Page 14 of Crossroads Magic
The barman beamed at her. His smile faded as he turned to me. “How d’you make hard lemonade?”
I may have gawped at him. “It’s…you serve it in a can, it’s ready made…you don’t have Hard Lemonade?”
“I have beer, spirit, and pop.” The barman reached up and snagged a glass from the racks overhead and put it on the bar. Then he turned around, took a step toward the back of the bar…and his height reduced by two feet.
I leaned forward, astonished, and saw that he really was under five feet tall. He bent and opened a fridge and pulled out a can of lemonade, then stepped back up onto what had to be a ledge or platform running along the length of the bar. I glanced along the length of the bar and could see, at the far end, the edge of the platform. It looked like a raw plank, a foot wide, and worn to smoothness.
The barman pushed the lemonade and the glass toward Ghaliya and winked at her.
Ghaliya gave him one of her sunny smiles, which could stop anyone in their tracks to bathe in warmth and good feelings.
The barman turned back to me, with an expectant expression.
“What spirits do you have?” I asked, for there were no bottles arranged on the shelf behind him.
“Spirit. Singular,” he said. “It’s a local still. Very nice. I recommend it.” As he spoke, he stepped off his platform, moved over to the back of the bar once more and picked up a bottle so old the glass was milky white. No label was attached to it. He stepped back onto the platform, drew another glass off the overhead racks, flipped the heavy base over, then tugged the cork out of the bottle he was holding.
He poured what I had to assume was a shot’s worth of liquid, although he did not measure it.
He stuffed the cork back in the bottle with a slap of his hand and pushed the bottle aside. “That’ll be twelve dollars.”
I stared at him. “You’re joking.”
“That’s the price. Four for the pop, eight for the spirits.” He crossed his arms and I noticed only now the tattoos winding around his very thick wrists and the massive muscles in the forearms. “You’re not going to stiff me, are you?”
Indignation warred with my outrage. I told myself that Johnny Walker Blue sold for fifty a shot in the bars in L.A. I’d watched too many investors drink themselves blind on the stuff. Just because this liquor came out of an unlabeled, unsealed, ancient bottle didn’t make it any less luxurious. Maybe artisanal spirits were the newest rage now. It had been a long time since I’d had the money or the time to drink in a bar.
“You were going to tell me which house was Benedict Marcus’ house?” I said as I pulled my wallet out of my bag.
“I said I’d have to find out,” the barman agreed. He kept his arms crossed, as he drew in a breath. Then he bellowed at the table of men, behind us. “Hey, Ben! Which house is yours, over there?”
I whirled. Outrage won, this time. I could feel my anger licking inside my chest, building the heat. I could barely focus on the table, as one of the men stood up. There were four of them at the table now. The fourth must have returned to the table while the barman was getting our drinks. I thought it was the man who was standing, now.
I put his age at anywhere between mid thirties and mid-fifties. He had a youthful face but his expression and posture, as he glanced at me and Ghaliya, told me he wasn’t as young as he appeared. His hair was black, with tinges of brown in the longer ends. It was naturally wavy and long enough that he had brushed it to one side where it lifted up in a thick body. The rest of his hair had been brushed back behind his ears, but I could see a curl lifting back there, too.
His beard was severely trimmed, so that he could mistakenly be accused of failing to shave, and it was completely pitch black. So were his eyes, beneath straight brows that were as black as his beard.
He wore simple trousers that looked dark grey and a button-up shirt that was black. He’d rolled the sleeves up to his elbows.
His gaze was on me. “Anna?”
I nodded.
Benedict Marcus shook his head and moved around the table, heading for the bar and me. “How much is Hirom trying to stiff you for?” He nodded toward my wallet.
Suddenly, I couldn’t concentrate. My insides were having the most peculiar reaction to Benedict Marcus standing this close to me.
Up close like this, he was just as attractive as he appeared to be from a distance. There was warmth in his black eyes, and his skin had a very mild olive cast to it that made it look smooth and soft.
But close, like this, I could almost feel the heat of his body, which mademefeel cold. Up close, I could see for myself that his shoulders were nice and wide and his hips weren’t.
Get a grip, I told myself firmly. And I remembered, with a sinking feeling, having a reaction like this to Jasper, the first time I’d met him, outside the adult education center where I had been taking a receptionist course.
I’d wallowed in that pit-of-the-belly swooping feeling, that time. And look where it had got me.
So I clamped down hard on the sensation, shook myself off mentally, then ran through my mind the question Benedict Marcus had just asked me.
How much is Hirom trying to stiff you for?
