After the Fall

entire design, which was a finely detailed bald eagle.
    “Wow, that is some really nice work.”
    “Thanks.” He smiled shyly and pulled the sleeve back down as the waitress arrived with his soda and my coffee. After she’d gone again, he asked, “You have any ink?”
    “Not yet. I’ve been thinking about getting one.”
    “You should.” He grinned. “They’re addictive, though. I only meant to get one, but now I’ve got two and want to get a third.”
    “You have another one?”
    Ryan nodded and gestured at the back of his right shoulder. “Nothing special. It’s an Army emblem, since I was an Army brat.” His grin turned to a playful smirk. “I’d show it to you, but I don’t generally rip off my shirt in public.” With a wink, he added, “Maybe when we get back to your place.”
    I blinked.
    The mischievousness in his expression immediately changed to something more characteristically shy. He coughed and lowered his gaze to the placemat in front of him. “I’ve been meaning to get it redone anyway, actually. But, yeah, tattoos are addictive as hell.”
    “So I’ve heard.” My mouth had gone dry, so I reached for my drink. “A friend of mine runs Ink Springs over in the Light District, and he’s been trying to get me to come in and get one for like two years now.”
    Ryan met my eyes again. “Why don’t you?”
    “I might. Most of my disposable income has been going toward college or saving to buy Tsarina.” I idly stirred my coffee. “Though now that I’ve bought her and have enough to care for her through the winter, and I’m not buying books until next semester . . .” I shrugged.
    “Books?” He raised his eyebrows and leaned forward, folding his arms on the edge of the table. “So you’re still in college?”
    I nodded.
    “What are you studying?”
    “How to break my mother’s heart, apparently.”
    He cocked his head. “What do you mean?”
    “She’s convinced any degree that doesn’t involve law, medicine, computers, or business is going to land me a job at a drive-thru.”
    “Depends on what you want to do with it, right?” He folded his hands on the table. “What do you want to do with it? And what field is it, anyway?”
    “History,” I said.
    His eyes lit up. “Yeah?”
    I nodded. “Don’t know how far it’ll get me, but it’s a degree.”
    “You studying any particular era?”
    “American, post-European discovery.”
    Ryan grinned again. “A man after my own heart.”
    Maybe not your heart, but quite possibly some other things if you play your cards right. “Oh, really?”
    He nodded. “My dad’s into history. He has hundreds of books on it, and I started eating them up when I was a kid.”
    “Same here.” I chuckled. “My teachers hated the fact that I read so damned much.”
    “Yours too?” Ryan shook his head, grinning mischievously. “Guess they didn’t like us learning enough to argue with them.”
    “Yes.” I smacked my palm on the table beside my coffee cup. “Exactly. You did that too?”
    “All the fucking time. I once got detention in seventh grade for insisting that the Boston Tea Party was an act of economic terrorism.”
    “Oh, yeah?” I folded my hands—well, put my uninjured hand over the top of the cast—and leaned forward. “I can do you one better than that.”
    “Let’s hear it.”
    “So my sophomore year in high school, we were talking about the War of 1812 . . .”
    The coffee got cold. The food that eventually arrived mostly went untouched. Truth be told, I forgot there was food on the table at all until Ryan made an animated gesture during one story and almost knocked his soda into his lap.
    By eight thirty, the waitresses were giving us dirty looks, so I paid the bill and we headed out. In the parking lot, Ryan started the truck, but he didn’t put it in gear. “As long as you’re out of the apartment, do you need to do anything else? Stock the refrigerator or anything?”
    I was still a bit sore from being up and around earlier. Going home and relaxing was probably the best thing for me right now. And a pain pill. God, yes, a pain pill.
    On the other hand, running a couple of errands was an excuse to put off facing those six flights of stairs for a little while. I also didn’t want to impose on Brad, especially since he’d already insisted on buying far too many groceries for me to ask him to make this week’s run. And we were already out and about. And though I needed to put up my leg and