“I got hers, Paul,” Austin said as he approached. He placed a clean wine glass in front of me, his gaze heavy on mine. He was checking in, I knew. Ever my knight, my guide when I didn’t know how to be strong. I couldn’t tell by his expression if he knew I was thinking about the burly guy’s offer and Cheryl’s willingness…
Austin pulled the cork out of a bottle and reached for the glass.
“Whoa, whoa.” My anger and annoyance momentarily took a back seat. Sometimes wine sat around forever in this place. He’d poured me the equivalent of grape vinegar a few times. “How long has that been open?”
A blue-sleeved arm reached into my vision, and Gary’s damp hand grasped my forearm. “I’m sure it’s fine,” he said. “Just take it.”
I knew he was reacting to Austin’s natural predatory dominance, sensing the hierarchy and falling in line so as not to upset the rather large man with lots of muscle and crazy eyes, but his attempt to subdue me just added coal to my locomotive.
I gritted my teeth and sweat coated my forehead. My fingers tingled and I wasn’t sure why, but I was sure his hand was in the wrong place, as was the muzzle he was trying to place on me.
Before I could turn—before I could even speak—Austin leaned forward with such unspeakable malice that I, strangely, felt a little relief from the furnace raging within me. His gaze beat into Gary’s face as he somehow poured the glass without looking. Add that amazing party trick to his long list of talents.
“Opened when you sat down,” Austin growled, the roughness of his voice spreading a crazy, primal fear through my body.
Run! Run now! it screamed.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could just see the burly guy next to me get up and walk off toward the pool and bathroom area. Beyond him, Niamh had both hands clasped on the bar and a determined expression on her face. She felt Austin’s power and was actively trying to ward it off.
“Yes, well, th-that’s wh-why I told her to take it,” Gary stammered. “Did you hear me? I told her—”
“I heard you. It is not a man’s job to police his date. It is his job to make her comfortable and show her a good time. So far, you’re failing. Try harder.” Austin turned away. Not a drop had been spilled.
Paul landed in a moment later with the gin and tonic. “Sir,” he said, and then scampered off.
I reached for my glass as Gary turned to me, face red with anger and embarrassment from being put in his place. Austin’s ego might not be fragile, but this guy’s sure was. “Well, now do you see?” Spittle slapped my face.
That was about all I could take. Time to see what I was made of, and how quickly I could make him run from this bar. If he wanted a kiss good night, that kiss would be from Cheryl’s spring-loaded blade.
5
“Jessie, ye gotta walk away now,” Niamh said before I could let him have it. “You’re on the edge, girl. The whole bar can feel it, just you trust me. If ye accidentally do another summons for help, I’m not sure we’ll like what shows up from this send-off. Walk away. Let Austin Steele sort this out. This type of thing is what the big lummox is good fer.” Her voice reduced to a mutter. “Lord help us if someone is sneaking around Ivy House tonight. That el’ house will feed off your mood and flay those poor bastards alive. Edgar will go hungry, and then he’ll wander around the town with his weird smile and hunched body and the cops will come callin’. I couldn’t be botherin’ with them tonight, sure I couldn’t.”
I hesitated, because I knew Niamh was speaking in my best interest (and also her own). Usually she’d egg me on, hoping for violence. Given she was forgoing a show and talking about Ivy House getting violent because we were connected, and Edgar did say it fed off my emotions…
“If you’d just taken the wine like I—”
I held up my finger, and when Gary wouldn’t stop muttering about my perceived shortcomings, I talked over him.
“It was nice meeting you. I think we both know this isn’t going to work, and it’s not just because you seriously lied on your profile. Update your pictures, bud. This is one step away from catfishing. If you weren’t doing such a bad job of it, I’d wonder if you were trying to land someone for your vampire friend—”
“And that’s your cue, Jessie,” Niamh said.
“Yup.” Couldn’t talk about vampires to normal folk. Whoops.
“Just one minute, here,” Gary started, but I was already walking away.
It wasn’t until I was to the end of the bar, almost to the opening that separated this part of the bar from the pool table area, that the true nature of the situation dawned on me. I slowed, Gary’s shocked and frustrated chatter fading into the background.
The bar area had all but cleared out, only a few people lingering at the edges in booths or at tables, their eyes down and bodies hunched over their mostly empty glasses. Drinks littered the bar surface in various stages of fullness, abandoned by their owners. Even the two guys at the other end had walked away, leaving their beers behind.
