Page 81 of Ricardo

“That is annoyingly generous of you.”

“I can be generous.”

“I wanted to be angry at you,” she admits.

“You were not subtle.”

“I was very subtle. I waited until we were alone before I yelled.”

“A remarkable display of restraint.”

She points one finger at me over the top of her glass. “Do not mock me while I am apologizing.”

“I would never,” I say innocently.

She narrows her eyes at me.

“Do continue with your apology,” I say.

“That was the end of it,” she says. “What do you want? A song and dance?”

I sit back in my chair and pretend to consider. “I'm intrigued… What would that look like?”

Despite herself, she laughs.

The sound is quick and unguarded, gone almost as soon as it arrives.

But I hear it.

More than that, I see what comes with it. The small drop of her shoulders. The ease in her mouth before she remembers to compose it. The way she reaches for her glass without checking whether she looks polished while doing it.

She is different here than she is at the office.

Not because the club has made her comfortable.

But because anger stripped away some of the carefulness.

At work, Julia moves through Mario’s floor with every edge tucked in. Pleasant. Efficient. Prepared. Buttoned down. She listens twice as much as she speaks and measures every expression before she lets it reach her face.

Here, across from me, she has just threatened a man in her imagination, ordered fries with conviction, and laughed at me while sipping on a Coke.

I prefer this version.

God help me, I prefer it too much.

Julia must see something on my face, because her smile fades by half.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“That is absolutely not nothing.”

I take my glass of sparkling water and give myself a moment. “You are easier to read when you are angry.”

“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

“It is an observation.”