan sprinkled a few singles inside his open sax case to get the ball rolling.
“This place has character,” Franky said, staring at the pool tables in the back.
“Ever played before?” I asked.
“I’m probably not any good,” he said.
I finished my drink, licking the beer froth from my top lip. “Let’s go,” I ordered. Stan belted out something jazzy, the sultry sounds of a tune I didn’t recognize following us to the rear of the bar. A few guys conversing near the available pool table moved off to the side with their drinks, allowing Franky and me access.
“Do you know what this is?” I held out one of the cue sticks I’d plucked from the mount on the wall.
“I said I’m probably not any good, doesn’t mean I don’t know what all the parts are.”
“So you know what all the parts are, you just don’t know what to do with them.” I winked, and his stare turned scolding. “Come on, you left yourself wide open for that joke.” I shoved a stick at him, leaning mine against the table so I could rack the balls. “I’ll take it easy on you in the first round. It’s every man for himself once you get the hang of it. Or at least once you get the rules down.”
“Should we play for something?” he asked, attempting to chalk the wrong end of his stick.
I took pity on him, finishing up with the balls and then turning his cue stick right side up. “Maybe let me give you a lesson first, then you can decide if you’re in the mood to lose the contents of your wallet to me.”
Franky’s eyes danced with delight, taking a good chunk of my breath away. He then smiled that big, once-in-a-blue-moon smile, robbing me of what little oxygen I had left. “Playing for money isn’t fun.”
“Because you have plenty of it,” I said.
“Will you even accept my money if you win?” he asked, brow cocked. How fucking well he knew me already.
“Probably not. I’m sure I still owe you fourteen grand for those paintings you bought as it is,” I muttered.
A server I’d never seen waiting tables at Josephine’s before laid a tumbler of brown liquor on the edge of the pool table before winking at me and biting her lower lip. It was a toss-up between what would spill first, her ample cleavage sitting atop her low-cut shirt or her messy, brown bun being held up by a single pen.
She strode away, hips dramatically swaying as she went, and I turned in the direction of the heat burning a hole in my cheek. Franky watched me with an unreadable expression, the smile I loved now gone.
“Uh,” I started stupidly, rubbing at the back of my neck. “I think she brought me someone else’s drink.”
“It’s yours,” he said, his voice unreadable too. “I ordered it before following you over here.”
“Where’s yours?” I asked.
“I’m the designated driver.” His lopsided grin returned, and the sick feeling of guilt after having been caught ogling her melted away, leaving behind confusion as to why I’d felt guilty in the first place.
“Oh, I see.”
“See what?” he said innocently.
“You’re banking on winning because I’ll be too drunk to keep my shit together.”
“Are you accusing me of playing dirty?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing.” I wet my tongue with the scotch, humming in appreciation. “How about we play for truths?” I blurted out.
“Truths,” Franky said flatly, as if waiting for the punchline.
“Yeah,” I said breezily. I wouldn’t be the one losing anyway. “Winner gets to ask three questions, nothing we’d readily admit to each other. It has to be something big, and the loser has to answer them truthfully.”
