Page 20 of The Grumpy Defenseman
Just my name. Low and rough, like it had been sitting in his throat all night waiting for permission.
I turned back.
He was closer than I expected. One step, maybe two, closed in the time it took me to reach for the door handle. His eyes were dark in the streetlight, and for once they were not calculating. They were not looking for exits.
They were looking at me.
He kissed me the way he did everything: controlled and precise. His hand came up to my jaw, palm warm, thumb settling just beneath my ear. He tilted my face toward his with the same careful authority he used to angle a puck out of danger, and my hand found his chest before I could pretend I had made a rationaldecision.
When his mouth found mine, it was not testing.
It was a decision made with the full weight of a man who did not make decisions lightly.
The kiss lasted four seconds. Maybe five. Long enough for the taste of bourbon and night air to register. Long enough for my hand to feel his heart beating faster than his body wanted to admit. Long enough for the city to dissolve into irrelevance.
He pulled back. His hand stayed against my face for one more breath. Then it dropped.
“Goodnight,” he said.
I stood there for a long time. A car passed. Somewhere inside Jazz, TX, the quartet started another set, the saxophone carrying the first note into the street like a question nobody needed to answer.
I got in my car. Started the engine. My pulse was doing something completely unacceptable.
My phone lit up in the cupholder.
Bella: You’re still out. I can feel it. Something happened. TELL ME EVERYTHING.
I picked up the phone. Typed three words. Deleted them. Typed them again.
Me: He kissed me.
The response came in under four seconds.
Bella: I AM GETTING IN MY CAR RIGHT NOW.
Me: Do NOT come to my condo.
Bella: Too late. Bringing wine. This requires a full debriefing.
I laughed, actually laughed, alone in my car in a parking lot in Southtown at eleven-something on a Wednesday night, with the taste of a man I barely knew still on my lips and my best friend already halfway to my door.
I pulled out of the lot and drove toward home, the city scrolling past my windows in streaks of gold and shadow.
Evan
Ikissed her.
I sat in the parking lot with my hands on the steering wheel, engine running, staring. Cold air from the vents hit my face, sharp enough to pull me back into my body.
I kissed her.
Not a planned thing. Not a decision I had run through the usual calculus of risk and probable outcome. One second I was saying goodnight, and the next my hand was on her jaw, her mouth was under mine, and theonly thought in my head was a single word repeating itself like a heartbeat.
Finally.
Her lips had been warm. That was the detail my brain kept serving up, unprompted, on repeat. Slightly parted. Tasting faintly of the orange peel from her Old Fashioned. Her hand had found my chest and stayed there, palm flat over my sternum, and she had felt my heart rate before I could hide it.
I put the truck in drive and pulled out of the lot. Southtown scrolled past: storefronts, quiet sidewalks, a guy walking a dog that was bigger than he was. San Antonio at midnight moved at a different speed than San Antonio at dawn. Slower. More forgiving.
