Waiting for happy hour

Patsy Amen scratched the back of her head, cow-licking her hair. “So,” she said, “the last train comes in ten minutes.”

“OK,” Jack said. “Do you want to go now?”

“Well,” she said. She examined her knees.

“I can drive you back,” he said, though that was the last thing he wanted to do.

“I can’t decide,” she said. Jack thought he was hardly the person to make the decision. He wanted her to sleep over but also didn’t really want to drive her back, especially not to campus, where he might see people who knew him, or worse, who knew Hannah, who might talk to Hannah.

“Who’s that?” Patsy asked with her chin pointing to a three-by-five photo of a German Shepard scotch-taped to his wall.

“My dog, Athos.”

“Athos, that’s like a type of rhetoric.”

“That’s pathos.”

“I guess I’ll take the ride.”

“Yeah?”

“If you’re still offering.”

“Sure.”

Jack grabbed his rain jacket from the floor, brushed it off, and they sulked out the door.