“You’re losing it,” he says.
“A trough,” I suggest.
“A cylinder,” he adds, but then shakes his head. “We’ve lost it.”
I feel like I’m breaking inside, but in the best possible way, like a layer of ice shattering and thawing. “That’s why we should have had food with this. We would have been so much better with words if we had.”
“You’re tipsy again.”
“You’re not?” I ask, looking at him over the rim of my beer glass. “I get that you have a higher tolerance than me, but come on.”
“I’m not tipsy,” he says. “I have at least a foot of height on you, not to mention I drink more often.”
“Hey, you don’t know what I do in my spare time.”
“I know enough to be sure it’s not downing beers like there’s no tomorrow. Careful there, shorty. I’ll finish the last of your final beer.”
“How self-sacrificing,” I say.
“That’s me. Noble to the core.”
Anthony, the sneaky bastard, pays while I’m in the ladies’ room. He listens to my protests with half a smile, shoving his wallet into the pocket of his dark slacks. “You have to be quicker around me, Summer.”
“Next time,” I warn him.
“I’ll be on alert.” He opens the front door and I step into the mid-summer warmth. The air is humid, but the heat of the day has softened, pleasant now.
“We forgot our scorecards!”
He chuckles. “How will we be possibly go on in life?”
“But I liked that second beer. The one from the little brewery in Montana. What was it called?”
“Green Eagle Ale.”
“That’s it,” I say, snapping my fingers. “I’m going to have to get a keg of that.”
“A keg? Summer, how much beer do you usually drink?”
“Honestly?”
“I’d prefer it, yes.”
I laugh and he slips a hand down my back, steering me around a streetlamp that suddenly, and quite rudely, appears in my way. “I don’t drink a lot of beer at all. It’s not really my favorite.”
He’s silent for what feels like forever as we walk down the street to my apartment.
“But you suggested a beer tasting,” he says.
“Yes, well, I thought it would be fun. It seemed like something friends do in the city.”
He snorts, but there’s something soft in the tone. The cynic is gone for tonight. “Next time, suggest something you actually enjoy, Summer.”
The two beautiful words spread like warm honey through my veins.Next time.
“Okay, I will. Next time. But I had fun tonight.”
“So did I,” he says. We reach the door to my apartment building far too soon. It had felt smart to choose a bar on my street, but now, it strikes me as a grave error. The walk was too short.