Page 36 of The Maverick
"Good," I said. I set my guitar case down by the door. Unzipped my coat. Hung it on the hook that was mine, thirdfrom the left, because we'd sorted that out in the first week without making it a conversation. "Luis paid me, like he promised."
I pulled the folded cash from my inner pocket and held it up briefly, and Tasha made the satisfied sound of someone who understood what a hundred and fifty dollars meant to the math of my life.
"How'd the playing go?" she said. "Before the money."
"Good. Really good, actually."
She studied me over the rim of her mug. Tasha had the kind of eyes that noticed things and didn't always say so, which I'd come to appreciate because it meant when she did say something, it was because she'd already decided it was worth saying.
"Something else happened," she said.
It wasn't a question.
I went to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water and drank half of it standing at the sink. Through the window above the faucet I could see the top of the live oak across the street, bare-branched and silver in the afternoon light. I thought about whether I could deflect this and decided I probably couldn't and also wasn't sure I wanted to.
"A man fixed my guitar string," I said.
Silence from the sofa.
"My G string broke mid-set," I said. "I didn't have a spare. And this man—he just—came over. Had one in his pocket. Restrung it right there on the restaurant floor."
"A man had a guitar string in his pocket?”
"He's a guitarist."
"Okay." A pause. "And?"
"And he walked me to a donut shop after."
"Which donut shop?”
"Proof. On?—"
"Rebecca." Tasha set her mug down. "What happened at the donut shop?"
I turned around and leaned my back against the sink. The kitchen was small enough that I could see her face clearly from here, and her face was doing the thing it did when she was trying not to push too hard and finding it difficult.
"He kissed me," I said.
Tasha picked her mug back up. Set it back down. "Okay."
"In the donut shop."
"Okay."
"And then he walked me home and I kissed him on the jaw outside and came up here."
"You kissed him on the jaw?”
"On the jaw."
"That's a very—" She appeared to be choosing her words. "That's a very specific place to kiss someone."
"I know."
"Why the jaw?"
"I don't know. It's what happened." I pressed the heel of my hand against the counter. "It felt right."
