“What’s wrong?” Rys looked at me, then scanned the area.
I grabbed his arm before he found someone to shout at. “Nothing. I’m going to go help Nick behind the bar.” Making my way through the throng of people waiting for drinks, I rounded the side of the bar.
“Hey, Nick,” I yelled, catching his attention. “Need a hand?”
“Fuck, yes.” His relieved smile was everything I needed. I hadn’t realised how useless I’d felt lately.
I slipped in beside him and turned to face the next customer waiting. “Hi, what can I get you?”
* * *
The next houror so flew by.
I was too busy mixing drinks and pulling pints to have time to think about anything other than the order I was filling.
My mind was blissfully quiet, and thanks to the dampening arch, so was my magic.
Perfection.
And exactly what I needed.
When a lull in customers eventually happened, Nick sent Kevin for a break and leant against the bar with a huff of laughter. “Fuck me, I never thought it would slow down.” He nudged me where I stood next to him. “Thanks again for helping out. We’d have been fucked if you hadn’t.”
“No problem.” I lowered my voice. “It was good to feel useful.”
Rys, Gabriel, and Dathal propped up the far end of the bar, where they’d been the whole time. It wasn’t that I didn’t want them to hear, exactly, but I didn’t want to sound ungrateful.
Because I wasn’t. Not at all.
I just needed to get a bit of normality back, and helping out at Midnight gave me that.
“Want a drink?” Nick poured himself a beer and gave me an expectant look. “You can probably duck out now. I think the worst of the rush is done.”
“Yeah, okay. Thanks.”
I took the beer he offered me and joined Dathal and the others at the end of the bar. As busy as I’d been, I hadn’t had chance to have a look around. I did now though, and I perched on a stool, gaze scanning the downstairs area of the club.
Not all of it was visible from here—the dance floor for instance—but a lot of it was.
I couldn’t see him anywhere.
Dathal leant to whisper in my ear. “Looking for anyone in particular?”
“No.”
He laughed. “Of course not.”
And since conversations around shifters were never private, Rys leant forward. “Talis is upstairs keeping an eye on the dance floor.”
“Rys made him stay up there and keep out of your way,” Gabriel added.
“We’re not that bad,” I grumbled.
“No,” Rys agreed. “But you’re not thatgoodeither. It seemed the obvious choice to keep you out of each other’s way, especially while you were working and Talis is keeping watch.”
I drained half my drink in one go. The cool liquid had a bite to it, letting me know Nick had added a little something extra to it. “Well, I’m done working now,” I said, setting my glass down. “And I need to stretch my legs a little.”
Dathal set his glass down, too, and straightened. “I’ll come with you.”
