“He has his pride, too. He might not want to admit he can’t. Also, figuring it out might wear him out faster than you’d expect. Overall, I think the stimulation will be good for him. But the brain takes approximately twenty percent of the body’s energy to run and his body isn’t producing very much, anymore. He’s ninety-eight, Hannah,” he reminded her gently. “He’s lived a good life. Our goal is to make sure his final days have a quality of life to them. But the end is coming. Don’t lose sight of that.”
“I won’t.” Her smile flared again. All of the blinding, inner light he’d first noticed about her reemerged, as if she no longer saw any reason to withhold it from him. It drifted into her eyes, the way it did when she was teasing, and memories kicked him hard in the chest. “I’ve had a hard time finding a game for him, though. What do you suppose his take on zombie cowboys might be?”
“You have a zombie cowboy game?” he asked, trying to reconcile that bit of news with the happy face T-shirt. There was so much about her he still didn’t know.
“You mean you don’t?”
Fair enough.
“As long as Marsh gets to shoot things, he’ll be on board,” he said.
An awkward silence threatened to intrude. He shuffled ideas around in his head, trying to come up with a topic that would keep the conversational ball rolling. At the table in the far corner, next to the front window, the cheerleaders roared. One of the chess players had backed his opponent’s king into a corner.
“I’m sorry about Dan,” Hannah said.
“Me too. Luckily, he really is going to be okay.”
He bounced his clasped hands. He’d love to talk to her about it, and maybe get some of these feelings off his chest, except in this instance, Dan was a patient as well as a friend. There’d also likely be an investigation, since weapons had been discharged. The less he said about it, the better.
She drew another Belgian blonde from a porcelain tap and slid it toward him across the polished oak surface of the bar. “It’s on me. You’ve had a bad day.”
“Thanks, but I have to drive.”
He eyed the drink with regret. She’d been right to tell him to give the blonde a chance. He liked its crisp, light taste and the faint smell of citrus—he’d read one of the posters on the wall. But even though he’d finished the first beer more than an hour ago, and he was still too wired to sleep, physical and mental exhaustion factored in and he shouldn’t get behind the wheel if he drank a second one now.
“I’ll drive you home,” she volunteered, the offer surprising them both.