Page 17 of The Grumpy Defenseman
The sunset burned. A car alarm went off somewhere across the lot, and nobody cared.
I hit send.
Me: Meet me at Paramour tonight. Eight o’clock. One drink. No pictures. Just a drink.
No softening. No escape hatch. Just an invitation from a woman who had spent three years keeping everyone at exactly the distance required to prevent this exact situation.
I waited for the three dots to appear.
Nothing.
Oneminute passed.
Then two.
By minute four, I had decided he was either ignoring me, dead, or typing a legally binding rejection with footnotes.
Congratulations, Samantha. You’ve just invited Mr. Sunshine to a rooftop bar with a view that could make a monk question his vows, and now you’re being emotionally held hostage by a blank text field. Excellent boundary management. Your future therapist is already taking notes.
My phone buzzed.
Evan: Yes.
I drove home and stood in front of my closet for eleven minutes, which was ten minutes longer than I had spent getting dressed for anything since the Exposure Quarterly incident. Black top. The kind of fabric that did not try. Boots with enough heel to say I had thought about it, but not enough to say I had spiraled about it. Hair down, because pulling it back would have felt like suiting up for work, and tonight was not work.
I left my camera on the kitchen counter. On purpose. With the conscious intention of being a human being instead of a lens for one night.
This was either the most mature thing I had done in months or the opening scene of a disaster. Both felt exactly the same from the inside.
My phone buzzed as I locked my door.
Bella: Where are you going? My surveillance instincts are tingling.
Me: Out.
Bella: Out WHERE? With WHOM? What are you WEARING?
Me: Goodnight, Bella.
Bella: I WILL find out. I have subpoena power and no boundaries.
Paramour sat above the Museum Reach like San Antonio had decided subtlety was for cities with less heat. Rooftop views. Soft lighting. Enough polished surfaces to make me aware of every decision I had made since leaving my condo. Beyond the patio, the city spread out in layers: hoteltowers, river lights, and the distant needle of the Tower of the Americas pulsing against the dark.
I walked in, and the hostess smiled like she recognized the look on my face. The look of a woman who was absolutely, positively not on a date.
I took a seat by the window and ordered a Pappy Van Winkle, because anything with a paper umbrella would have been a crime against aesthetics. The drink arrived. I watched the city. I did not check my phone.
Fifteen minutes later, the door opened.
Evan McKinney walked into Paramour, and the rooftop adjusted around him the way water adjusted around a stone. He could not help it. The man took up space the way weather took up sky.
He had changed out of his training clothes. Dark jeans. A charcoal Henley that fit him in a way that was either intentional or deeply unfair. No headphones. No armor except the hard line of his mouth, which was carrying its usual load-bearing tension.
I noticed his mouth before I gave myself permission to notice anything else. That felt professionally indefensible, which was inconvenient because I was not here as a professional.
He scanned the room. Exits and threats. Found me. Walked over.
“You said no pictures,” he said.
