Page 7 of Her Reborn Mate

I was not gripped by the fact that I had moved away from Fiddler’s Green. That had always been the plan, even after Will became my mate. I had foreseen that he and I would move somewhere like San Francisco or Los Angeles, far away from the madness prevailing in that vampire-infested port city. I did not miss the people there. Well, apart from Vince and Maliha. The real sorrow infused down to my marrow was the loss of my mate. Had he been my mate at all, though? I couldn’t help but think that in his mind, I was always Ariana and that when he was dating me, feigning to be my mate, he must have been thinking that he was having a romantic affair with the woman of his dreams, the woman whose name he uttered before dying. What a fucking travesty.

Thoughts like these perfused the air around me whenever I was alone, making it impossible to stay in seclusion.

I raced downstairs, eager to join the chatter and the bustle of the bar and leave the maddening din of my mind behind me.

“Don’t you look a million bucks?” Izzie asked from behind the counter. The place was far more populated than it was when I left. More people were sitting in the booths and around the tables, many of them with drinks and food in front of them. “I bet you feel better too.”

“Tons. There was hot water in the bathroom. And a couple of painkillers in the First Aid kit. I’m much better,” I said.

“Good. Then go in the back. Emilia, our cook, is making some lunch. You can eat in the back while she tells you what your responsibilities will be,” Izzie said.

“Or I can just take the bar,” I said. “I was a bartender for a long stretch back in my old town.”

“Initiative. I like that. All right, then, kiddo. I hope you don’t mind if I go out in the back and have a smoke break, do you? Also, I’m taking a long lunch. So, yeah. The bar’s all yours,” Izzie said and then disappeared in the back.

I went behind the bar, assessing the number of people in there. There must have been no more than thirty patrons in the bar. Most of them were already drinking. Only one fellow was sitting at the bar itself, a man wearing a crisp suit, his blonde hair parted down the side. He was chewing on a toothpick, scrolling through his phone.

“What’ll you be having?” I asked as I flung the washcloth over my shoulder and donned the apron. It was always good to be wearing an apron while behind the bar. Many of the drinks made quite a bit of a splash when I made them.

“Well, I seem to have a cause for celebration,” the man said, smiling warmly at me. From his face, I could see that he was not much older than me. Thirty, at the most. He had a clean-shaved and angular face with a slim nose and sharp chin. “See, I got promoted at work today. They put me in charge of acquisitions. It’s kind of a big leap from my previous job. I was just a truck driver when I joined the company. But now, look at me.”

“I’m looking at you,” I said, realizing I was headed into flirting territory. I passed him a smile. “Back from where I came, real men celebrated with whiskey. Are you a real man?”

As reckless as it was, being behind the bar and wooing the customer brought back some shred of sanity to my warbled mind. It helped that the man was easy on the eyes. It wasn’t like I was engaged or in a relationship. I was in mourning, but there was no written law in the Millennial’s Guide To Mourning that said that I couldn’t do what I was doing. In fact, there was an entire chapter called Rebounds especially written for people going through terrible breakups. Wasn’t I broken up and terribly so? Hadn’t my mate rejected me by saying another woman’s name before he died? Didn’t he reject me by dying on me?

“A real man, jeez. That’s a term you don’t hear much, what with gender being a spectrum thing these days,” he said.

“A real man’s a real man on any spectrum,” I said, pouring him a shot of whiskey and sliding it across the bar. He deftly caught it and lifted it to his face.

“I’ll drink to that,” he said.

“I’ll join you,” I said.

I filled my shot glass with whiskey and clinked my glass with his.

“To real men,” he said.

“And to your promotion,” I chimed in.

“Another one, miss….”

“Richards. Alexis Richards.”

“Another one, Miss Richards. And make it a double, please.”

“And you are?”

“They call me Lawrence Fischer. But my mom calls me Fishy on account of my not being up to a lot of good.”

I chuckled. The man was amusing. He was serving his purpose just as I was serving his. For me, Lawrence was a mild distraction from the abysmal darkness all around me. I couldn’t help but feel that I had deserved some distraction.

“Your accent’s not from here,” Lawrence said, downing two more shots.

“Neither’s yours,” I said.

“You caught me. I’m a Yankee.”

“And I’m a Fiddler’s Green hick,” I said.

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