Page 1 of Sirens
ONE
In the weeds
WHEN SOMEONE IS SO BUSY—OFTEN OVERWHELMED—THAT THEY CAN’T CATCH UP AND SERVICE QUALITY TAKES A HIT
Maggie Michaels stared blanklyat the backlit array of bottles, desperately trying to remember what the hell actually went into a Long Island Iced Tea.
Which was kind of ironic, because wasn’t obliterating your memory kind of the point of a Long Island Iced Tea?
Or was that just a thing at Kelly’s Irish Pub back in Boston?
After several stymied moments drumming her long, elaborately painted nails on the old wood bar, all she could recall was a beverage that tasted vaguely like its refreshing, lemony namesake, and had frequently resulted in the loss of her keys, several items of clothing, and a shit-ton of pride.
And hell, just about any combination of the mood-enhancing elixirs in front of her would do that, right?
Grabbing a glass from the rack, she dumped in a shovel of ice and began tipping in healthy glugs of everything but eye of newt. Next came a blast of cola, which turned the drink somethingkind of like the right shade. She topped it off with a chunk of lemon that could only be described as a wedge by someone who was excessively kind or legally blind.
Whatever. It was at least worth the “Four-dollar mixed drinks!!” advertised on the happy hour chalkboard propped near the entrance.
Happy hour.
If Maggie had a time machine, she’d zap herself back to find whatever asshat had come up with the concept and punch him in the neck meat.
Okay, first, she’d zap herself back to 1880s London to have tea andTeawith infamous madam Marry Jeffries,thenshe’d punch happy-hour guy—because it was surely a guy—in the neck meat.
Or the dick.
“Is that mine?”
Speaking of…
Maggie turned on her heel to find Kurt, whose fingers she might have to bend into a pretzel if he didn’t stop snapping them at her every damn time he shoved a new slip of paper into the already overloaded drink ticket carousel, looking at her expectantly.
“Sure is.” Maggie slid the glass across the bar just hard enough to send a tiny amber wave tipping over the Kurt-ward side.
“What is it?” he asked, eyeing the glass.
“A Long Island Iced Tea.”
Kurt’s thin lips pursed into a judicious pout. “It doesn’t look like a Long Island Iced Tea.”
“It’s from South Shore,” Maggie said, parking a hand on her hip. “You got a problem with that?”
It was almost refreshing, letting the East Coast burr of her youth flirt with the syllables of her question after years spent carefully training it out of her voice.
Kurt wisely decided he didn’t.
He gave her a beleaguered sigh and mopped the glass with an already badly used towel before shuttling it off to one of the many packed tables.
Maggie sucked in a lungful of air carrying a cocktail of scents as odd as the one she’d just mixed. Briny air gusting in the second-story deck where patrons fought the seagulls for their battered fries. The earthy pong of the deep-fat fryer responsible for said fries. The roasty undercurrent of beer that said fries were being washed down with.
And beneath it all, Sirens Pub itself.
With its nautical kitsch of real fishing nets draped across the ceiling and faux portholes on the walls, this joint really knew how to beat a theme to literal death. Because: mermaids. Mermaids on the menus, mermaids on the taps, a massive mural behind the bar featuring a mermaid squeezing her excessively perky, titanic tits.
Definitelypainted by a man.
Pausing to massage a sympathetic pang in her lower back, Maggie turned back to the wheel of tickets.
