“Sorry, pumpkin,” Sadie murmurs with a sheepish look, “but wewerewaiting for you to turn up…”
He raises his eyebrow at her, the one with a scar bisecting it, and I’m curious to know how he acquired that mark. “Well, you all know what this means.” He looks at me. “And you don’t get a free pass, newbie.”
Emily groans, and Sadie sighs, but they don’t look too unhappy. Just…resigned.
“What?” I ask.
“Jaegerbombs,” Leo and Sadie say in unison, Sadie as though steeling herself, Leo in wicked enthusiasm.
“Oh hell yes,” I reply, pushing my wine aside, “I’m in.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Liaden
Lesson learned: always let Leo buy the first round.
He presents us all with not one, but two shots of Jaegermeister, and I win his everlasting respect when I down three. Sadie didn’t want both of hers, and I volunteered to take one when she insisted, above Leo's protests that there’s never been anything in his rules about donating them to others. I’m so glad I can hold my liquor, but even I wince at three in quick succession. Still, the cheering from Leo, Sadie, and Emily is gratifying.
I can’t help but notice, when I unclench my eyes, that Eli isn’t joining in, or smiling. The look he’s giving me is almost sad. I wouldn’t have thought someone as likeable as Emily would accept the proposal of a man who found women drinking alcohol to be ‘unladylike’, or some other moronic sexist bullshit, so there must be more to it.
“Impressed,” Leo says, lifting his glass to his lips before pausing. He turns to Sadie. “Can’t imagine old Petey boymanaging that, eh, Sades? But then, he’d never slum it in here with us. Tonight being a case in point.”
Sadie’s smile fades, and she glares at him with a dark, angry look. “Leave it,” she bites out, and turns back to Emily, who gives Leo a bewildered reproachful look. He holds his hands up as a truce, and turns quickly to me, his face giving nothing away about why he said such a thing out of nowhere. “Oh - happy birthday for the other day.” He clinks his glass lightly against mine, and Emily, Eli, and a still-pissed-off looking Sadie, follows suit.
“Thanks,” I reply, slightly out of breath from the Jaegerbombs. “Dean gave me a cupcake to mark the occasion. It was so sweet. The gesture, I mean, not the cupcake. Well…the cupcake was sweet as well, obviously, but I meant…” Leo chuckles at me, and everyone grins at my rambling. I join in, covering my eyes with my hands. “I’ve never been so inarticulate in all mylife.”
“You and Dean seem to be, ah, getting on rather well…” Sadie trails off, clearly feeling better enough to go after some details. Emily also sits forward.
I smile into my wine. “I like to think so. He’s…an enigma, to say the least. But a good one.” When I look up, I find myself looking directly into Eli’s eyes. They’re a sharper blue than Dean’s soft ocean shade, and an equally sharp unease radiates from them. I’m not surprised that he’s treating me with caution, and I mentally prepare for the fact that, if anything happens between me and Dean, I have something to prove to Eli. To all of them, probably.
I sigh. “Is it fair to say he’s not coming tonight?” Bollocks; subtlety failure. Even I can hear the disappointed note in my voice.
Leo smiles sympathetically. “Never say never, but…probably not, no.”
I nod. “I can see why. I mean, what would be the point in showing up to an activity you can’t join in with in any way? Hardly surprisingly that this isn’t his cup of Darjeeling.” I look at the karaoke machine, open to everyone here, closed to Dean. He’s excluded from the whole point of the night. All he’d be able to do is watchothershave a good time. I imagine it for a second: never being able to talk, yell, sing…never being able to make a single sound using my voice. Having it ripped away from me with no hope of recovering it. It’s unfathomable, uncomfortable for a noise maker like me to even consider. As soon as I was able to talk, I’d chatter and sing and debate all day long. I jabbered all day as a baby before I was able to make any coherent sense, in a rush to be able to communicate with the world around me. So why would he come here? Even on my account.
How conceited and dense of me to think otherwise.
“We should have picked another activity,” I conclude. “Something more Dean friendly that he could actually be a part of.” I suddenly realise I could easily be perceived as lecturing these people on common decency, which isn’t ideal when I’m trying to be friends with them. But I still find myself unable to resist adding, “Maybe next time we can ask him whathewants to do.”
I risk a look at them all. Leo is smothering a grin. Sadie and Emily are making no such effort, though Emily’s smile is the softer of the two. Eli is looking at me like he’s never seen me before, and his jaw isn’t as tight as it was.
“I mean, yeah, that’s fair,” Leo replies, “though he has come to these nights before, it’s just to listen to the rest of us. And point and laugh. But wedodo other more Dean-centric things, too.” His eyes are kind and reassuring.
I twist my mouth ruefully. “I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t - ”
“It’s the crowds,” Eli cuts in. “Social atmospheres make him kinda squirrely sometimes. You can imagine why.” I like his New Orleans drawl. I can almost hear the street jazz bands and smell the jambalaya as he talks. He gives me proper eye contact again, making damn sure I’m listening. “He’s not the type of guy to want to go out on the town much, y’know?” He nods meaningfully at my empty shot glasses as they are taken away by one of the bar staff as they clear the table.
Aha. Cautionary advice. I must be this tall to enter the ride.
“I can completely understand that,” I reply, returning his eye contact. “I mean, I won’t pretend I can relate to what he went through during the shooting, or what must have been months and months of physical recovery, to say nothing of the trauma. But even I can imagine crowded events lack appeal for him. And why would anyone put themselves through that unnecessarily?” I look around the pub; it’s busy, though I wouldn’t say it’s bursting at the seams. But who am I to say where that line is drawn for Dean?
Eli’s expression softens. “It’s not that he doesn’twantto be here,” he assures me quietly. Emily looks at him as though surprised he disclosed that, and squeezes his hand. He automatically squeezes back.
“Well, like I said, next time - assuming thereisa next time - we can do something Dean wants to do.”
That earns me a real smile from Eli, broad and approachable. The stilted, gruff, guarded behemoth from before has melted away, and I can definitely understand what Emily sees in him. The man has a smile that could melt Haagen-Dazs, and we all know how rock hard that can be to scoop.
