Page 2 of For a Goode Time Call…
She tipped her head side to side. “I know Lucas. My mom is dating him.”
“Ahh, now it all comes together,” I said. "So, your mom is dating my cousin’s boyfriend’s dad.”
She laughed, an unexpectedly beautiful sound, light and merry and energetic, like a small handbell. “Does that make us related?”
I hummed. “No…I don’t believe so, no. Not even by law, since they ain’t married.” I laughed again. “Well, they might be. None of these folk make too big a deal about the difference between being legally married and married in all but the legal sense.”
“So, you don’t know.” She rolled her eyes. “Good to know.”
I waved a hand. “Don’t much matter to me, and it ain’t my business. They love each other, they’re happy, and that’s all that really matters.” I pressed my hand as gently as I knew how against the small of her back. “Come on. Bast may look like a scary-ass mo-fo, but he’s nice as anything.”
She arched her back just slightly; enough to relate to me the fact that she didn’t want me touching her. So, I withdrew my hand and headed for the bar. We took seats near the service bar, where close friends and family tended to hang out.
Bast saw me, dropped off the four beers he’d pulled on the service bar, and extended a closed fist to me. “Ink, how’s it goin’, big guy?”
I tapped his fist with mine. “All right. You?”
Bast nodded. “Can’t complain. Wife is down on the mainland with her dad for the weekend, so I’m batchin’ it.” He glanced at my companion. “You resemble someone I know. Related to Liv Goode, by any chance?”
She nodded. “She’s my mom.”
Bast took a thick stack of cocktail napkins, laid the stack flat on his open palm, and twisted his knuckles into them to spin them into a fan. “You could be her, except for the blonde hair.” He stuck out his hand. “You can call me Bast.”
“I’m Cassie,” she said. “And the resemblance is in the eyes and the jawline.”
Bast just nodded, and eyed us, one and then the other. “Well, pleased to meet you. What can I get you?”
I looked to Cassie, who eyed the line of tap handles. “A light beer,” she said. “Light, but good.”
Bast nodded, glanced at me. “For you, Ink?”
I shrugged—I wasn’t much of drinker, but the situation seemed to call for a beer or two. “Surprise me, long as it ain’t that black shit you could stand a fork up in.”
Bast laughed. “Guinness is amazing. You just gotta drink a whole pint to really get the flavor.”
Within a minute, we both had pints of beer in front of us, and Cassie was eying the single-page laminated menu. “I’ll have…the entire appetizer section.”
Bast blinked. “Really?” When Cassie just stared at him silently, Bast shrugged. “Okay.” A glance at me. “The usual?”
I nodded. “Sounds good. Thanks.”
A few moments of silence ensued as Bast left to ring in our orders, during which time Cassie focused entirely on her beer, ignoring me completely.
“You’re judging me,” she finally said, without looking at me.
I sipped my beer—Bast had brought me something red and malty and rich. “Nope.”
“I just ordered the entire appetizer section.”
I took another sip, and then wiped the foam off my mustache with the back of my hand. “Must be hungry, is all.”
She eyed me, then. Her eyes were hazel—put gray, brown, and green on a Venn diagram and her eye color would be where the circles met. “Yeah, that’s it. I’m just hungry.” She tossed back her beer, finishing the pint in a startlingly short time.
I laughed. “If I was gonna judge you, it’d be for how fast you just downed that beer. But, you did tell me at the outset that you plan on getting blackout.” I figured I’d help her out, finishing mine just as fast. “There. Now we’re even.”
She just fixed those hazel eyes on me with unwavering intensity. “You don’t have to keep up, you know. Or babysit me. I can hold my own.”
I swirled the last bit of red beer and creamy foam around the bottom of the glass. “Cassie, darlin’, look at me. I can drink an almighty, unholy amount of liquor. Between my size and a freak accident of genetics, it’s damned near impossible for me to drink enough to get more’n nicely buzzed.”
