Page 47 of Lucifer's Hounds

“Mindy, this is Carrie. She works for the company that bought my house. Carrie, this is my best friend and co-worker, Mindy.”

Mindy extends her hand to Carrie. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too. I love my guys, but thank God there are women around here. Since the bar isn’t open, are y’all serving beer?” she asks.

Mindy giggles. “Yes ma’am, we are. What would you like, babe?” she asks as she walks behind the bar.

“Hey! While you’re back there, can I get another beer and another double shot of Fireball?” Leo asks from across the bar.

“Sure thing,” Mindy fixes his shot, and grabs his beer.

“I just want an Ultra, please.” Carrie sits down in the empty barstool next to me.

“I hear Cass is into one of the bartenders here. I bet I know which one,” Carrie elbows me with a smile on her face.

Mindy throws her hands up in protest. “Not me. Not this girl.” She points at me. “Her. Ask her. She’ll tell you all about her mystery biker.”

“Mystery biker?” Carrie asks, looking at me.

“Long story. He played Houdini for a while, and that’s what we referred to him as. He was mysterious. Sneaky.”

Carrie gives me a quizzical look. “Cass? Mysterious? I guess I could see that.”

I look down at my phone. Nothing. I open the message between me and Cass.

Lilly: How’s Cali?

I can’t help but let my mind wander to what he’s doing. As bad as I hate to admit it, I miss him. He has a knack for keeping a smile on my face. I picture his silly, smiling face. A smile spreads across my face at the thought of our pie fight last night.

“Lilly?” Carrie says, cutting through my reminiscing.

“What?”

“I was asking how you met Cass.”

“Oh,” I say softly, still smiling

“Well, you see, what had happened was—”

Scott laughs from the other side of the bar. “A story like that is always a good one.”

“I met him in Houston when I went on a mini-vacation. We met at a pool hall, and ended up spending a little bit of time together, then he disappeared. Then one night, I got hammered here after closing about a week or two later and I got woken up to him pretending to be a motorcycle in the lounge.”

“Pretending to be a motorcycle?” Leo asks.

“Yeah, you know, snoring.” Everyone bursts out laughing.

“Obviously, you have never been around Scott when he sleeps,” Carrie adds.

“Hey now,” Scott protests.

“You know it’s true. You can’t sleep within a mile of him without hearing him.” Carrie shakes her head at me while Scott hangs his head.

“That bad, huh?” I ask.

“I am not that bad.”

My phone buzzes, grabbing my attention.

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