9. Norah #2
He exhales through his nose and gives me a small, resigned smile.
His composure changes, becomes more honest, like he’s giving in on this one.
“Yeah,” he says. “It is.”
Henry, who has been holding very still beside us, exhales. “So,” he says pleasantly. “Trivia.”
I look at Henry, his completely unconvincing attempt at innocence, and then back at Silas. Ten days of being sensible about him, and I’m done pretending I don’t know why he’s here.
“Trivia,” I confirm. “Come on. We have a table.”
I turn and head back through the crowd, and I hear them follow. I don’t look back because I don’t want them to see my smile.
Jewell takes one look at Silas and then at me and then at Henry, who grins at her immediately with the open, uncomplicated warmth of someone who has decided she’s going to be his favorite person at the table. Her shoulders relax, and I can tell she intends to enjoy every second of what comes next.
“Jewell,” I say. “This is Silas. And Henry.”
“Henry,” Henry confirms, pulling out a stool with the easiness of someone who has never once felt unwelcome anywhere.
“You look like trouble,” Jewell tells him.
“Constantly,” he agrees. “But I’m very useful in a crisis.”
“Is this a crisis?”
“Not yet,” he says cheerfully. “Give it an hour.”
Silas takes the stool beside me.
His knee is close enough to brush mine if either of us shifts. I notice that once and make myself look at the answer sheet. I remind myself that I came here to win trivia, true. And that winning trivia is the primary objective of the evening. Less true by the second.
The host calls the first question, and the table leans in.
Henry immediately says something confidently wrong, and Jewell watches all of it with the satisfaction of someone who is storing material for a song.
Then Silas says the right answer in the low, certain voice that makes my toes curl slightly in my strappy sandals.
I shift on the hard stool and force myself to pay attention to the question.
He leans in to tell me the answer, low enough that it’s just for me, his mouth close enough to my ear that I catch the words and lose approximately forty percent of my ability to process them.
I’m looking at his mouth instead of listening properly, the shape of it, the way it moves when he talks, and for one reckless second I want to kiss him right there at the table.
My team would notice. That’s really the only thing standing between me and acting on it, and even that feels like a fairly weak argument at the moment.
My thighs press together on the hard stool, and arousal tightens low in my stomach, a tingle that spreads before I can stop it, and I suppress a shudder that I am not entirely successful at suppressing.
“Are you cold?” Silas asks, glancing at me.
“No,” I say. “I’m fine.”
I am not fine. I am the opposite of fine. I am a grown woman having an inappropriate physical reaction to a man reading me a trivia answer in a crowded bar, and I this is out of the ordinary for my ordinary days.
We get the question right.
“History,” I say, sliding the answer slip forward. “Is that going to be your thing all night?”
“Depends on the category,” Silas says.
“What happens when it’s not history?”
“Then we rely on Henry,” he says.
Henry, who has confidently attributed the invention of the modern lightbulb to Benjamin Franklin, nods solemnly. “I contain multitudes.”
“You contain chaos,” I say.
“Same thing,” Henry says, entirely at peace with this assessment.
I laugh loudly before I can stop it, and a couple of nearby tables glance over.
I don’t care because Silas is looking at me sideways with a warmth in his eyes that has nothing to do with the bar lighting.
All my pats on the back for handling the Silas situation are doing what they’ve been threatening to do since I walked through the door and found him watching the entrance.
They’re collapsing.
Without any drama whatsoever. Which is worse than if they’d made a scene about it.
“I have a burning question. Can I pick your brain.?”
Silas turns his head toward me. “Pick away.”
“Fated mates,” I say. “Is that real? Or is it wolf mythology? Like the paranormal version of soulmates?”
He takes a drink before he answers. “It’s real.”
“How does it work?”
“The wolf recognizes it first,” he says. “Before the man understands what’s happening. It’s permanent,” he says. “It doesn’t dissolve.”
I turn this over. “Have you ever met yours?”
He looks at me steadily. He doesn’t answer.
“That’s a no,” I say.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
He picks up his bottle. “No,” he says. “I didn’t.”
I read this as confirmation. I turn back to the answer sheet.
By the time the host announces the final scores, we are in first place, and I’m taking full personal credit because it was my flier and this is my bar and my idea.
Henry has been wrong about four things and inexplicably right about one, and Jewell has said nothing for twenty minutes because she’s been writing something in the margins of the answer sheet that she’ll turn into a song by Tuesday.
“Team: The Last Chapter,” the host says, and our corner of the bar erupts, table drumming, hooting, and making more noise than its size warrants.
I turn to Silas.
“Well,” I say. “The gamble paid off.”
“It did,” he says.
“For trivia purposes.”
“Among other things,” he says, smiling.
Henry leans over from across the table. “I’d like it noted,” he says, “that I contributed to team morale.”
“You tried to give us Benjamin Franklin,” I say.
“Morale,” he repeats, untroubled. “Not accuracy. Different skill set.”
Jewell looks up from her margin notes. “I like him,” she says, which from Jewell, who extends approval approximately never, is the equivalent of a standing ovation.
Henry points at her. “See. She gets it.”
I push my stool back and stand. Silas stands at the same time, and for a moment we’re closer than the bar crowd requires, the noise rising around us while the space between us stills. He looks at me like he came here for a reason, and the reason is standing in front of him.
“How’s the fan?” he asks.
I look at him. “Still spinning. Quiet. No rattle.”
We both know he’s not asking about the fan.
“Good.”
Another beat. The fan is not the thing either of us is talking about.
I hold his gaze. We’re in the loud, warm, completely public space of Hannigan’s on a Sunday night, and I still want to close the distance between us.
Henry, from somewhere behind us, makes a sound that is not quite a cough and not quite a laugh and is absolutely both.
I step back and turn toward the bar, where Jewell is already waiting with two drinks and the expression of a woman who has witnessed everything and intends to say nothing until she’s ready. Knowing Jewell, that will be never or all at once with no warning. But tonight I’m not ready.
I need a little more time before I explain any of this out loud.
Tonight my thoughts are still organizing.