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“What neighbors?” I asked.
“Behind the bar,” she said. “I saw a little house back there when I pulled in. The light was on, so I assumed it wasn’t vacant.”
“Oh, no. It’s not vacant. It’s mine,” I said. “But I’m in bed by four each night. The last time I saw Misty was when she walked out with Tommy.”
Slowly, Brooke took another sip from her drink. Her eyes slid over me, gaze intensifying, studying me as in depth as she’d studied each of her cards at the table.
I couldn’t help my huff that morphed into a laugh. “You think I did something to her.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Your face said that.”
“My face said nothing.”
“I’ve spent the last hour and a half trying to figure out what your expressions mean, so I’m pretty sure I know what that one means too.” I leaned forward and propped my elbows on the counter.
As I craned in, she tilted back, shoulders stiffening.
I laid my fingers out before her. “Go ahead. Use whatever spell you want. Watch my whole week if you want to. I didn’t do anything to her.”
Only inches apart, her eyes found mine. A swallow bobbed her throat, big blue eyes glistening in the red glowing sign overhead. Slow breaths eased in and out of her chest, and a new smell pulsed from the throbbing vein at her neck. Not just expensive perfume and books, but the same smell that probably permeated from me. Arousal.
“Really, go ahead. I have nothing to hide.” I wiggled my fingers, giving a smirk. “I’d prefer if you zoomed past the parts of me in the shower, but otherwise, you can look through whatever you want.”
“Are you sure?”
“Go for it.”
Her eyes turned down, silky smooth fingertip tracing from my middle digit to my wrist. Hardly audible, she whispered an undiscernible incantation, now painting an imaginary picture across the lines of my palm. Chills erupted over my skin as her volume rose, but I kept my gaze on her.
Despite the tranquility of her tone, her closed eyed expression grew deep with attention.
Warmth gathered across my hand where her finger had travelled. A pentagram with a large eye extending from the vein on my wrist to my fingers glowed as golden as the morning sun.
It didn’t hurt, but it tingled.
I opened my mouth to ask what it was when images of my past week flickered through my mind at a rapid speed.
Misty in Tommy’s lap, the two of them walking outside, me locking up the bar. A new day, now of me in wolf form running through the woods and tearing into the gut of a deer. Brooke grimaced at that, and I couldn’t help my smirk.
She wanted to see it all.
The next day here. Pouring drinks, wiping down tables, carrying plates of fries and chicken fingers.
Then Wednesday. Damn it, I’d forgotten about Wednesday.
Me walking up the steps into the nursing home, sitting on the chair beside Mom’s bed, and reading Pride and Prejudice aloud to her.
I didn’t talk about that with anyone. Not because I was embarrassed or found it emasculating. Mom was sick and couldn’t read her favorite books anymore, so I read them to her. I had no shame in that. It just made me emotional, so I didn’t like to verbalize it.
But Brooke’s expression softened at that memory. So maybe playing the “I read to my mom on her deathbed card” would do me favors in the future. I’d keep that in mind for the next time I was trying to get laid.
Regardless, the remainder of the week was boring. I was here. Taking orders, pouring drinks, playing poll, a game or two of spades, all the way up to tonight.
Leading straight up to the part where I watched her cute little ass walk to Tommy’s table.
I pulled my hand away.
