She looked at him expectantly, and he nodded. ‘You’re good.’

‘Yeah?’ Her face split into a grin of delight. ‘I’m a psychology major! Final year. I love doing this stuff! Specially when I’m right.’

She’d surprised him. He’d thought the dancing and other … was what she did, what she was …

‘Well, you’re right so far. Want to see how close you can get?’

She nodded enthusiastically, and suddenly Tom didn’t care if she nailed it. Keeping his occupation and identity from her didn’t seem that important, compared to seeing the pride on her face.

Her brow furrowed and she studied him more closely this time, ending with a long stare into his eyes that made him uncomfortable. Hers were pale brown, and the black lashes around them were thick and spiked. The whites were very white and clear. He took a slow hit of Jack Daniel’s so he could close his eyes and shut her out for a moment.

‘Okay. You look tired.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Well, you do. That means you have a job where you’re not being like a cop all the time. You couldn’t be this tired all the time. Sometimes you have time to recover. Then you start again. So you have, sort of … cases. It’s not a nine-to-five job. Am I right?’

‘Right on all counts.’ He hoped she’d smile again, but she was too engrossed to be deflected now by mere enjoyment.

‘I bet you’re good at your job, because of the listening thing.’

‘Right again,’ he said, with deliberate arrogance, making her laugh a little.

‘But something’s wrong. You seem … disappointed.’

Suddenly he didn’t like this game so much any more. He looked for the bartender. ‘You want another drink?’

‘Coke, please.’

‘You ever drink anything other than Coke?’

‘Sometimes. With my friends.’ She frowned, realizing what she’d said. ‘Sorry. I just meant—’

‘Forget it.’

‘No. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant, it’s bad to get drunk when you’re working, so I only drink on my days off. That’s all.’

He got them both a Coke. He was driving, after all, and the JD was still pumping through him nicely.

‘So what is it? Tax fraud?’

He realized she was still trying to guess what he did. He shook his head.

‘Security guard? Corrections officer? CIA?’ This last thought made her eyes widen as if she feared being right.

She obviously wasn’t going to give up so he told her. ‘NTSB.’

‘Plane crashes and stuff?’

He hadn’t expected her to know it but she’d surprised him yet again. He nodded, not wanting to bother with the details of how plane crashes were no longer on his particular NTSB agenda. He hoped she wouldn’t ask him about the bodies he’d seen. It was the reason he’d stopped telling people what he did for a living. He understood it – most people would never see a dead body, let alone one that had been torn apart mid-air and then driven two feet into the soil, or decapitated and impaled on a post-and-rail fence. People were curious. But he didn’t like to think about the bodies, and those questions made him do that.

‘I don’t like to fly,’ she said abruptly.

‘Me neither.’

‘Really? I’d have thought you guys were used to it. Like those people who go on and on about how you’re more likely to die on the way to the airport than in an air crash. I wish they’d just shut up. I mean, you get car trouble on the 405, you just pull over, right? No off-ramps at thirty-five thousand feet.’ A little shiver ran through her and she masked her discomfort by taking another cube of ice from her Coke and holding it in her fist while it melted onto the carpet. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to, like, diss your whole industry.’

‘Hell, diss away. It’s not my industry – I just pick up the pieces. Literally. If God had meant us to fly he’d have given us more leg-room.’

The tension that had built up through her little speech dissipated visibly and she dropped the ice, now half its original size, back into her Coke. ‘Do you believe in God?’ she asked.

‘No.’

Her face betrayed no judgement on his answer. She swirled a finger in her Coke, clinking the ice. ‘Can I kiss you?’

Tom wasn’t sure he’d heard right, but she was looking at him in a way that made him think his ears hadn’t played tricks on him – hopeful and shy, and sending fleeting glances towards his mouth.

Feeling like a teenager, he leaned towards her. She met him halfway and he felt her warm lips under his. The kiss was chaste and brief, but Tom realized he’d closed his eyes and held his breath through it. He felt a little dizzy and foolish as he straightened on the bar stool.

She gave him a dazzling smile and said shyly, ‘Thanks.’ She turned away from him to watch two truckers play pool. They had nearly finished.

Tom cleared his throat. ‘You want a game?’

‘Sure. Yeah. But we have to play for money,’ she said. ‘I always play for money.’

‘How much?’

‘Ten bucks a frame?’

‘Make it five,’ he said. Tom hadn’t played for a few years but he’d always been a pretty decent bar-room player and didn’t want to fleece her.

He needn’t have worried.

She took him apart.

Lucia played like a man, getting down low, bridging strongly, stroking the cue smoothly and firmly, cutting back and fine, and spinning off balls and cushions to ensure a good position, seeing three or four shots ahead of her game, adapting to new lies quickly, never panicking.

Tom enjoyed watching her more than he’d enjoyed anything in a long time. Anything since they’d slept together, he realized.

When she’d fired the black into a middle pocket, she laid down her cue and gave him a wary look in case she’d overstepped the mark.

For only the second time in about a year – both in the past hour – he burst out laughing. ‘Where’d you learn to play like that?’

She started to smile. ‘College.’

‘Well, forget that Freudian crap.’ He grinned. ‘You got a big future in pro pool, baby!’

‘It was probably a fluke.’