Can you do 19 for luck for jimgrace for the ask game.... would be epic
[mumbling incoherently] earth 1928 b-sides au!!!!!!
The room is full of smoke and shouting. I still don’t like fire all that much, but if I pretend that the lit cigarettes dotting the crowd are stars it gets a little easier. Misdirection, if I’m being nice; lying, if I’m not. I’ve been doing a lot of both recently. I’m up near the ring and my eyes track across the ropes and stretched white canvas. There’s a few reddish-brownish dots spattered across it. Grace’s lips fall into a frown at the sight.
I’ve been on this planet for a few years, now, and I still don’t understand its people. I can feel the crowd calling for blood, a low roar of rage and vindication and pride, and all I feel is… Worry. I pick out a similar feeling across the way: another woman, about the age Grace is supposed to be, looking between the ring and the crowd and, suddenly, me. She narrows her eyes and I get the sense of an animal on the hunt. I try to give her a smile and she turns away.
“Decent crowd,” Jim says from somewhere above my left shoulder.
I look up, pulling on a smile. It comes a little easier, this time, as I look at Jim. He steps closer and takes my hand in his, running the pad of his thumb across my knuckles. His hand is rough, calloused; Grace’s is smooth, her nails done up neatly by one of my roommates. The red reminds me of home, usually. Now, it’s put me in thoughts of blood.
“Why wouldn’t there be, if you’re in the ring?” I reply, flippant, and try to not think about the whys of this situation.
Across the room, the other woman thinks about her boy-friend standing victorious over Jim and the bills the prize money will pay down. There’s an undergirding of jealousy and want to it as she looks at the two of us. I force myself to not pick at a loose thread with my other hand. I’ve developed some nervous tics as Grace, watched them go from affected mannerisms to something automatic. Human, really.
Jim snorts out a laugh and clasps my hand between his own. “Sweetheart, I think every Joe in every room notices.”
I smile. The flattery has taken some getting used to – men often say things that they intend as compliments but are anything but. But Jim isn’t some stranger, and he knows Grace well enough that his words generally tend to come off well. I think for a moment about all my worries, about Jim.
“I’d like to tell you something. Lean down?”
He obliges, and I cup his face with my hand as I lean in to kiss him. It’s still something of a foreign custom for me – lack of experience – and so I just brush my lips to his.
“I hear kisses for luck are traditional,” I say, still close to him.
Jim’s face does a couple of expressions I can’t quite parse before he settles on a smile, eyes half-lidded. “And I hear I might need a lot of luck tonight. You see the odds?”
I nod, trying to not think of them and the blood, and decide that Jim’s angling for another kiss. I give it and draw away.
“You’ll do well.” Part encouragement, part prayer.
Somewhere, a bell rings and sets the night into inexorable motion.
