Re: Bar: Cat C/Bruce W
Cat was under no illusions about how well Bruce knew the chinks in her armor. After all, they'd been children when they'd met. She'd always been good at her walls. But he'd been her first obsession, and even kittens felt the desire to open up to a lover. She'd gotten better at hiding what lurked beneath her facade, but time had started to soften those edges. Or, perhaps, she'd simply become tired of hiding. Regardless, it wasn't so important with him, was it?
As for her knowing the chinks in his armor? Well that was another matter entirely.
She aged. Perhaps no one saw it but her, and she certainly looked closer to 30 than to 40. But she saw a gray or two appear after stress, for example, that hadn't been there before. But she aged at the sluggish pace of molasses, and he was standing there with a healthy amount of gray at his temples. She reached out and touched that gray, and she chuckled low and raspy. "He's been doing that," she said, and she drew her hand back as if invasion of his personal space across a bar was nothing special. Well, at least she wasn't speaking Russian anymore.
"I have no idea. If he's waiting for me to reach out to him, the man has another thing coming." She meant it. "What's the prognosis?" She glanced down at the knee, as if the two things were in any way related.