Both breathed out relieved breaths. “Ah. Yeah. Okay. Sure.”
Like the woman dressed as a fairy, they tipped well and disappeared back into the crowd with their drinks.
A little man all in brown slipped onto the barstool. “I’ll have what the pixies are having.” He nodded in the direction the two green men had left. His hood slid back, revealing a pair of pointed ears. So cool!
“A Green Demon?”
The man whipped his head around. “Where?”
Not again. “The drink. It’s called a Green Demon.” Piers really needed to look up the reference.
“Oh.” The man placed a hand on his chest, sighing in relief. “For a minute there…”
“So, what are you?” Piers asked when he handed the man a drink.
Once more, the man placed a hand to his chest. “I, my dear fellow, am a woodland elf. You don’t get too many of those around here, do you?”
“You’re my first,” Piers admitted.
The man took a sip of his drink and winked. “I bet you say that to all the boys.”
He vanished. Fucking vanished. There one moment, gone the next. The empty glass appeared on the bar, followed by a handful of coins. One silver coin spun round and round before falling.
What the actual fuck?
Piers kept his head down the rest of his shift, pretending he didn’t notice any costumes.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Randy said. “Getting good tips?”
Yes, but if Piers opened his mouth, he might start screaming. Where, oh, where, was Jess when he needed her for a sanity check? Mr. White Haired Wickedness on Two Legs didn’t appear either. Piers forced a smile for his coworker’s sake. “Fine. Just a little tired.”
Randy clapped him on the shoulder. “Only one more hour.” Yeah. At least Piers wasn’t working closing tonight and might get to bed at a decent hour. Should he call Wycke? Would Wycke want him to?
Well, if he’d wanted a call, he’d have given Piers his cell phone number. There. The answer. Wycke knew where Piers worked, and there’d been no messages.
Piers tried to push down the hurt.
The moment the shift ended, Piers grabbed a beer and headed to the break room to count his tips. What a haul! He’d made more tonight than entire weeks in the past. Maybe he should get back out there and work until the club closed in three more hours.
But no. He needed home, a shower, and a good night’s sleep. If the hallucinations continued, possibly a mental health professional.
He downed half his beer. Maybe he should grab a pizza on the way home or call Jess to see if she’d brought takeout.
First…
An “out of order” sign hung on the employee’s bathroom door, so he pushed his way through the crowd to the public bathroom.
Two men stood entirely too close, pressed against the wall. Piers ignored them. He’d gotten more than one free show here—the reason he preferred the bathroom reserved for employees.
He used a urinal, kept his eyes on his own business, washed his hands at the sink, and finally raised his gaze to peer into the mirror.
An elbow bumped his.
“Oh, sorry, buddy,” the man said.
Piers gazed up. And up. And up. The man must’ve been eight feet tall, with a crop top exposing a bulging belly—a bright green bulging belly. Attached to a bright green body.
“What’s the matter, dude?” the man asked. “Ain’tcha ever seen an ogre before?”
