Paulo surveyed the vast tract of green felt cluttered with double-digit balls, four stripes obscuring easy access to his single solid. Had he been watching this game on ESPN, he would have expected the shooter to carom off two rails and sink the five in the corner; unfortunately, visualizing the shot wasn't Paul's issue: Execution failed him, not imagination, which explained why his two previous attempts at the vivid orange ball resulted in a clatter of activity without the satisfying thunk of a pocketed ball. He tried the two-rail shot as he had imagined it on television and silently watched it miss the mark and nestle the five even more inconveniently against the rail.

He passed the cue to Jeanette with an audible sigh and a roll of his eyes. They were sharing a stick despite the large selection in the rack by the jukebox, an unspoken excuse for closeness and contact each time they traded places at the table. She took the cue, circled to the other side of the table and leaned in to take aim at the eleven. "Don't worry," she purred in her languid drawl, "you'll have another chance to get that five next game."

"Easy, honeychild, you've got four up to my one. Be careful with the premature exultations."

She stood up the table, letting the heavy end of the cue drop to her feet, a curious look on her face. The room grew so silent that even Elvis Costello's voice from the jukebox seemed to shush to a whisper. "Honeychild?"

"Is that bad?" he hurried back, cocking his head to the right so he could see her past the opaque green light fixture that illuminated the table. "In my world, it's a term of affection."

She smiled. "No, it's not bad. It is in my world, too. Except it makes me want it all to myself. Can I have it?"

She stared straight at him, like a card player trying to spot her opponent's tell, eager to see how he responded. She was playing her hand a bit early, but with Elvis urging her from speakers and a cocktail of vodka and adrenaline coursing just beneath every inch of her skin, she'd had enough with patience. He smiled back, thinking of postcards pinned under his windshield wipers, penned with song lyrics that spoke his thoughts before he knew to think them; of peanut butter cookies and oversize lattes under star-pocked summer skies; of cheap burritos and strong margaritas and clove cigarettes and the texture of felt and how his world was quickly being infused with the sight and scent and sense of her. He savored the urgency of her request, her eagerness to acquire this small thing when she already had so much of him.

"It's all yours, honeychild" he promised, meaning it. "Now shoot. I need that eleven out of my way."