“I’m not paying for it, so no skin off my back.”
When Halo returned with the drink, Raven took a sip as everyone watched her. It was rum-based, with a lot of syrup—maybe too much—and some pineapple juice, and another flavor she couldn’t quite identify.
“What do you think?” Silas asked her.
“You taste good,” she said.
* * *
“It looks like an engagement ring,” Halo said.
“Does it?” Bodie asked, studying the picture he’d pulled up on his phone.
The Mountaintop team had paused their pool game to assess the gift Bodie was thinking of getting his girlfriend for her birthday.
“To me, it looks like every ring ever,” Doc said.
“If you’re worried she’s going to think you’re proposing, just warn her that you’re not beforehand,” Silas offered, which evoked a groan from Halo as well as Raven, who held a pool cue in one hand and his eponymous cocktail in the other.
“You taste good,” she’d said, describing the drink. He’d nearly fallen off his stool. Even now, her words rang in his head, making Silas feel warm all over.
“That’s horrible advice,” Raven said to him.
“Why?” Silas asked, enjoying how her lips twisted to emphasize her disgust.
“A caveat like that is tacky,” Raven said.
“Okay, but he’s getting her a diamond ring, hence the need for a warning,” Silas said, drawing nearer and seeing the individual flecks of glitter on Raven’s lids.
“Another option is to get her a ring with any of the other dozens of stones,” she countered.
Silas cared very little about this debate, but he inexplicably continued, “Maybe she likes diamonds.”
“Then he should get her a diamond necklace or bracelet.”
“Well, the concept of a diamond engagement ring is fake anyway, invented by—”
“By an ad agency in the forties, yes, yes,” she said, with a mocking nod. “But there’s a time and place to start breaking decades of conditioning.”
He opened his mouth to present another rebuttal, but a stranger from the edge of the gaming area shouted, “You guys playing or chatting?”
The bar was full tonight, mostly with out-of-town sawmill workers, and the pool tables were in high demand.
“Both, thank you!” Halo shouted back to the stranger.
“I guess we should wrap this up before we get bullied off,” Silas said. “Whose turn?”
Doc stepped up. His strategy involved being methodical, so there was zero urgency. He took his time lining up his shot, the tip of his tongue making an appearance. For all that care, Doc still failed to pocket the ball. It was consistent with how he’d done all game.
Similarly, Halo had a poor accuracy rate, but she approached pool with a lot of intensity and power, resulting in many balls jumping off the table.
“Boo!” Halo would shout, but it was unclear if it was directed at herself or the concept of pool in general.
Ultimately, the real competition was between Silas, Bodie, and Raven.
Bodie and Raven had great technique and halfway colluded to eliminate Silas from the game because of his perceived advantage.
“Archery is totally a transferable skill,” Raven told him.
