She studied him for a long moment, the grin, the openness, the unguarded way he stood there like the world had never bitten him hard enough to flinch.

Maybe it hadn’t.

Maybe that was why it was so easy for him to joke like this.

"Don’t thank me yet,” she said, turning to leave the booth. “You’ve still got time to pick the wrong bottle.” But as she walked away, her voice floated back, quiet but deliberate. “Try something with fruit in it. Those tend to kill you slower.”