#TeaserTuesday - 11/21

 

Walsh got up to refresh their drinks, and suddenly Alex was alone with Mercy, the two of them seated across from each other.

Mercy stared at him a moment, mouth unsmiling for the first time all evening, eyes black and flat as a shark’s. Then he shook out a cigarette and lit it with slow, deliberate movements.

Alex had never cared for cigarettes. He’d coughed on a few as a kid, and had one as an adult, occasionally, after sex, after a night of drinking, but he didn’t want to stink like them, or grow addicted to them. So it wasn’t the need for a smoke that made him shift forward and half-reach across the table. “Can I bum one of those?” He didn’t ask if Emmie was okay with them smoking in her dining room; he figured Mercy knew it was allowable.

Mercy hesitated, glancing up through his lashes, then slid the pack and lighter across the table with a scrape that sounded too-loud in the otherwise quiet room.

“Thanks.” He lit one up, and slid the pack back over.

Mercy left it sitting by his plate and folded one arm across his middle, settling back in his chair, taking a long, contemplative drag. “You’re really doing it, huh?”

Alex wondered why the hell it was taking Walsh so long to get those drinks. He could hear the low murmur of the girls’ voices in the kitchen and wondered if they were coming back. “Doing what?”

“Blowing up your career.”

“I’m…if it comes to it, then yeah. I’m here to help,” he said, firmly. “If that blows up my career, so be it.”

Mercy smiled, slow and sharply-curled at the ends. It didn’t touch his eyes. “Good to know.”

Walsh returned, silent, a chambray-clad wraith toting all three glasses in one hand, fingers pinching the rims together. In his other hand, he carried two bottles, long necks crossed. Smirnoff and Johnnie Walker Red. He set the glasses down at their places, and thumped the Scotch down between them. “Figured I’d save myself a future trip.”

Alex looked at Mercy, surprised, and Mercy lifted his brows in return. Apparently, they both liked Johnnie Walker Red.

“Hmph,” Walsh snorted into his glass.

Mercy made a go ahead gesture with the hand holding the cigarette. “Guests first.”

“Nah. I’m good.” But Mercy stared at him until he bit back a sigh and reached for the bottle.