I sipped my margarita on the rocks and tried to look sympathetic. Percy had been on this topic since he’d picked me up for our date. He’d arrived at my door with a tasteful bouquet of marigolds he hadn’t gotten from my store. There were no other flower shops in Granville, not since Pearl closed hers, so that meant he’d gotten them somewhere else.
A funeral service? Someone’s grave?No. I was sure he’d driven to Riverton. It was a sweet gesture, really. The flowers had surprised me. His car, too. Despite rampant gossip about Percy picking up Clark in a hearse, he’d turned up in a perfectly bland sedan.
I’d been so shocked to see him—I hadn’t expected the Mamas to set me up withPercy—I’d immediately put my foot in my mouth. “What, no hearse?”
He’d reddened and thrust the flowers toward me. “I onlydrive that when work requires it.” He paused. “Or my car is in the shop. I have to get around somehow.”
“Right.”
“I’m not any different than other guys,” he’d said. “I just have a job that’s different.”
He’d continued the topic all the way to The Stag Pub, sitting down, and ordering our drinks. I was beginning to think he might stay on the topic for the rest of the night, but he abruptly changed course.
“You know, my sister does most of the mortician work, but someone marriedher.”
“Right, Priscilla seems…”
I didn’t know how to end that sentence because no one saw much of Priscilla. Not since we all graduated high school, anyway. She’d been a quiet introvert even then, more interested in books than other students. She’d gone off to some mortician licensing school and come back engaged.
“Yeah, I know,” Percy said, as if I’d actually given him an adjective. “I’m the good-looking one, so I have to be the face of the mortuary. So, I get all the grief.”
I chuckled, but Percy wasn’t wrong. Once you got past the conservative haircuts and somber suits he usually wore, he had a pretty decent face. Square jaw, just a hint of stubble, pale blue eyes that gave him the air of seriousness that probably worked well as a funeral director.
But was I really checking outPercy?I mean, he was my date, but…despite his assurances he wasn’t a weird guy obsessed with death, his whole livelihood was kind of about death.
“I’m serious,” Percy said. “I work out a lot, too. My body is totally banging under this suit. I have no trouble on hookup apps. I get laid all the time in Riverton.”
My eyebrows shot up. “So why are you doing matchmaking, then?”
“Because I want more than sex. I want a relationship.”
Well, Ididtell the Mamas I wanted someone serious about finding love and not just a good time. I guess I’d basically invited them to set me up with Percy.
“Good ans?—”
The DJ set up in the corner interrupted. “Welcome to Wednesday night trivia! The rules are simple. No phones. No conferring with other teams. No hate or harassment?—”
“Yeah, right,” Percy muttered.
“—No arguing with the host. My decisions are final. Now, let’s have a good game!”
I glanced up to see the large television screens in the bar displaying the first question of the night:Who was the first televised president?
“Hoover,” Percy said.
Was it Hoover? I thought that might be too early for television.
Multiple choice options popped up. Hoover was among them, so maybe Percy was right.
“Did you want to play?” I asked him.
He hesitated, then shook his head. “No, I have a team I usually play with.” He waved a hand toward a table a few feet away. “Deadly Accurate. But we usually lose because the game is rigged.”
“Rigged how?”
“They let really large teams compete against small ones.” He pointed, not so discreetly, toward a loud table to my right. I recognized Clark and Hunter Rhodes, along with Tucker and Laurie Ellis, Wes and Beckett Monroe, and Bobbi Spade. “The Smarty Pints win way more than they should. It’s not fair at all.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good. We can focus on getting to know each other, then.”
