Page 9 of Mourner for Hire
His tongue strokes the inside of his cheek as he leans back on the bar behind him and tosses the rag over his shoulder.
I throw back the rest of my beer, and he replaces it with another.
“Are you trying to get me drunk? Because I don’t get drunk alone. And I have to drive.”
“Trust me. Traffic isn’t moving.”
I consider this a moment and realize my bladder feels like it might burst. I drank a lot of coffee on the way down here. “I need to use the restroom again.”
I move to grab my purse and my beer to take with me.
“It’s okay. You can leave it.”
I eye him with so much skepticism, I hope he feels it deep in his bones.
He takes a coaster and places it on top of the glass. “You’re good. I’ve got you.”
His words ooze over me like honey—comforting and safe.
But I couldn’t care less.
I slide the camera on my phone open and snap a picture of him. “Well, I hope so. I’ll be right back.”
Quickly, I text my best friend, Morgan, the picture of him and write:
Me
If I disappear tonight. He killed me.
I wait for no response, pee, wash my hands, and return to my seat.
He places two shot glasses between us and pours two shots of brown liquor. “It’s the good bourbon.”
I take the shot in my hands as I say, “I don’t know if I like you very much.”
It’s a very untrue statement. I like him very much even though I’ve only known him for an hour, tops.
“So tell me who you’re here for because I don’t know of any funerals happening, and like I said earlier?—”
“You know everybody,” I mock and throw back the bourbon.
My phone buzzes, and I slide open the screen to a response from Morgan.
Morgan
Oh my! I feel like you might enjoy being killed by him.
I suppress a laugh and look back at him with an indignant expression.
The right side of his mouth curls into a smile. “You think I’m an asshole.”
“No, I just know your type.”
He raises his eyebrows. “And that is?”
I let go of a dramatic exhale. “You’re tall, dark, and handsome. You probably have slept with a good amount of the adult females in Shellport, but you keep going back to your high school sweetheart because it’s comfortable. You had everything going for you in high school and traded all your potential in for the town bar because it’s family-owned. Either that, or there’s some unfulfilled dream that failed for some reason buried inside you, but you’re too scared to go back to it. You drive a pickup truck from the nineties because your dad taught you how to fix cars and drive them until the wheels fall off. You have Sunday dinners with your parents. And this is just a hunch, but you probably did a few years in the military. I want to say Army, but the way you just snickered tells me you were in the Air Force. You love podcasts but hate reading. You volunteer at the soup kitchen on Saturday mornings and coach pee-wee football to give back. You’re wholesome but rugged. You get the town drunk on Saturday nights and show up to church on Sunday morning in a clean suit and all your convictions on your sleeve. You think you can get any girl you want because no one has ever proved you wrong.” I pause. “And I’m willing to bet you live in an apartment above the bar.”
He listens intently as I roll out my presumptive resume for him, the hard lines of his face curving into a charming smile, telling me I have him clocked.
