Page 60 of Demon Loved
Their waiter came by — a guy Brianna had known in high school, Harris Twohey. She’d always had the impression that he’d had a crush on her back then, but since their paths hadn’t crossed much after they’d graduated, she’d never been able to confirm that suspicion.
In fact, she’d heard through the grapevine that he’d moved to Phoenix a year or so ago, but apparently that hadn’t lasted.
Anyway, judging by the way his dark blond brows together as he took in her companion, Bree guessed that her initial impressions had been correct…and that Harris’s crush hadn’t lessened too much over the years.
But at least he sounded polite enough as he asked, “Something to drink?”
“A glass of merlot,” she said. No wine by the bottle here, which was probably just as well. She’d have the one glass with her burger and call it a day. At least that way, there’d probably be less chance of her getting too amorous before the end of the evening.
Oh, who was she kidding? Like she would need to be a little tipsy to convince herself to kiss Bill Garrett again.
As rattled as she might have been that day, she knew she still wanted to take his hands and pull him toward her so their lips could touch and she could experience the thrill of that contact all over again.
With the table where they sat squarely in the way, though, she doubted that was going to happen.
He also ordered a glass of wine, and Harris told them he’d get their drinks while they looked over the menu.
Not that Brianna really needed to. She didn’t eat here as often as she did at some other places, but that didn’t mean she still didn’t know what was on offer.
A barbecue burger this time, probably, just because it had been a while since she’d had one and it sounded good to her. She’d only had salad for lunch, so she figured indulging herself for dinner shouldn’t be too big a deal.
However, Bill picked up his menu and studied it for a moment, then set it aside.
“You know what you want?” she asked.
“I was thinking of the mushroom burger,” he said. “Is it good?”
“Everything here is good,” she told him. “It’s just more a matter of what you’re in the mood for.”
His gaze lingered on her mouth for a moment, and warmth pooled in her stomach. Clearly, his thoughts were running along the same lines that hers had been only a moment earlier.
Harris came back with their wine, though, effectively interrupting that moment of connection. To her relief, however, he didn’t seem to notice the sexual tension she’d thought must have been just as visible as the clouds of pot smoke that tended to hang in the air outside the Spirit Room whenever one of the locals’ favorite bands was playing.
And then they placed their orders, and Harris headed off to the kitchen to take care of things. As soon as he was gone, Bill lifted his wine glass.
“To burgers, haunted or otherwise,” he said, and she couldn’t help grinning.
“Sounds good.”
They clinked glasses and drank. Even though the Haunted Hamburger only served house wine, it was still pretty decent. The merlot sliding down to her stomach helped relax her a little, and she leaned against the back of her chair.
“Do you sense any of the ghosts?” she asked, only half joking.
Bill glanced around them. People were eating and talking and laughing, and Bree had to admit the restaurant didn’t look very haunted…even though she knew better.
“They’re here,” he said quietly. “But I get the sense that they’re not very active when the restaurant is busy.”
A valid impression, since she’d heard pretty much the same thing from the people she knew who’d worked here over the years. You could get a sense of a presence, but doors didn’t slam and pans didn’t get knocked to the floor by unseen hands until the place was closed and all the customers had gone home.
And there was also her cousin Dayna’s horror story about getting locked in the meat freezer one night while she was at the restaurant cleaning up after her shift. Luckily, someone had come back because they’d left their phone in their locker and had heard her beating on the freezer door, so Dayna hadn’t been trapped in there for more than ten minutes at the most.
Still, she’d quit the next day and had never set foot in the place since then, even though that had happened more than five years ago now.
“I suppose they don’t want to feel like they’re putting on a show or something,” she said, then sipped some more of her wine.
“That could be it,” Bill agreed. “Or possibly the vibrations of all these people help to keep them away. I don’t really know that much about ghosts.”
Neither did she. That was Angela’s thing, since she’d been talking to ghosts since she was ten years old, long before she became prima. Probably if asked, she would have said every ghost was different, just as all people were different, so you couldn’t expect them to all act the same.
