Page 4 of Mourner for Hire
He is all muscle and hard lines. He’s wearing a black shirt with the bar’s logo over the right side of his chest, his arms are dripping in tattoos, and his trimmed beard screams small-town loyalty. The towel thrown over his shoulder would indicate he’s probably the bartender.
He’s more attractive than any man I’ve ever seen in real life, but I am a most respectable adult and shovel that objectifying thought out of my brain, then clear my throat. “Can I just use your restroom, please?”
“Of course.” He turns, gesturing the way inside the bar, but otherwise not caring about me either way.
I escape into the bar and immediately find the metal sign indicating where the restroom is before taking in my surroundings.
When I finish, I exit the restroom and am completely surprised by the sight of the bar and how many people stuck in traffic have trickled in during the time it took me to pee. I’d thought it would be dark and sticky, considering the outside looks like a prison, but this bar is… fun?
The oak floors are lacquered and clean, and old diner-style chairs and tables are scattered throughout half of the room. The other half is packed with pool tables and arcade games, and an entire wall of liquor lines one wall lit in blue LED lights.
But the real show-stopper is the back wall. It’s entirely made of windows with a wrap-around deck with string lights. The bar is perched on a hill so the view of the valley and the ocean beyond is breathtaking and truly unexpected. The valley below is a mixture of suburban homes, fields, and rolling hills that bleed into the rugged terrain of Pacific Northwest coast.
I smile a little to myself. Apparently, you can’t judge a bar by its parking lot.
“What’ll it be?” the bartender I body-slammed outside says, now behind the bar after flipping on the neon sign that readsOpenon the front door.
I slip my phone out of my pocket to check the GPS. “Well?—”
“Trust me. You aren’t going anywhere for a long time…” he tells me before I can even respond, drawing out the sentence so I fill it with my name.
“Vada,” I answer.
“Dunner.”
I raise my brows. It sounds like a dog’s name. “That’s your name?”
“It’s what my friends call me.”
“So I’m a friend?”
“If you want to be.”
The depth of his voice sends shivers over my skin, and I let my dark hair fall forward to camouflage the blood rushing to my cheeks.
I clear my throat. “Red wine, please.”
He cocks an eyebrow, and I glance at the shelves and the chalkboard menu behind him. The list of drinks seems to just be names. The Billie. The Carrie. The Lucifer.
I withhold a laugh. “Ah, not that kind of bar?”
“Not unless you want the cheap stuff my grandma used to drink out of abox.”
I let out a laugh and decide to not decipher the drink list behind him. “Fine. A pale ale, please. Whatever you have on tap.”
He nods and immediately fills the mug, his attention being drawn to the other traffic jammers trickling through the old wood door. He slides me the beer and a menu.
“Stay a while,” he says.
His voice is expressionless but also… dreamy? And I am well aware this little crush I’m developing on the bartender is ridiculous.
I scan the menu while he hustles behind the now-busy bar. After several minutes, he returns and leans over the counter on his elbows. While the space is large, so is he, and I find myself instinctively sitting straighter.
“You hungry?”
“Starving,” I admit, realizing dinnertime struck an hour ago. “Can I get the burger? Medium with grilled onions?”
He almost smiles as he leans back, hooking his fingers under the bar. The action makes his forearms flex under his tattoos, and I pretend I’m not looking. Then he taps the bar top without another word and disappears into the back.
