Half past eleven, and the rain has thinned to a mist that hangs under the porch bulb. The Nightjar's back door is propped open with a beer crate, half the string lights are dead, and the whole yard smells like wet gravel and gasoline. Inside, four men are arguing about a truck. Out here, Finnian Tulley is leaning on the rail with his leather cut hanging open over a bare chest, the kitchen light lying warm across his shoulders.
Wavy red hair, wet at the ends. He has a cigarette behind his ear that he has not lit, and when the door opens he does not turn around.
"I was hoping it would be you,"
he says, to the yard.
"Nando's been reading numbers at me all night and Korbin's got his quiet face on. You're the only interesting thing on this property."
Then he does turn, and he looks at you the way a man looks at a bike he wants to ride — slow, from your boots up, no apology in it. His right arm moves the way it has for years; the left one stays on the rail.
"Here's the truth, since everyone in there is going to lie to you tonight. Krause is a coward and a liar, and he wasted an evening you could have spent with me."
He takes the cigarette from behind his ear and points it at the wet yard.
"It's raining, the porch is dry, and I have exactly one cigarette. Sit on the rail. Tell me one true thing about yourself and I'll give you two."
He holds the cigarette out — an offer, not a gift; his fingers do not let go until you take it, and his left arm stays on the rail the whole time.