Page 2 of Shaken Knot Stirred

I grinned and turned back to Becky, who let out a breath. The warm, golden lighting made her highlights sparkly. Becky, yeah, she had a delicious aura. It was velvety and thick, like Irish cream. And static too, like most beta auras; it wasn’t prone to the chaos and volatility of an alpha or the narcotic sea of an omega. Still, she needed settling after that.

I pulled a wide fat martini glass from behind me and filled it with ice to chill. I had quite the collection of glassware that rarely got used. Most patrons of the Delta Lounge were the beer and a shot crowd.

“You didn’t have to do that, Moxie,” Becky said, tucking her bangs behind her ear. The $20 bill I’d slapped down in front of her stared at her like a viper.

“Oh, but I did. This is my place, and you are a friend. No one treats my friends like that.”

“She gets off on it.” Helena said, not picking her head up from her phone.

Noone needed to know the real reason I stashed baseball bat behind the bar. I had considered a shotgun for a while but axed that idea. First of all, I couldn’t trust Marty, my line cook, to make good choices with deadly weapons. The kid was sweet, good at his job, best dick that money could buy, but not the brightest crayon in the box.

The real reason was mind-fuckery. The threat of a firearm was predictable, which made it ignorable, especially for an amped-up alpha. Pumped full of ego and aura, alphas could see guns as toys and slide into bravado, trusting their instincts to dodge bullets.

But a girl with curves and cleavage stepping up to you with a Louisville Slugger? Now that was unpredictable. To get the upper hand with alphas, you had to disrupt their patterns. Fuck their brains into mistakes and stupidity.

No alpha would ever suspect a little beta going to town on them with a bat.

No alpha would suspect that little beta to be an omega auracle hiding out, and those were cards I needed to keep very close to my chest. My little bat helped me achieve that.

My fingers stilled on the well vodka. Becky deserved top shelf tonight. I stepped back and pulled a bottle of Amabie Vodka and the milk chocolate liqueur from the glass shelves behind me.

I filled a pint glass with ice, two jiggers of vodka, and a healthy pull of the liqueur. I stared into the depths of the glass. It needed something else. A dash of cream would do it.

I spun the plastic tub of cocoa powder in front of me. Becky’s aura wasn’t bitter enough for cocoa. The lack of trauma made it butter-smooth. It needed a flavor to compliment that. Textures and tastes sometime got mixed up for you. No one could convince me that 'smooth' didn't have a flavor.

I didn’t know if it was the same with other auracles, that they perceived things in the same way. I avoided them like, well, like everyone else. But to me? Auras had color and texture and tastes. Just like your tongue could tell the difference between heavy cream and oat milk, each aura tasted different to me. Becky hadn’t ordered this drink. They never ordered this drink. But I knew she needed it.

I squeezed my eyes shut and put away the cocoa and reached for an envelope of hot chocolate mix. Contrary to popular belief, cocoa and hot chocolate were two completely different products. This was madness. This obsession with making drinks that tasted like people’s auras. I’d tried to go cold turkey once and just ignore the fact that I was a freak who could see them. That had been a fucking disaster.

My brain needed some way to cope with all the extra sensory input, especially in crowds. It forced me to focus on one person, one aura at a time, and kept me from being swampedwith information I didn’t really want. I had so few outlets for processing all this now. I didn’t even have one single friend I could unburden myself to and spill all the tea with. Making drinks to match random people’s auras was a crutch and my only coping mechanism.

I popped the shaker on the pint glass and went to town. No showy flips in the Delta Lounge. This wasn’t a fancy heat hotel where you had to keep the patrons entertained with pretty things. This was just a dive bar just beyond the suburbs where strip malls gave way to farmland. I filled the glass to the rim, sprinkled some hot cocoa dust on top, and then I just stared at the thing.

It was still missing something. Without looking, I fished out a can from the little fridge under the bar and added a perfect little knot of whipped cream.

Knot.

I shivered at the word as it danced through my gray matter.Keep your eyes to yourself Moxie, and just ignore the stupid alpha.I knew I wasn’t putting out enough scent to be noticed. And I knew for damn sure he couldn’t see my aura. But it still felt risky to entertain ideas that could blow up my life.

I placed the drink in front of Becky with more brightness than I actually felt. Her eyes sparkled. She had gotten used to my surprise drinks. And was delighted each and every time I refused payment

She leaned forward to watch the progression of the glass as it made its way to her lips. Martini glasses were the bane of every bartender’s existence. If you didn’t fill it to the rim, people got pissed that you were shorting their drink. If you did fill it to the rim, it was practically undrinkable without spilling. She swooned as the sweetness of the chocolate martini hit her tongue.

“How do you always know exactly what I want?” Becky asked in wonderment, not for the first time.

“That’s why I get paid the big bucks,” I said before turning to Helena. “Why don’t you take off?” It was just Becky and the alpha and a table of betas in the far back. I could handle closing.

“I’m waiting on them to cash out.” She jutted her chin toward the table. Those betas popped in a couple times a month and were pretty decent tippers.

I crumpled the instant cocoa envelope and tossed it in the trash. Of course, I missed. I always missed. Keeping my grunt of disgust to myself, I swooped it off the floor and placed it properly in the bin, folding over the cardboard holder for the six-pack of ginger beer I had just restocked and stuffed everything down. I took a step away from the bar and couldn’t move any further, like I had gotten caught up in some force field.

Damn it.

My sigh was very audible and very annoyed as I smacked a highball glass on the bar and reached for one of the ginger beers. The clatter of the ice would have been soothing if I was in the mood to be soothed. I free-poured 2 ounces-ish of Kappa Dark Rum. The spicy bite of the alcohol tickled my nose. I spun the ice in the glass with two bar straws. I always liked my booze to be icy before I put in anything fizzy.

My epic stretch for a bottle opener displaced my locket. It swung beneath my shirt. The top of the ginger beer gave me a happy-sounding pop. I grabbed a fresh lime from the basket behind the bar. I had plenty cut up, but I wanted a twist, not a slice. The channel knife pulled the perfect strip of rind. When I could, I liked to zest citrus right over the glass to not waste all those potent essential oils. I rimmed the glass and dropped the twist in.

The alpha was lounging in his usual spot without a care in the world. His whisky, neat, still on its little paper napkin. He wasdeep in concentration, one hand lovingly cradling the book, the other absently pinching his bottom lip. I’d seen him do that quite often. When he thought no one was looking, he’d fall into these idiosyncratic habits, like pulling on a strand of hair or pinching his lip. The second he registered attention paid to him, it was like a curtain fell, and his entire demeanor changed. His aura changed, too.

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