Re: The lake: close to the water
Lack of offense didn't always mean polite. In his case, at the moment, it was simply due to not wanting to rock the boat. Metaphorically and literally, as he'd chosen to avoid the vessels tied close to the shore. It was easier for him to agree and to engage in those small social civilities until the night ended and he could return to the strangeness that he was more familiar with. Instead of the new strangeness that the woman represented and towed along behind her.
He finally succumbed to his desire for another cigarette, pulling out the box again and accompanying it this time with a lighter. A click of it and then a flare that illuminated his face in a marigold burst for the few seconds it took for the crackle of ignited paper and tobacco. In those seconds came the outline of a profile, delicately masculine and built of cheekbones and jaw and brow. And then he was gone again, his afterimage cerulean against the darkness.
"Things in bottles that people force you to drink," he replied with another exhale, and though the night and smoke hid much, there came the rustle of movement. A shake of his head that was hair and skin and fabric in the dark. "There's too many ways it can go wrong." He said it like fact, like something that was truth because it had been proven by history too many times.