Chapter 3 #2
Sue's eyebrows went up slightly. "I'm at the college too. Department of Communications, three years now." She tilted her head. "So we'll probably run into each other."
"Probably."
A pause, comfortable enough that neither of them rushed it.
"What are you doing tonight?" she asked.
"Just walking. Getting the lay of the land." He glanced at Marv, who had now fully sat on Sarah's feet, apparently having decided she needed him there. "I should probably get the big guy home. Long drive down, first night in a new place."
"We could always add one more to the group," Sue said. "We're very welcoming."
"I can see that." He smiled and shook his head. "Maybe next time."
"You sure?" She held his gaze with the specific patience of a woman accustomed to getting the answer she wanted, not through pressure but through the simple confidence that it was coming. "It's a divorce party. There's an open bar situation developing at Harry's in about twenty minutes."
Gary looked at Marv. Marv looked at Gary.
"Give me fifteen minutes," Gary said.
? ? ?
He dropped Marv at the apartment — the dog walked directly to the center of the living room, turned one circle, folded himself onto the floor with a sigh that suggested the entire day had been personally exhausting — filled his water bowl, locked the door, drove back across town.
Harry's sat on the college strip with the confident, faded energy of a bar that had been exactly what it was for a long time and saw no reason to apologize for it.
Christmas lights around the window that had probably gone up for an actual Christmas at some point in the past, simply never come down.
Specials on a chalkboard that included local draft beer and shot combinations priced for a college budget.
A jukebox in the corner that someone had put real money into, clearly had opinions about classic country.
The group had taken over a cluster of high-tops near the back. Gary walked in, found six women and one empty barstool, understood immediately that this was going to be a different kind of Friday night than he'd planned.
"Ladies," Sue announced, with the air of a woman presenting a solution to a problem they hadn't known they had, "this is Gary."
He was welcomed with the specific enthusiasm of a group that had reached exactly the right point in the evening for reinforcements.
Drinks appeared. Introductions happened fast, in no particular order — names, occupations, how long they'd known Sarah, exactly what her ex-husband had done, delivered with increasing editorial embellishment as the drinks came around.
Gary listened, asked the right questions, and discovered that the correct role tonight was not to be interesting but to be interested, which suited him fine.
Somewhere around the second round, Sarah appeared at his elbow.
She was warmer up close than she'd seemed across the square — funnier than the divorce party framing suggested, with a dry, quick wit that surfaced between the broader laughs, landed harder.
She looked like someone who had been sad for a while, was actively, deliberately choosing not to be tonight, which Gary recognized, respected.
They were mid-conversation about something that had nothing to do with any of it when she reached out, grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and said, "Come with me," with the authority of a woman who had decided.
He came.
She walked him to the bar, signaled the bartender with the ease of a woman who'd done this before, two shots materialized. Sarah looked at him with an expression that was either a warning or an invitation, reached over, pulled his shirt up from the waist, said, "Lay down."
Gary looked at the bar. Looked at her. Looked at the shot.
He laid down.
She poured the shot into his navel, held his gaze while she drank it without using her hands, set the glass down with a click on the bar beside his head.
The group behind them erupted. Gary sat up, reached for his own shot, knocked it back; Sarah was right there when he turned, so he kissed her — quick and sure, the kind that answers a question that's been in the room for an hour — the whole bar cheered in the indiscriminate way bars cheer for things they don't fully understand but recognize as the right energy.
? ? ?
The rest of the evening moved the way good nights do — fast and loose, jumping from Harry's to a honky-tonk two doors down, then to a quieter place around the corner where someone knew the bartender.
The group shed members gradually, without drama as the hours went on.
Kids at home. Babysitters with a midnight cutoff.
The honest acknowledgment that one more drink crossed a line they'd regret Saturday morning.
Hugs, promises to text, the particular warmth of a group saying goodbye to a good night before it became something else.
By the time the last bar was closing at two, it was just Gary, Sue, and Sarah standing on the sidewalk under a streetlight, the square quiet around them.
Sue looked between them with the expression of a woman completing a task she'd started hours ago. "Sarah needed this," she said to Gary, low enough that it was directed at him and not the evening generally. "This whole night." A beat. "I'm going to call a cab."
"You don't have to—" Sarah started.
"I'm going to call a cab," Sue repeated, pleasantly, squeezed Sarah's arm. She looked at Gary one more time — something between assessment and approval — pulled out her phone.
She was half a block away before Sarah turned back to Gary.
"Did Sue just—"
"Yes," Gary said.
Sarah laughed, the real version, the one that had been showing up more as the night went on. "How did I do on the bull?"
"Honestly?"
"Honestly."
"Second ride was beautiful," he said. "Commitment counts for a lot."
She laughed again, shaking her head. They stood there a moment longer, the night doing what it does at the end of good evenings — that slight shift in the air, the quality of the quiet changing.
"I should find my way back," Gary said. "New place. I'm still not entirely sure I remember how to get there from here."
Sarah looked at him for half a second, deciding something.
"I know this campus," she said. "I did my undergrad here. I know every building, every shortcut, every street." A pause. "I'll get you home to Marv."
They walked. Sarah narrated the route with the fond, half-nostalgic authority of a woman revisiting a place that had mattered to her — pointing out the building where she'd had her favorite professor, the bench where she'd studied for finals, the stretch of path between the library and the quad that felt different at night than it did in daylight, though she couldn't explain why.
Gary listened, asked questions, let the campus assemble itself around him in the dark.
When they reached his building, the path narrowed between two hedges; the light above the door was the only one on this side of the block. Sarah stopped walking.
Gary reached past her for his key.
She stepped forward, took a fistful of his jacket in both hands, pushed him back against the door before it was open — kissing him with the particular conviction of a woman who had waited longer than she'd intended to and had stopped being patient about it.
Gary kissed her back, hands finding her waist, fumbled the key into the lock behind him without entirely breaking the kiss, which took longer than it should have but felt worth the effort.
The door swung open. They stumbled inside.
From the center of the living room floor, Marv raised his head approximately two inches, conducted a brief assessment, determined that nothing required his attention, and dropped back down with a sigh.
Gary walked Sarah down the hall and pulled the bedroom door shut behind them. The room was dark except for the streetlight coming through the single window, throwing a long rectangle of light across the floor.
She turned before he did.
Her hands found the front of his jacket first, sliding it off his shoulders and letting it drop, then moved to his shirt with the unhurried intention of a woman who had been thinking about this for longer than the last five minutes.
Gary reached for her in return, fingers finding the zipper at the back of her dress, drawing it down slowly while she worked the buttons of his shirt from the bottom up.
"You're not nervous," she said. Not a question.
"Are you?"
She looked up at him. "Not even a little."
The dress slid off her shoulders and pooled at her feet. She was all warm skin and quiet confidence in the light, the kind of confidence that comes from a woman who has stopped apologizing for herself. Gary took a moment just to look at her before he closed the distance between them.