Page 115 of Run Away Home: Tempered

“Scotland? Oh, It’s boring.”

“Is that why you’re here now?”

“You could say that.”

He pours the drinks from the shaker. I’m amazed by the pretty color.

“How could it be boring?” I ask and stare into the glasses.

“Trust me. Where I’m from, it is. I’m not from the big cities you have in mind.” He pushes a martini toward me and raises his own in the air. “Sláinte.”

“Sláinte?”

“It means cheers,” he says.

I raise my glass to his and they clink. A little bit of my drink spills out onto the countertop. Crap. What were we talking about again? Oh yeah, cheers.

“In what language?”

“In Gaelic,” he answers. He’s fixated on the spill.

“I’ll clean it up later. I didn’t even know that was a language. Do you speak it?”

He looks back up at me. “Yes, it is. Scots Gaelic. I don’t speak it anymore. I could if I had to, but I haven’t in a very long time.”

“Oh, so in Scotland you spoke Gaelic, and it was so boring that you came here?”

“Uh... Yup.” He starts to drink. He doesn’t smile at all.

“Okay.” I sip my drink. It’s too quiet now. “Wow, this is really good!”

“I can make drinks, that’s about it.” He smiles. “They say everyone is good at one thing. Lucky me, huh?”

“I bet you’re good at other things.”

He puts his glass down and leans over the island. He raises his eyebrows and smirks.

“Oh my God. I wasn’t suggesting that.”

He laughs. “Well, I told you about myself.”

“Not really.”

“I told you enough. Tell me about you. I want to know more about Kara.”

I don’t want to talk about it, but here it comes.

“I just got let go from my job.”

“Ouch. Why?”

“I’m a clerk typist. The department hired too many people. They had to let someone go. Guess who? They said they’d call me next time there was an opening.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not far behind.”

“How the hell do you get let go from a bar?”

“Keep drinking on the job, that’s how,” he says with a wink of his eye and a snap of his finger.

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