Two fingers thrown out across the cliff of the internal bar’s edge as an indication of another round, meant Boyd’s focus was aimed elsewhere. Enough so that he could casually deflect the remark about his character deviancy and wave it off with a quick gestured conversation with the bartender. It wasn’t that it had gone unheard or even dismissed but more that they both knew the answer.An overflowing canteen of celestial proportion leaking out nectar from urn cracks managed to trickle it’s way into a new calcium spotted glass. Burnt oats distilled and set in a brine of purpose; offering itself up in the most chaste of manners, had innocent tips trace it’s liquid body. Curvature of melted sand caressed in a sacrifice of will before Boyd so greedy buried himself within the bust of it’s flavor. Indulged mouth fattening with quickly numbing taste buds Boyd dunk his head to chest at the name of his cousin Johnny so quickly coming up in conversation.
“No I have not.” Maybe it was too terse, the degree of pause between words too long, but the formative strength in the statement almost came out embittered. In an effort to infuse a little moat of honey in this otherwise blood soaked stream Boyd breathed in the last of his liquor before continuing on with a far more inquisitive tone. “How is he? Doin’ alright?”
Casting frosted crystal from lips, carbonated hops tapered to idly sit upon knotted mahogany and cerulean hues reverted to the outlaw. Intently drinking in his facial features as he fell silent, she noted the dejection radiating from every ounce of his being. Regret and guilt, Ava could not only physically decipher such a condition, but perceive emotion reverberating through vocal tone. He faltered in slight and stumbled gracefully into self-reproach. Even the abrupt manner in which he inhaled aqua vitae was indicative of culpability. Retracting border-line stare, Ava’s eyes hindered from his vicinity to the bartender as he approached with a second round.
“As alright as anyone who got shot in the gut could be, I guess.” Shoulders shrugged, gilded brows rising and falling in thought. Reminiscing to their cousin, laying helpless and miserably confined to hospital bed, teeth worried lower lip and released. “It was pretty bad, doctors weren’t sure he was gonna make it out alive in one piece, but..” Digits encircled replenished glassware and gaze returned to Boyd. “He had an operation, so things are lookin’ good. Gets out soon, but it’s gonna be a while ‘fore he’s back on his feet.” Johnny was the only Crowder she could stand, so naturally, she felt sympathy for him.
“You should see him, Boyd. Might help make you feel a little better. I’ll even take you with me the next time I go if you’re up for it.”
Guiding old fashioned tumbler to lips, she silently drank to their kin’s survival. Crystalline coasted wooden surface, beaconing bartender for yet another top off. “You know,” she began, pads of digits drumming over burnished exterior, “I really should’a killed your daddy when I had the chance.” Words fell flatly from lips and carried undertones of unsettling seriousness. “’Couple nights before you came to my door apologizin’ the first time, he was sittin’ like a duck at the end of my sawed off. All I had to do was the pull the trigger..”
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