Page 30 of Tito

He walked to the front door and pulled it open. “I’ll be right back,” he said over his shoulder.

Somewhat mystified by Braxton’s lack of acknowledgement to my response, I looked at Hap.

“Don’t look at me,” Hap said. “I don’t know what he’s doing.”

Braxton disappeared into the house, and then returned in a moment with three whisky glasses. He paused after stepping onto the porch and nodded toward the box sitting beside my chair. “Am I to assume that’s for me?”

I handed it to him. “It is.”

After removing the bottle from the box, he poured three glasses of whisky and gave each of us one.

He raised his glass. “To friends, family, and the fucked up things we get ourselves into.”

Hap and Braxton took theirs in one gulp. I sipped mine, but then decided to do as they did, and down it in one drink. As the warmth of the liquor slowly worked its way to my stomach, I set the glass beside my chair.

“So, tell me about your date with the hat detective,” Braxton said.

“Well, we went to that restaurant you recommended—”

“What’d you think?” he asked.

“It was great. Like you said, it’s kind of a run-down dive, but the food was fantastic.”

“The waitstaff is…interesting,” he said. “Most of ‘em are over sixty.”

“Ours was pushing seventy,” I said.

“Nothing wrong with being seventy,” Hap snarled.

“Then what?” Braxton asked, smirking. “Did you go back to her place and point at your dick?”

I rolled my eyes. “She wanted to have sex, but all I did was kiss her. I left after that.”

He gave me a look of sheer disbelief. “So, not only is it off-limits to discuss, it’s off-limits, period?”

“She was drunk,” I said adamantly. “I wasn’t going to have sex with her if she was so drunk that she could barely stand.”

“Wine?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“They pour a hefty glass at that place.”

“They sure do. I only drank one and I felt like I’d had enough. I asked her when we were leaving if she was okay. She said she was, but I could tell she wasn’t. By the time we got to her house, she was tanked.”

“How many did she have?”

“Three. Maybe four.”

“Jesus. How big is she?”

“She stands about five-four and weighs maybe one-forty,” I responded. “She’s no newcomer to drinking wine, though. She drank her first glass just like you drank that glass of scotch.”

Hap cleared his throat. “So, you wouldn’t fuck her because she had a little too much wine?”

“I wasn’t going to take advantage if her if she was drunk.”

“Did she say she wanted sex?”