Page 38 of How I Met Your Murderer

His eyes met mine again. Held them.

I couldn’t look away.

And my heart did something stupid. Full-on gymnastics, a backflip that rattled my ribs.

There was still no sign of Chef Máirtín. No rattling pans. No exploding pot of gravy or water boiling over. Just Eric, warm and bright and too close. Too real.

And the whiskey was hitting me. Hard. Too hard for the absence of the kitchen’s most active and powerful spirit to register as concerning.

“Let’s play a little truth or dare,” I said, pointing at him with the bottle before taking another sip. I was, after all, the only spirit extraction expert to tame Ardruin Castle. I had earned a night of fun, just like the Dolans’ guests. Especially before I had to tell this beautiful, brilliant ghost of a guy that we couldn’t be kissing and touching for the next month or I’d never stop missing him.

I wanted to enjoy his company tonight, and be too drunk to forget what I had to do come morning when all the guests were gone.

Eric laughed. “You’re tipsy. Or drunk—I’ve never seen you like this.”

“Not drunk yet. But I will be,” I warned, a telltale warmth already creeping into my face, my veins buzzing with it. “So take your pick.”

“Truth,” Eric said immediately. “But . . .” His eyes dipped briefly to the bottle, then found mine again, shining with some mischief. “You’ll have to drink for both of us, I’m afraid.”

“Didn’t know truth or dare was a drinking game,” I teased, even as I took a long swallow.

“For courage,” he explained—and who could argue with that?

I saluted him with the bottle, letting him know that he could ask the first question.

He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, displacing the strawberries and cheese cubes until the dragon’s head was no longer recognizable. Or maybe that had happened a while ago, during our taste test.

That look had returned to his eyes, smoldering with intensity. A private look I wouldn’t have recognized if I didn’t already know him so well, having spent the better part of the month gazing into his face at all hours. Solid or transparent, it didn’t matter. He was still Eric.

“Tell me something embarrassing,” he said at last. “Because you’re one of the coolest people I’ve ever met.”

I groaned. “No.”

“Yes.” He nudged my shiny dress boot under the table with his foot.

“No. I can’t. I don’t think I can ever speak of it.” I hid my face in my hands, trying to work up the nerve even as I was protesting. Because there was one very embarrassing thing I could remember that Eric didn’t know but would certainly appreciate. “I . . . well, I may have . . . watched a bunch of your old videos before I signed with ExorSquad.”

I must have said it in a rush, because there was an icy touch gently pulling my hands away from my face. Eric looked puzzled, if anything. Not remotely offended. “My what?”

“Your videos. Your YouTube channel, I guess—no one took it down when you died.” Deciding to take the instruction to drink for us both very seriously, I gulped down a couple mouthfuls of whiskey before trying to speak again. “You were just explaining the rules of some game, but I might’ve—” I hiccupped. “Enjoyed them. A lot. Like . . .”

I swept a hand down toward my crotch. “A lot. Massively. Big fan.”

Eric’s mouth fell open. I was afraid, for one bleary-eyed, heart-skipping moment that I’d offended him—and then his lips curved into the filthiest smile I’d ever seen on him. “Oh. Wow. All that without ever even seeing the tattoo, huh?”

I nearly died on the spot.

Especially when he added, lower, “Was it good? The, uh . . .” He made a certain wanking motion with his fist while I bit my lip to hold in another groan. This time, not one of sheer embarrassment.

“The wanking. To your face. Your voice,” I managed, wetting my dry throat with a splash of whiskey. “Yeah, it was grand. That’s why I . . . kept doing it for a while.”

The impish look on his face was going to have me on the floor in a minute if I didn’t do something to get this night back on track. Abandoning truth or dare for everyone’s health and safety, I blurted, “Here’s another truth, and I’ll tell you for free: I like bird watching.”

Eric blinked. “You—what?”

“Bird watching. My mam used to do a bit of falconry on my uncle’s farm, and I’d go with her. I can identify birds by sound, like some of the ones you talk to here at the castle. The blackcaps, the robins, the magpies. The barn owl last week.”

Bird call identification was yet another thing not covered in the ExorSquad handbook. Raff: 10. Handbook: 0. Whiskey—well, somehow half the bottle was already gone. Maybe Chef Máirtín was taking sips when I wasn’t looking.