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The Halloween Bet
A stand-alone second-chance love story!
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Blake
Here she comes, festive orange pumps clip-clipping down the sidewalk, headed straight into my bar.
Shit.
Any notion of having escaped any participation in the town-wide Halloween-gasm that is this year’s Harvest Festival blows out the door as soon as Dahlia Jordan, tourism director, blows in.
Her golden eyes sparkle and her perpetual wide smile broadens when she spots me behind the bar. A smile so genuine, I almost feel an old, familiar twinge.
But then I remember she’s not coming in for a friendly drink after work. It’s noon on Halloween, her office is closed today. And under her relentless guidance, the downtown is decked out in pumpkin spice everything.
The way she’s walking, I can tell she needs something.
Oh, Dahlia doesn’t need me personally, she needs something from me as the proprietor of the Southpaw Tavern.
Along with the gust of October air she pulls in with her comes her warm caramel apple pie scent, heavy on the cinnamon. Same as it was in the days when I had permission to freely take a whiff of her hair on the regular. Same damn sweet energy as always, as if life has never broken her down.
Any man without his wits about him would fall all over himself to please this auburn haired bombshell with the glowing skin and devastating, glossy lips.
God, what is she doing back in this town, anyway? I’ve been asking myself that for the past six months, ever since she moved back home to take over the tourism office. I thought she’d be slaying every eligible bachelor in the big city by now.
But I do have my wits about me. I’m Blake Fuckin’ Pritchard, after all. The only bartender still serving cheap domestic beer in this up-and-coming little town. I don’t have WiFi. I program the jukebox myself and fuck you if you don’t like it. I derive pleasure from bouncing my unruly customers with my own hands. People fear me, and I like it that way.
So, I feel no hitch in my giddy-up when Dahlia turns on the charm. No hitch at all. This gorgeous creature cannot distract me from the fact that she carries something under her arm... something that can only mean one thing for me. Extra work.
“Happy Halloween, Blake! Here’s your jack o lantern!” How can someone’s voice be both enthused and sexy? Doesn’t matter. Has no effect on me.
“I didn’t order one,” I say, focusing on wiping down the oak bar in front of me and not the orange and purple blob she’s lifting onto the bar.
She laughs, unaffected by my rotten attitude. “Every downtown business gets a painted jack o lantern. It’s part of the game.” Dahlia plops the thing onto the spot I just polished.
I eye her as I hand dry a rack of lowball glasses that Kenny has just pulled from the dishwasher.
“I don’t know about any game, ergo I’m not participating.”
Undeterred, she chirps, “Everybody’s participating. It’s a social media trick or treat game, but for grown ups.”
I grunt and say to her, “If it involves me pretending I like tourists, then you can just skedaddle with that pumpkin.”
“Blake, come on. You don’t have to pretend you like people. It’s part of your charm.”
I stop wiping down glasses and look at her hard. There’s a whole lot more she’s not telling me.
I can see I’m not getting rid of her soon so I pour her the usual — an amaretto sour with a cherry — and set it down in front of her.
She thanks me and sips it. Her lip quirks.
“This is watered down,” she says.
I sigh heavily and let my head loll back on my neck, as if the tacky stained glass Bud Light pendant lamp hanging above the bar will tell me how to win this argument. This same argument we’ve been having since she turned 21 and moved back here to her hometown. “We’ve been through this before, Dahlia. No it’s not.”
She shrugs. “Tastes watered down.”
