Page 34 of A Very No Strings Halloween
“You got it. One summer snow comin’ right up.” He grins. “Bourbon smash with a little somethin’ special I think you’ll like.”
Billy pours fresh mint and sliced grapefruit in a glass. Where he got these things from I do not know. Doesn’t seem like that type of bar. But Billy makes things happen. He takes the muddler and gives it a little twirl, making sure I get a real good look at his hands and catching my eye with another wink. We both smile. Then he’s all business, gently crushing the mint and grapefruit. The fragrance reaches my nostrils, all sweet and fresh, and I take a deep breath in. It’s just wonderful.
Next, he scoops in some crushed ice, slamming it hard and making a sound like cymbals crashing. He reaches for the Elijah Craig Single Barrel, spinning the bottle before pouring a generous measure over the ice. The amber liquid seeps down in an artistic pattern, mixing with the frozen aromatics.
He caps the glass with a shaker tin and gives it a solid pump. Vigorous enough for me to get the idea but not so sexy that Piper gets any ideas whatsoever. The ice clinks like high hat drums. Even when he isn’t moving his lips, Billy gets his point across loudly.
When the concert is over, he strains it all into arocks glass filled with fresh ice and garnishes it with a sprig of mint and another grapefruit slice, perched right on the rim. Last but not least, he grabs a little electric fan they’ve got on the bar. He takes a handful of powdered sugar and aims the fan at his open palm. The powdered sugar sprinkles down upon the glass and garnish, making it look like it’s been kissed by frost.
“What the fuck, buddy?” We all turn to find that a middle-aged man standing next to us is also freshly dusted with sugar snow.
“Sorry, man. Your drinks are on me,” Billy tells him amiably.
“Fuckin’ A,” says the happy snowman, raising his glass in salute.
“And there you are, madam. One summer snow.” He slides the drink across the counter.
Piper applauds as I take a sip. “Oh, that’s delicious,” I tell him.
“Good. Hey, you got a little sugar…right…here.” He wipes the corner of my mouth with his thumb and then sucks the tip of his thumb.
His eyes go a little wide. He’s probably worried he’s being too suggestive in front of his cousin’s wife’s niece. Good thing she’s totally distracted by a preppy Harvard type who’s walking past us up to the bar. She gives the back of his dark jeans a real good once-over.Billy does not like that. But then the preppy guy gives Piper the up-down.
Billy’s eyes look like they’re burning so hot they’re going to melt.
“Stella Artois,” Preppy Guy says, not looking at Billy because he’s grinning at Piper.
“Oh, you don’t want a Stella Artois,” Billy says.
That earns Billy the preppy guy’s attention. “I don’t?”
Billy shakes his head. “Nah, too simple.”
He grabs a beer glass and pours Stella into it. I expect him to do a crappy pour and leave it all foamy with a ton of head. But Billy takes as much care with it as he did my drink. When he’s done, Billy slides it toward Preppy.
Preppy looks at Billy, bewildered. “That’s not Stella Artois?”
“Nah, man. The secret is in the garnish. Oh right, I forgot.” Billy searches beneath the bar. “Where’s my cocktail stick? Oh yeah, here it is.” He pulls the baseball bat from beneath the bar and brandishes it at the preppy guy. “That’s a StellaAu Revoir. As in sayonara and get the fuck outta here and quit eyeballin’ underage girls!”
The preppy guy grabs the beer before hauling off, but Billy hops the counter and chases after him, yelling that he’s also not going to take any shitfrom the guy’s friends.
Left alone, Piper turns to me. “So, how long have you and Billy been seeing each other?”
“Oh, we aren’t…I mean we aren’t really dating. We just… We hang out sometimes. We’ve been neighbors for a couple of years, I guess? He’s helping me fix up a house that I’m hoping to move into eventually.”
“Really?! Is he doing, like, carpentry work and stuff?”
“Not yet, but maybe. We haven’t quite started yet, but there’s…a lot to do. And we keep getting sidetracked.”
“Oh,really?” she says, waggling her eyebrows, just like Billy sometimes does. “How so?”
Wow, I am not going to get into it. So instead, I find myself blurting out, “I think the house might be haunted.”
Piper puts down her mug of hot chocolate. “No way! By a ghost or a demon?”
“Ghost. Not a demon. It doesn’t feel evil, it feels sad. And maybe frustrated. Sometimes angry. It might be my patient. Or his wife. Or someone who died on the property before my patient bought it—who knows. I don’t know.”
“Well, you need to find out. You need to ask who it is and what it wants.”
