“Well then, how about you text him?” She leans harder on the bar, her chest resting against the wood I sanded, stained, and finished when I took over this place. The dog whimpers and sits next to her, the big body resting against her leg.
“Why don’tyoutext him?” I volley back, crossing my arms in defiance as another ember of anger lights in my gut. “You do still have his number, right?”
She wouldn’t be that cruel, would she?
Clementine’s mocking expression falls into fury. “Yes,” she snaps. “I have his number, you ass.” Her arm drops andreappears a moment later with a smartphone. The glass screen is shattered. “But as you can see, I’m down a phone.” She drops the device on the bar top with a clatter. “Excuse me for thinking you might want to be just a teeny-tiny bit helpful. I guess I forgot that you’re a colossal prick. That’s my bad.” She straightens, her teeth gritted in a snarl.
“Did you try the police station?” Gregor asks, his voice gentler than normal.
“He wasn’t there.” Clementine faces my regular, her voice strained but less hostile. “Office was locked up. And he wasn’t at the address he gave me for where he lives now.”
She went to the house? Tomyhouse?
My body feels weird at the thought of Clementine stomping up the front steps of the ranch house I’ve spent the last five years renovating.
“You could’ve waited there. At the house.” My voice is still harder than I like. But combative is my natural state with this woman.
“Forget it.” Her hands are fists now, knuckles white, her next breath a deep, bracing inhale. “I’ll just use the bathroom, then get out of your fur.”
Bathrooms are for customers only.
The words are on the tip of my tongue, but Gregor’s stare catches mine, and he gives a small shake of his head. I’m too confused by the move to make a response before she walks off toward the back hall, her dog trotting after her.
Leaving me in the stinging aftermath of that unhealthy exchange. If only there hadn’t been any witnesses.
But in addition to Gregor, the eyes of Manny and Blossom—a werewolf and witch, respectively, who are here for a date night—also watch me. I get itchy at the thought that word might spread around town how rude I was. Could hurt my business.
And even if I could give a valid reason—list all the chaos Clementine has caused—I doubt most remember her, and there are plenty of mythics who relocated to Folk Haven after she left, so they wouldn’t know her, good or bad, in the first place.
I’m the only one who still cares. Who’s still mad.
“I’m cutting you off,” I tell the old wolf.
Gregor glares. “Because I was nice to the girl when you were being a raging asshole?”
“What?” I splutter. “No! I’m cutting you off because you’ve had three whiskeys. And she started it.”
“Really?” Gregor scoffs. “So, you’re saying that you didn’t shout at her in greeting after she’d obviously been driving through a storm? That you didn’t refuse to help her get in touch with her brother?”
“I …” Fuck. I guess I did start it.
Clementine didn’t exactly know myno dogs in the barrule. And with anyone else, I would have walked over, calmly explained the restriction, then offered to set them up with a drink and a bowl of water for their pup on the covered patio.
But, no, I saw Clementine, and I let my anger take over.
If Carl knew, he’d kill me. Or at least give me the silent treatment for a month or more.
“Did you smell the blood?” Gregor asks, voice low.
“Yeah.” Wolves can pick up on things like that, a touch of iron, but we don’t tend to mention it. “So, she’s on her period?”
He grunts, like I’m missing something.
Did Carl ever mention his sister having bad menstrual cramps? Was she in pain just now, and that dialed up her testiness?
What excuse do I have?
There’s a whimper near my hip, and I realize the dog—Shrimp—somehow snuck behind the bar and is now staringup at me with liquid brown eyes as he lets out a series of increasingly distressed whines.
