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“We could take my car,” I offered. “I imagine this…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word hearse. “It’s probably meant for business.”
Percy grinned. “Don’t worry, Clark. I’m my own boss, so this is your lucky night. Not many people get a chance to ride in a hearse.” He barked a laugh. “Well, not while they’re alive anyway.”
Dear god. I was kind of starting to wish I wasn’t alive for it either.
I reluctantly slipped into the passenger seat, too polite to tell him that climbing into a hearse was the opposite of romantic in my book, and tried to will away the scent of lilies still clinging to us. Percy wasn’t wrong, I told myself. How many people had been in a hearse? It’d make for a good story, right?
Mostly, it smelled like any other car, slightly musty, though it was overladen with a powerful air freshener.To cover the smell of death, my unhelpful subconscious voice offered up.
What the heck was Nana thinking when she decided Percy would be my ideal man?
Percy started up the car and pulled out into the street. “You know, while we’re in my office of sorts…” He paused to laugh at his own joke and I mustered a smile. “Have you given thought to what kind of casket you’d like for your grandmother? Giving her a proper place to rest can make a huge difference in your peace of mind.”
“She’s not dead,” I said, appalled.
“Well, not yet, but given her age…”
The rest of his spiel turned to white noise. I didn’t know whether to be horrified, angry, or amused that this date Nana had set up was so bad. But at least I wouldn’t have to endure it alone.
The parking spots in front of The Stag Pub were long gone when we arrived, and given that we arrived in a hearse, street parking wouldn’t do. Percy ended up parking it back at the funeral home, which was two blocks down, and we walked the rest of the way.
“It’s too bad we don’t have time for a tour.”
“No, we really don’t,” I said, fearful of getting dragged into more mortuary sales pitches. I was still trying to get the phraseCadillac of coffinsout of my head. “We’re already late.”
I sped up, taking the excuse to walk fast and avoid conversation.
When we arrived, Percy was mercifully quiet aside from huffing and puffing for breath. My trivia team members—Wes, Beckett, Augustus, Tucker, and Bobbi—were already seated around two tables pushed together in the center of the room. The pub was always packed on trivia nights, so it took a few minutes to wind around tables set up too close together.
“Hey, there you are!” Beckett said. “I was just about to call emergency services to make sure you weren’t dead.”
Percy laughed. “Well, he did just arrive in a hearse. I guess you’re too late.”
“What?”
I waved a hand. “Long story. You all know Percy Helix, right? My date for tonight.”
I’d given the team a heads-up I was going to bring him, but it was clear from their faces that they hadn’t really believed I’d do it. My friends were nice at their core, even if they were also assholes, so they all smiled and welcomed Percy into the fold.
“Hope you like trivia,” Wes said, “because this group is kind of hard-core about winning.”
“Then you’re in luck,” Percy said smugly. “I’m great at trivia.”
“Nice!”
While the two of them exchanged a high-five, I took my usual seat on the side of the table that was close to the television. Percy took the only remaining empty chair, across from me.
“All right, let’s get our trivia on!”
“The more brains the better,” Bobbi said gamely.
“You can never go wrong by adding to the think tank,” Beckett agreed.
“We’re gonna sweep up tonight,” Wes added.
But as it turned out, they were all wrong.
Nearly an hour into the game and the harder second-round questions, it had become apparent that while Percy liked trivia, he was also very, very bad at it. No matter how many times he insisted he was one hundred percent sure of the answer, he was always one hundred percent wrong.
