26 #2
TRIVIA NIGHT. TEAMS WELCOME. BAD DECISIONS REWARDED.
I turned to Easton.
He was already looking at it like it had personally insulted his folded-napkin fantasy.
I smiled. “Oh, we are absolutely doing that.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I had plans.”
“Your plans were murdered by Pickle the ferret.”
Debra turned around in her seat. “Pickle would want you to live.”
Easton looked between us, defeated and gorgeous. “I cannot believe this is happening.”
I squeezed his hand. “I can. This feels very us.”
The Bent Halo was warm, loud, and packed.
Not packed like The Sin Bin after a game.
Different. Stranger. Softer around the edges.
Dark green booths lined one wall, gold lights hung low over scarred tables, and the bar itself curved beneath shelves of bottles glowing amber and blue.
A small stage sat near the back with a microphone stand, a trivia host in a purple velvet blazer, and a whiteboard listing categories that looked like a cry for help.
Bad Decisions in History
Songs Everyone Lies About Knowing
Legal or Illegal?
Sports Rules Nobody Understands
Rom-Com Crimes
Name That Celebrity Scandal
Mythology or Florida?
I stopped walking. “This place was made for me.”
Easton looked at the category board. “Bad Decisions in History is mine.”
“Legal or Illegal is mine.”
“Sports Rules is mine.”
“Rom-Com Crimes is mine too.”
He gave me a look. “Why?”
“Because every rom-com man is one police report away from becoming a cautionary tale.”
“That’s bleak.”
“That’s law.”
The hostess shoved two answer sheets, a pencil, and a tiny plastic basket of trivia tokens into Easton’s hands. “Team name?”
Easton looked at me.
I smiled slowly.
“No,” he said immediately.
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“I know your face.”
I leaned toward the hostess. “No Further Questions.”
The hostess wrote it down without blinking. “Strong. Legal. Emotionally unavailable. I like it.”
Easton stared at the ceiling.
I patted his chest. “This is our brand now.”
“Our brand was supposed to be dinner.”
“Our brand is transportation failure and cross-examination.”
We found a small high-top near the edge of the room, close enough to hear the host but tucked into a corner where Easton could sit with his back to the wall and one knee hooked beside mine.
He ordered loaded fries, mozzarella sticks, sliders, and water like a man trying to salvage the evening with protein.
I ordered a drink called The Red Flag because I had respect for themed opportunities.
The bartender slid Easton’s water toward him, and I pointed to it. “No alcohol?”
He shot me a dry look. “Pending assault charges make a man humble.”
“That sounds fake.”
“Deeply fake. I want whiskey.”
I leaned against his shoulder. “Proud of you.”
He went still for half a second.
Then he turned his head, his mouth close to my ear. “Don’t say that unless you want me pathetic.”
My stomach flipped.
“You’re always a little pathetic for me,” I said.
He smiled into his water. “Only publicly now.”
The trivia host tapped the microphone. “All right, sinners and scholars, round one is Bad Decisions in History. If you don’t know the answer, write something funny. I give pity points when my divorce medication is working.”
I settled onto my stool and picked up the pencil. “We’re winning.”
Easton took the pencil from me. “I’m writing.”
“Why?”
“Your handwriting looks like a ransom note with legal training.”
“My handwriting has personality.”
“It has motive.”
I let him write because watching his big hand wrap around a tiny pencil should not have done anything for me, but unfortunately, I was weak and he had forearms.
The host read the first question. “In ancient Rome, wealthy citizens sometimes used what deeply unfortunate substance to whiten their teeth?”
Easton wrote immediately.
I leaned over. “What did you put?”
“Urine.”
I slowly turned my face toward him. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Urine.”
“You said that with upsetting confidence.”
“It’s right.”
“If you’re wrong, I’m leaving you here with the ferret woman.”
The host clicked his pen against his clipboard. “The answer is urine.”
Easton slid me a look.
I took a slow sip of The Red Flag. “I hate being attracted to you.”
“You love knowledge.”
“Not that knowledge.”
He leaned in. “You look proud.”
“I look nauseated.”
“You’re proud and nauseated.”
“That is unfortunately correct.”
He smiled, and the fact that he smiled without trying to weaponize it, without hiding it, without turning away from me before it got too soft, made something in me ache.
The next few rounds went exactly as badly and beautifully as they should have.
Songs Everyone Lies About Knowing nearly destroyed us because Easton claimed everyone knew the second verse of “Mr. Brightside,” which led to three different tables yelling conflicting lyrics and one man in a Patagonia vest standing on his chair until the host threatened to remove him for “vocal fraud.” Legal or Illegal gave me my moment when the host asked about outdated adultery statutes, and Easton stared at me like I had pulled a knife out of my purse when I wrote the answer before he finished the question.
