Page 20 of Don't Go
I leaned in.
I leaned about an inch. He held his eyes on mine without moving the rest of his face. He smelled like whiskey and thesame expensive aftershave he'd been wearing at the auction. He smelled like a man my mother would have warned me about and my father would have liked. The bar was a foot of zinc between us, and the foot of zinc wasn't enough.
He didn't speak.
He waited.
I leaned closer.
"How do you get someone to stop hating you?" he whispered.
I straightened and stared at him.
His mouth was open a quarter inch. His eyes were on mine and didn't move.
"I don't hate you," I replied, flatly.
A customer at the back end of the bar raised a glass at me. I went down to take the order. I felt Beau's eyes follow me along the bar as I went.
"Really?" He said it from his stool, not loud, not quiet, pitched to carry the length of the bar without raising his voice. "Because you sure do act like it."
I took the order. Made the drink, and delivered it.
He was still in the same stool when I came back. His hands were still flat on the bar. He hadn't moved an inch.
"I don't hate you," I said, quieter this time and closer to him. "I told you. I don't."
"Good." He smiled. The smile was small, but it was there. "So can we be friends?"
I didn't answer.
I had a feeling,Sabrina, don't you dare. Don't even let yourself look at it, Sabrina.I had a feeling he was going to want to be more than friends, and having that feeling was a problem, because it implied I'd been thinking about it.
My phone rang in my pocket.
I pulled it out.Bonnie.
I held up one finger to him. “Excuse me.”
I caught Kit on my way to the back. “Cover for me. I have to take this.”
“Yeah.”
I pushed through the swinging door into the back hallway and pressed the phone to my ear. “Bonnie? Baby, what’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Mommy.”
“Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“I want chicken nuggets.”
I stopped in the hallway. I leaned my forehead against the wall.
“Bonnie.”
“Mommy, can I?—”
“Have you had dinner?”
