It's Friday night and I've sent everyone home.
Everyone home but her.
She's free to go as well, the others, as soon as they got word, they disappeared. But she's decided to stay. She sits up on the counter in the kitchen.
And I have a bad feeling about this. I have a suspicion.
Still, she betrays nothing, and I tell her she can go, I've got it all covered but she doesn't mind hanging out, keeping me company, and so we make light conversation. About our kids and ex's and other trifles.
It's a little awkward. I don't want to jump to any conclusions but there's the suspicion....
And it would be a really bad idea. It's a small restaurant, everyone is somehow or another related to everyone else, a liaison here would be a marriage into the family...
I've watched her, know her, well enough anyways, to know it wouldn't be a happy marriage.
I think of ways to dissuade her. Change the topic maybe, discuss my abundant and twisted perversions; my heart of darkness, but that wouldn't do it, it never does, it merely piques their interest....
And so we chat lightly, about the weather, smoking, until she's bored of waiting and leaves and I'm off the hook.