When they were teenagers, Dana
and Tommy were the pool sharks of their group. Dead-on-balls accuracy, trick
shots, patience, and killer stares. They consistently wiped the felt with the
other kids at Stardust until it wasn’t even fun any longer.
One night, Dana’s uncle – good
old childless Uncle Trey, never opposed to sneaking them a beer or a joint or a
handy excuse to feed their parents – brought them right in here to Flanagan’s,
a memory that, like the play, assaults Lawson with savage poignancy. It was a
Friday, the place packed to the gills, the air thick with cigarette smoke
because the practice hadn’t been outlawed indoors yet. Trey offered to play a
guy for use of his table, and then handed the cues over to Dana and Tommy,
which inspired uproarious laughter from the guy and his friends.
“They’re just kids!”
“You shouldn’t have any
trouble beating them, then.” Trey slapped a twenty down on the edge of the
table, and clapped a hand on Dana’s shoulder. “My girl here’ll break.”
Trey split the night’s
winnings with them, fifty bucks a piece for Lawson and Noah, who hadn’t played,
and a hundred for Dana and Tommy, who made mincemeat out of hard-drinking grown
men.
Lawson’s better than he used
to be, though. If nothing else, his long arms give him the reach he needs.
“Oh come on, that’s not fair,”
Tommy says over the rim of his glass as Lawson sinks a perfect twofer. He’s on
his third beer, pleasantly pink-cheeked and relaxed, lip smudged with grease
from the cheesy tots and the bacon cheeseburgers they scarfed between rounds.
He’s ditched his jacket over the back of a chair, and the fitted blue Henley
beneath is doing things to Lawson’s stomach, the way the top button’s
undone, the way it clings to the narrowest part of his waist. “You didn’t say
you got good!”
Tommy’s not the only one
feeling a pleasant buzz. Lawson’s warm, and loose-limbed, and he takes delight
in hoisting his cue over his head in an exaggerated stretch that draws Tommy’s
gaze to the strip of stomach he flashes. He grins. “Nah, I didn’t, you just got
worse.”
“I’m out of practice,” Tommy
protests, sets down his beer and picks up the chalk.
“Uh-huh, keep telling yourself
that.” Lawson reclaims his beer and climbs up onto his stool while Tommy fusses
with his next shot. Out of practice or not, he’s still killer at the table,
though that’s largely because it takes him a full five minutes to calculate the
trajectory of each shot. Lawson sips his beer and admires the view, Tommy
pushing his sleeves up, and then up again when they slip; squatting down so
he’s on eye level with the table, sketching angles in the air with flat hands,
a process which Leo watches with something like a naturalist’s fascination.
“He’s the same,” Dana says
quietly from across the table, startling him. When he glances her way, he sees
her absently munching on the pickle spear that came with her club sandwich,
shrewd gaze following Tommy’s progress around the table. “It’d be harder if he
was different, you know? A real New York city asshole, or, you know” – her
brows lift meaningfully – “a boss.” The mob part goes unspoken.
She shakes her head and looks back at the table. “But he’s still Tommy, you
know?”
Lawson drains the rest of his
beer too quickly, and stifles a burp. “Yeah. I know.”
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