Than just made a considering sound and went back to sipping tea and staring at our phone line which was not doing anything worth staring at.
“Why did you tell them I was going to meet them here?” I asked.
“Did you not?” he asked.
“No, I did. But you gave them a time limit.”
“Would you have preferred I didn’t?”
“No, yes. You could have called and asked my ETA.”
“Ah.”
He sipped tea, watching me over the top of a cup that was much too delicate to be held in fingers that long and boney. I had the impression he was laughing at me.
“Did you know I was at lunch with Crow?”
He hesitated a little too long before saying, “No.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What has gotten into you gods? That was you calling him at the diner, wasn’t it?
Than took the time to carefully place the cup down on a delicate saucer. It was a set I hadn’t seen before. I thought he and Myra had been trawling the online sites to one-up each other’s cup collection. They were a bad influence on each other.
“Perhaps,” he said, giving me his full attention. It should have been uncomfortable, bearing the weight of Death’s gaze, but Than had a glint of humor behind that blasé expression.
He couldn’t fool me. He liked me.
“I’m never out from under the watch of a god lately,” I said.
His eyebrows ticked upward ever so slightly. “Do you think? Even while you slumber?”
I rolled my eyes. “You can deny it. All of you can deny it. But I know when I’m being watched. I’m being watched.”
He made that considering sound again.
When he didn’t say anything else, I scowled. “One of you is going to crack. One of you will tell me what you’re worried about.”
“I see.”
“You are the worst,” I grumbled. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed our local baker.
“Puffin Muffin, this is Hogan,” he answered.
“Hey, Hogan. Delaney. I sent a guy your way. He’s a social media influencer looking into small towns. Bertie’s brought him in to give Ordinary a review.”
“Who is it?”
“Some guy named Patrick Baum.”
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. I could just make out the soft, tropical music playing in the background and the burble of customer voices.
“Road Bomb is in Ordinary? Here? Patrick Baum is coming to my shop? Mine?” His voice went up with each question. Not panic, but not just excitement either. “Holy shits.”
“You’ve heard of him?”
“Who hasn’t heard of him?”
I didn’t acknowledge that with an answer.
