It's amazing he's managing to martial any control to look at the table. The green felt flattened by over constant use and likely several washing for occasional beer and food spray. The balls, that are laid out all across the area, more stripes than solids, figuring the shortest locations. Between his last ball and each of the closest two pockets. Like it's not running up the underside of his skin.
Hot steel and a want so sharp it feels like his lungs are going to snap his ribcage, like somehow each of those bones is made of twine and connected on a fast coiling reeling between where he's standing and the place where Danny is almost vibrating with annoyance. The way it coats his voice, clear and clean, no two ways about when he mangles her name in the worst possible way he can.
Danny can be horrible at Hawaiian, even worse at getting annoyed when the team uses it, but he's actually good at that part. But not at any of this. Not at the way he's literally snapping at a woman whose only sins are having done nothing more than give her name, compliment their game, stand there a little long enough that she's getting comfortable with the place she's standing, pool cue she's holding.
Maybe being inconveniently in the wrong place at the wrong time, convenient to his purposes that she definitely did sign up for.
Except now, when she's giving Danny an insulted look. The kind he deserves, for mangling what is a nice name, and instead to make it sound like it went through an American Trash compactor. Without the slight edge of authentic concern riding Danny's rephrased question of it. While Steve is trying to get his mouth under any control. Managing just enough to not need to tuck in toward his shoulder before Danny's snapping out a question.
"Why would I be nice to you?" Steve threw back easily. "I'm here to win, not to help you. It got my ball in, didn't it?"
But there, actually, isn't a good shot for the five at the moment, not without sinking one of Danny's balls. Which isn't worth the sacrifice of a step. Instead he shoots the cue ball across the table, aimed for the pile of stripes and and an ending location that isn't actually anywhere near the ball that ended up near the pocket.
"Harsh," Lani says, but she's smiling in his direction still. Eyes nowhere near his face, when he's standing, until a few seconds too late. Before she's asking, "Play the winner?"
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Hot steel and a want so sharp it feels like his lungs are going to snap his ribcage, like somehow each of those bones is made of twine and connected on a fast coiling reeling between where he's standing and the place where Danny is almost vibrating with annoyance. The way it coats his voice, clear and clean, no two ways about when he mangles her name in the worst possible way he can.
Danny can be horrible at Hawaiian, even worse at getting annoyed when the team uses it, but he's actually good at that part. But not at any of this. Not at the way he's literally snapping at a woman whose only sins are having done nothing more than give her name, compliment their game, stand there a little long enough that she's getting comfortable with the place she's standing, pool cue she's holding.
Maybe being inconveniently in the wrong place at the wrong time, convenient to his purposes that she definitely did sign up for.
Except now, when she's giving Danny an insulted look. The kind he deserves, for mangling what is a nice name, and instead to make it sound like it went through an American Trash compactor. Without the slight edge of authentic concern riding Danny's rephrased question of it. While Steve is trying to get his mouth under any control. Managing just enough to not need to tuck in toward his shoulder before Danny's snapping out a question.
"Why would I be nice to you?" Steve threw back easily. "I'm here to win, not to help you. It got my ball in, didn't it?"
But there, actually, isn't a good shot for the five at the moment, not without sinking one of Danny's balls. Which isn't worth the sacrifice of a step. Instead he shoots the cue ball across the table, aimed for the pile of stripes and and an ending location that isn't actually anywhere near the ball that ended up near the pocket.
"Harsh," Lani says, but she's smiling in his direction still. Eyes nowhere near his face, when he's standing, until a few seconds too late. Before she's asking, "Play the winner?"