Page 44 of The Grumpy Defenseman
Noah came back. He was easy to talk to, the kind of man who asked questions and actually listened to the answers. Marketing. New to San Antonio. Liked live music and thought the breakfast-taco debate between San Antonio and Austin was the most important constitutional crisis of our time.
I flirted.
Just enough to remember I still could.
Bella watched the exchange with the satisfied expression of a woman whose plan was working exactly as designed. Then she stood abruptly.
“Jukebox,” she announced. “We’re dancing.”
“No one else is dancing.”
“Exactly. We’re starting something.”
She crossed the bar, punched in a song from approximately 2008, and turned back with a grin that could have powered a small city.
The music kicked in. I rolled my eyes. Got up anyway. Saying no toBella Rey was a skill I had never developed and probably never would.
We danced. Not gracefully. But with the kind of joyful recklessness that made other people smile and eventually join in.
For three minutes and forty-two seconds, I was just a woman in a bar with a friend who refused to let her disappear inside her own hurt.
When the song ended, I was breathing hard and smiling, and Bella pointed at me from across the dance floor.
“There she is,” she said. “Still Sam.”
I went back to the booth. Noah was still there, looking hopeful in a way that was sweet and completely wrong for where I was.
“I think I’m going to head out,” I told him. “But it was really nice meeting you.”
He took it well. Smiled. Said maybe he would see me around. I said maybe.
We both knew what maybe meant.
Outside, the air was cool enough to feel like permission. Bella looped her armthrough mine as we walked to the car, and we were quiet for half a block before she spoke.
“You did good tonight,” she said.
“I left early.”
“You showed up. That’s more than most people do when they’re hurting.”
I swallowed against the tightness in my throat.
“I hate that he got to me,” I said quietly.
Bella squeezed my arm. Not hard. Just enough.
“You’re human, Sam. You cared about someone. That’s not a flaw. That’s the whole point.”
“And listen,” Bella added, her voice dropping into the register she used when she was about to say something that sounded like a joke and was not, “if you want, I can still send a detective. I’ve got a guy, Franco. Robbery-homicide. He’ll show up at the man’s door with a badge and ruin his entire week.Hypothetically.”
I laughed. A real one. The kind that shook loose from somewhere deep and came out surprised at its own existence.
“Bella.”
“What? Abuse of power is wrong. Imagining it is therapeutic.”
I leaned my head against the window and let San Antonio take me home.