So focused on Gary and the horror show of my first date, I had somehow missed the mass exodus.
Blinking in confusion, I resumed making my way out, leaving Austin to sort it out as Niamh had requested. I had a suspicion he wasn’t the only one who’d lay into the guy. Niamh would want her say, I had no doubt.
A crowd loitered in the pool room, watching the balls roll around the green felt. When I entered, most looked up, then quickly back down, as though some gunslinger had entered the saloon and they didn’t want no trouble.
“Sorry,” I muttered, knowing I was to blame for Austin’s second assertion of dominance in less than an hour.
“Hey…” The burly guy that had been sitting next to me shrugged his meaty shoulders, standing off to the side with his hands in his pockets. “If you got it, flaunt it.”
Those around him shifted from side to side and murmured their assent, heads bobbing.
If I got it…flaunt it?
I checked my boobs as I turned toward the bathroom. The cut of my neckline barely plunged, showing next to no cleavage. Sure, I had spaghetti straps, but so what? Last I checked, a little shoulder didn’t drive anyone crazy. My hem stopped right above my knee, very modest. It was a Mom’s night out dress if ever there was one, down to the fact that it didn’t fit exactly right. I wasn’t flaunting anything.
I was clearly missing something, but at that moment, I didn’t care what it was. I shook my head and pushed into the bathroom, taking my place behind two women in jeans and flannel.
“Excuse me.” The woman in front of me moved out of the way.
“Oh.” I pointed at the two occupied stalls. “You’re not waiting?”
“No, no. Go ahead.” She gestured me on and fell in behind me.
After a step forward, the woman at the head of the line gave me a tight smile. “Here.” She stepped out of the way as someone came out of the larger stall.
“Oops. Sorry! I didn’t mean to take so long.” A younger woman, who did have a plunging neckline and a hem that lazily tapped her very upper thighs, quickly scooted out of the way.
“No worries,” I said, admiring her sparkly sequins as I slipped past.
For the first time in…years, I actually wanted to try something like that. Something a little loud and a little look at me, world, here I am! I used to wear stuff like that all the time when I was in my twenties. After my body had morphed into a holding cell for a human and then refused to bounce back, I’d gravitated toward darker clothes and blacks for the slimming qualities. I’d started aiming for modest attire, something I thought better suited my age.
But if Niamh could walk around town braless in a white T-shirt in a rainstorm, not at all worried what people thought, why couldn’t I opt for some color? Black was great, but so was the sparkly sequin extravaganza on that woman. I’d need it a little longer because I didn’t have the presence of mind to watch myself as I bent over (I’d flash the whole world, repeatedly), but what was stopping me from going for it? People’s reactions?
An uncomfortable feeling coiled in my belly as I closed myself in the stall.
Honestly, yes, it was people’s reactions. It was the fear that I’d get condescending looks if I stepped out of my lane or shrugged off my mantle of midlife modesty. That I’d get judged or sneered at or maybe even pitied if I showed off a little cleavage, a little leg, and a lot of personality. “Look at that woman, Janice! Good Lord, she is too old for a dress like that. Poor dear is trying too hard to cling to her youth.”
Time to be brutally honest with myself. The fictional jerks I was imagining weren’t the problem. I was the only one holding me back. So people might think I was too old to have some style—so what? I didn’t give two craps what people thought about me when I dressed like some sort of swamp monster. Why should I hesitate to wear the equivalent of a sexy disco ball?
I shouldn’t, that was the bottom line. I shouldn’t let the Garys of the world push me down or treat me badly, and I shouldn’t cave to people’s expectations of women my age. Distinguished with a side of crazy fabulous, here I came!
When I worked up the confidence, that was. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all.
Finished up, I exited the stall to find the same women who’d let me in front of them. One of them, now the next in line, gave me a tight smile and passed me into the stall. The other waited for whoever was taking their time in the occupied stall.
Had they let me go first because they feared (somewhat correctly) that middle-aged women couldn’t hold their bladders? Except one of them was at least as old as I was.
Confusion growing, I washed my hands and made my way out. Gazes found me as I re-entered the pool room, which had essentially become a waiting room. Almost immediately, the gazes zipped away again.
The burly guy from the bar was leaned up against the wall on the opposite side of the opening.
“Do you know if the…Dick—the non-magical guy—left?” I whispered.