Page 23 of Warlander Grizzly

Landon just stared at her like she was crazy.

“Margarita?” she guessed. “Cosmopolitan? Panty dropper shot? Probably something with a miniature neon umbrella.”

“Uuuh. I…” Landon glanced at Danny, who was leaned against the counter watching the show with a shit-eating grin. “Are you supposed to be back there?” Landon asked.

“Oh, rule-minders turn you on?” she asked, pouring a pair of whiskey shots. Cheap ones, because she was guessing Landon wasn’t fancy.

“I am fairly sure nothing has turned me on more than you leaning over a pair of bottom-shelf whiskey shots with your cleavage hanging out.” He smoothly lifted his phone up, and she heard the click of his camera function.

“You just said like five words in a row,” Danny pointed out to her. “That’s more than I think I’ve ever heard you talk.”

“Me too,” Rita said from where she always sat, three seats down from Landon. She was a regular, a widow who liked eating dinners around people to avoid her empty house.

“Wait, wait, wait, do you work here?” Landon asked, and now there was a hint of a baffled smile on his masculine lips. He ran a hand down the blond scruff on his jaw. “I brought you to where you work on our first date? You’re a bartender?”

“Surprised?” she asked, swimming in the changes of his facial expressions. He was fun to shock.

“You don’t even like people.”

Lucia shrugged and poured Rita a greyhound to replace her empty. She always drank the same thing. Three greyhounds with dinner before she headed three buildings down to where she lived.

“Lucia’s the only bartender I’ve ever met that doesn’t say an entire sentence on any given shift,” Danny explained. “People around here are used to her. There’s about zero percent charm with that one.”

“I’ll fight anyone who tries to make me talk,” she said.

“Hands down the most unapproachable bartender in the world,” Danny said, counting out change from the drawer to close out a tab. “Horrible to work with, worst teammate, and you want to hear the craziest part?”

“Absolutely,” Landon muttered, his blond brows arched up.

Danny pointed to a row of pictures hanging on the wall beside the bar. All were of Lucia wearing the same scowl. “She keeps this place in business. She can handle any rush on her own, and people started coming from all over to see the Grumpy Bartender. She easily doubles my sales. It’s fuckin’ annoying.”

“Your nickname is the Grumpy Bartender?” Landon asked.

Danny answered for her. “She has a personalized parking spot up front with her nickname on it.”

Landon dragged his gaze back to her, looking absolutely amused.

Lucia mimicked the scowl she wore in the pictures. He laughed, clapped once, and leaned back in his chair. “This is fucking awesome.” Landon looked around. “I’m dating a bartender.”

“You’re dating her?” Danny asked.

“No,” Lucia quipped. “He just stole me some stupid flowers and threw them on my lawn.”

“And I would steal them again. Kirk was being a dick.”

She frowned and lifted her small shot glass. “Kirk is nice. Your dad just looks for trouble.”

“Kirk toilet-papered my parents’ house and hid my dad’s truck in the woods.” He lifted his shot glass and tinked it against hers, then they set the bottoms on the countertop for luck and tossed back the drinks.

Lucia wasn’t a big whiskey drinker, and it burned all the way down. She shook her head and pulled a face, then said, “Kirk only reacts. He doesn’t start. What did your dad do to him?”

“Put hair growth serum in his bodywash,” Landon said.

Lucia hid her face and busied herself making a couple of drinks for them to hide her smile. Those Fullers needed no encouragement.

“He’s been walking around the trailer park like a woolly mammoth,” Landon said nonchalantly as he looked around. “Do you know everyone in here?”

It took a second for her to recover from the vision of Kirk, the Boarlander Silverback, walking around looking like a mammoth. “A lot of them are locals.” She’d already taken stock of everyone here at a glance. It was a gift for some shifters to be able to do that, and she happened to be one of those shifters.

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