Page 10 of Melody

“Kyle.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Kyle grinned, cocking his head to the side a little. “How? Is that part of the semi-celebrity thing?”

She was still laughing, surprised at herself, because she hadn’t had this much fun in a long time—and they were just talking. “Kind of. Your lead singer introduced all of you when you were onstage.”

“Oh, yeah.” After taking a sip of Coke, he pondered the brown liquid for a moment before asking another question. “Can youname any of the other band members? Like, if they came up here right now, could you do it?”

Oh. Scarlett hadn’t realized until he called it that she’d been bluffing. She wasn’t any better at remembering names than the next guy, but his name had stuck…because two women she’d waited on earlier had been talking about him not long before he showed up wanting a drink.

Fortunately, she could remember one other name. “Wolf.”

“Nice. Anyone else?”

Nope. She was at a loss. Although she loved the lead singer’s voice and the band as a whole, she hadn’t been able to pay enough attention to the show to commit that information to memory. Besides, they had bands here all the time and most of them had only shown up once the entire time she’d been here. The one band she really knew was the headlining band of the night, Impending Cataclysm. But she didn’t even know their names either. “No.”

“Maybe you have a thing for guitarists.”

“Yeah. That’s what it is.”

“Oh, sarcasm. I’m fluent in that language.”

Scarlett started wiping down the counter beside him. “It’s my native tongue.”

When a couple a few seats down left, she picked up their glasses and wiped the bar at that spot as well. Then she started washing the glasses beside the sink under the counter, ready to finish up for the night. She hadn’t expected Kyle to resume their conversation. “If I tell you something, do you promise not to take it wrong?”

Looking up at him, she said, “Introducing it that way is a pretty sure bet that I will.”

He kept talking as if he hadn’t heard her. “You look like an elf.”

Oh, God. She hadn’t heard that in a very long time—but at least Kyle didn’t seem to be teasing her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I meant it as a compliment.”

But he didn’t seem to be willing to say much more. She’d heard it all the time in middle school, but when she got a pixie haircut in the eighth grade, all it took was one person to point it out and it had stuck until the end of the year. “Okay—but you didn’t have a teacher in middle school calling youTinker Bellall the time.”

“Tinker Bell. That’s cute. It fits you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Yeah,” Kyle said, standing. “All you gotta do is pull your hair up and put on a tiny dress. You could totally pull it off.”

She rolled her eyes, because it was hard to be mad at him. It was obvious he was only teasing. She’d worked with plenty of jackasses in the past but Kyle’s ribbing seemed to be good-natured. “Why would I want to? Do you think it would get me more tips?”

“Hell, yeah. I’d tip Tinker Bell way better. She might sprinkle me with that pixie dust or whatever the hell it’s called.”

All Scarlett could do was shake her head. Ever since she’d grown her hair out at the tender age of thirteen from that disastrous pixie cut, she’d vowed to never give someone another chance to call her by that fictional character’s name—and here she had all but invited it. With renewed vigor, she began washing the glasses.

Kyle said, “I think that’s going to stick. It’s a good name for you. Seems to fit you much better thanScarlett.”

If only he knew.

It was time to send him on his way. The last thing she wanted was for that stupid nickname to stick—and it was also time tocall him on his bluff. “You’re striking out. Have you ever done this before?”

Kyle chuckled. “Donewhat? Talked to a woman?”

“No. Tried to get her number.”

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