“You knew that too fast,” he said.
“I contain multitudes.”
“You contain concerns.”
“You’re dating me. Adjust.”
“I’m trying.”
Sports Rules Nobody Understands should have belonged to Easton, but the host asked, “In hockey, what penalty is called when a player uses the shaft of the stick between both hands to hit an opponent?”
I wrote before him.
He looked down at the sheet. “Say it.”
“No.”
“Say it with eye contact.”
“You are not turning cross-checking into foreplay.”
“You wrote it very confidently.”
“You’re gross.”
“You like me.”
“Publicly, apparently.”
His hand slid to my knee under the table, warm and casual, and I let it stay there.
By Mythology or Florida, the loaded fries were mostly gone, Easton had eaten four mozzarella sticks with the focus of a man who had survived athletic suspension and needed dairy reinforcement, and I had ordered a second Red Flag despite Easton’s very judgmental eyebrows.
He had traded his water for a beer halfway through the second round and was nursing a second one now, slow enough that I knew he was still thinking about the drive he would not be making and the trouble he could not afford.
The host grinned into the mic. “Final question before scores. Mythology or Florida? A man claimed he was possessed by Zeus after stealing a swan-shaped paddleboat from a resort pond.”
I pressed both hands to the table. “Florida.”
Easton frowned. “Mythology.”
“Easton.”
“A swan and Zeus is myth-coded.”
“A stolen paddleboat is Florida-coded.”
“Possessed by Zeus.”
“Resort pond.”
He looked at the answer sheet. “We need this point.”
“Then trust me.”
His eyes lifted to mine.
Something passed between us, warm and ridiculous and too big for a trivia sheet.
He handed me the pencil.
I wrote Florida with a flourish.
The host slapped the clipboard. “The answer is Florida, and the resort has since banned men named Gary during spring break.”
I threw both arms up.
Easton stared at me like I had just solved a murder.
I pointed at him. “Trust the process.”
“You said resort pond like it was evidence.”
“It was.”
“I’m weirdly turned on.”
“You should be.”
He laughed, and it hit me straight in the chest.
Not a sharp laugh. Not a bitter one. Real.
Low. Open. The kind I hadn’t heard from him enough.
The kind that made his eyes crinkle slightly at the corners and his whole face look younger, like the weight he carried had loosened for one stolen minute in a weird little bar called The Bent Halo while I held a pencil and proved Florida was always the safest bet in public criminal absurdity.
The host started reading scores, and Easton leaned closer. “I wanted to give you a perfect first date.”
I looked around at the sticky table, half-demolished fries, trivia sheets covered in Easton’s sharp handwriting and my dramatic corrections, the basket of tokens, the neon halo flickering crookedly in the window, and the bartender arguing with a man dressed like he owned an alpaca farm.
“You did.”
His brows pulled together. “This?”
“Yes.”
“You were supposed to have fancy dessert.”
“I have mozzarella sticks.”
“You were supposed to have folded napkins.”
“I have a cocktail called The Red Flag and a man who wrote urine on a trivia sheet with absolute conviction.”
His mouth twitched, but his eyes had gone serious. “Aura.”
“I’m not making you feel better.” I set my hand over his on my knee.
“If we had gone to your fancy restaurant, I would have sat there wondering which fork made me look least emotionally neglected. I would have been nervous and weird, and you would have been trying so hard that I would have teased you until you got tense. Here, your truck died, Debra abandoned us for an emotional support ferret, and I got to watch you lose your mind over ancient dental hygiene. This is better.”
He looked at me like he didn’t know what to do with that.
I squeezed his hand. “My standards are finally specific.”
The host’s voice boomed through the bar. “And in second place, losing by one deeply suspicious point, we have No Further Questions.”
The room clapped.
I bowed from my stool.
Easton did not clap.
He stared at the scoreboard.
I knew that face.
“Oh no,” I said.
“That Songs Everyone Lies About Knowing question was poorly worded.”
“Easton.”
“They accepted ‘Greek’ when the answer should have been Macedonian earlier, and now they’re giving Patagonia fraud man half credit for mumbling through Fleetwood Mac.”
“You are not filing a trivia appeal.”
“Historical integrity matters.”
“Alexander the Great has been dead a very long time and does not need you tonight.”
“He needs representation.”
“He needs rest.”
The host appeared at our table with a plastic silver medal and a basket full of horrifying little prizes. “No Further Questions, you were robbed by vibes and poor sportsmanship, but you’re pretty, so here’s a consolation basket.”
I accepted it with dignity. “Thank you. We’ll be speaking with counsel.”