Page 28 of Nash
"So I've been told."
"Ruby?"
"Ruby tells me every morning."
"I bet she does." He steps back from the table, leans the cue against the rail, and folds his arms. The posture is loose. His jaw isn't. "You good?"
I line up the four ball, take the shot, and watch it drop before moving to the next without answering.
"Nash."
I should answer. The words I'm good are right there, two syllables I've said a hundred times. But my hand tightens on thecue instead, the grip shifting as the wood presses against the callus on my palm.
East watches my grip. He sees everything, always has, and I feel him clock the shift in my knuckles.
He holds the silence, letting the jokes, questions, and running commentary that usually power every room he's in fall away. He stands there with his cue against the rail and his weight on one hip. The room holds still around him.
I take two more shots, both dropping, and the table is nearly clear. East hasn't picked up his cue since he leaned it against the rail.
He lifts it now and sinks three in a row without speaking, each one precise with clean angles, the cue ball finding position as if it's been told where to go. He closes the game, sets the cue down, and grips my shoulder with one hard squeeze that registers through the cut.
"When you figure out what you're carrying," he says, "don't wait too long to put it down." He lets go, crosses to the door, and pauses with his hand on the frame. "Go home, Nash."
East leaves, and the sound of his truck starting filters through the walls. The engine catches, revs, then fades down the road. The refrigerator behind the bar clicks on.
I rack the remaining balls, hang East's cue and mine, then turn off the overhead lamp. The pool table disappears into the dark.
Ruby is still at the fence when I push through the back door. The goat is curled at her feet, asleep. She doesn't turn when she hears my boots on the gravel, but her shoulders shift. She knew I was coming.
"Go inside," I say.
"I'm fine out here."
"Ruby."
"I'm looking at the sky, Nash. It's a sky. It's not going to hurt me."
I stop beside her. Close enough to smell vanilla and the charcoal smoke that's settled into her hair from the cookout. She still hasn't turned.
"You're staying at the clubhouse tonight."
She turns now. "One more night. Then I'm going back to my apartment."
"We'll talk about it."
"No, we won't. One more night. Then I go home." Her chin lifts. "You put a deadbolt on my door and cameras on my building. I'm not living in a spare room forever."
My jaw tightens. She holds my gaze without flinching, and the stubbornness on her face is the same look she gave me in her hallway when I told her to pack a bag. The one that makes my pulse kick.
"One more night," I say. "Then we talk."
"That's not what I said."
"That's what's happening."
Her eyes narrow. Her mouth opens. Closes. She holds for a beat, then exhales through her nose.
"Fine." She bends down, scoops the goat up under one arm, and walks past me toward the clubhouse. "But you should know I'm keeping score, and you owe me approximately nine arguments at this point."
