Page 9 of Grim Tidings

Frank is here every Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday afternoon, in the same chair, eating sixty-three cherries from the same container. The man has never consumed anything harder than a lemonade with seltzer, and yet he doesn’t deviate from his evenings at the bar. I think he likes the company. As far as I know, he’s on his own here. I’ve never seen him with anyone else.

The space between my shoulder blades itches. I roll my neck against it.

“What are you making her?” Nate asks.

“Don’t know yet.”

“What? You always know what to make.” Nate steals one of Frank’s cherries, a stem poking out from the corner of his mouth. “It’s your very weird and very special gift.”

“Yeah, well. I want to make a good impression.”

Frank frowns at me from overtop his crossword, bushy eyebrows low over cobalt eyes. “Why?”

I pause. “I … I guess I don’t know.”

I don’t usually give too much attention to the women who drape themselves over the bar, trying to catch my eye. But that’s the thing. She didn’t do anything except slip through the door, ease onto a stool with her long, graceful legs, and sit there. Looking all pretty and sad.

Basically, my kryptonite.

“You want to make a good impression because she’s hot,” Nate says, way too loud, trying to leverage himself across the bar again. I push him back with my palm against his forehead. “It’s not rocket science.”

“Stop looking at her.”

He snickers. “Don’t worry. She’s not my type. Too available.” He slides his glass across the bar top. “Fill me up while you’re making moon eyes.”

“I’m not making moon eyes.” I grumble, heroically avoiding glancing over my shoulder.

I’m definitely making moon eyes. I’m a downright dreamy mother-fucker right now, my attention skip-hopping to the end of the bar every ten seconds.

Not that she’s noticed. She’s too busy staring out the window with a frown, fingers toying with the end of the long braid that’s hanging over her shoulder. Her hair is so dark it almost looks purple, blending in against the sweater she’s wearing.

She turns away, and her eyes immediately find mine. Like a lock, clicking into place. A pleasant shiver prickles down my spine. My attention drifts from her fingers toying with her braid to the soft swell of shoulder peeking out from the edge of her sweater. She’s all buttoned up. Covered in dark-colored wool.

Fuck. I don’t know why that does it for me.

I’m still staring like a dumbass, holding a different glass in each hand. A knowing smile quirks at the corner of her lips and I can read the question on her face, almost as if she’s shouted it down the length of the bar.

What’s taking so long?

I immediately grab the cognac.

Frank snorts. “Yep. You’re a goner.” Nate laughs into the top of his beer.

I set the cognac back in the rack with a clatter and reach for the Cointreau. “Don’t the two of you have somewhere to be?”

“Not right now,” they answer in unison, then descend into manic laughter. Frank is never getting free cherries again. He’s officially on a cherry ban, as far as I’m concerned. And Nate—

“Hey, what are you doing with my beer? You just poured that!”

I dump his beer down the drain, then reach into the fridge and grab one of the bottles instead, sliding it in front of him. “I’m down-grading you to a Miller Lite.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you pissed me off, and you no longer deserve the IPA.” I flick him in the middle of the forehead. “Return to your corner, please, before you’re downgraded to one of Frank’s Shirley Temples.”

“I don’t—”

“Shirley. Temple.”