Page 26 of One Night Only
“I’ll be right back here.” He motions with his newspaper toward the other room. Through the door, I spy a low chair next to a radio. “Call if you need me.”
I flinch as another flurry of hailstones beats down on the window. I’m already looking forward to a nice long soak in my bedroom bathtub. But now I’m safe from the elements, I’m almost cozy. Faint radio voices sound from the next room and the store smells comfortingly of wood tinged with tobacco. I squeeze my way over to the left-hand wall, where racks of tabloids,National Geographics and two-year-old fashion titles greet me. I pick one up at random but am too fascinated by the treasure trove around me to read it.
I’m rummaging through a crate of secondhand board games when the door opens again, the bell tinkling merrily despite the apocalypse outside.
I can’t see the newcomer from where I am, but I do hear Mick lumber back out as the door rattles shut.
“Well, if it isn’t the prodigal son.”
“You still alive then?”
I freeze at the voice. Declan.
“They won’t let me go,” Mick says. “Fit as a fiddle apparently, despite my best efforts.”
Declan laughs as he heads toward the counter. I still can’t see him, but from the sound of his footsteps I mirror his movements, walking backward to put as much space between us as possible. I haven’t exactly figured out how I’m going to handle this little situation. We’re going to have to talk again eventually but not when my clothes are so wet I’m leaving a puddle beneath me.
“Do you have any painkillers?” Declan asks. “The serious kind?”
“Of course not,” Mick says. “I’m not a pharmacist. But if I did, they’d be over to the left and I’d give you the choice of the strong ones or the very strong ones.”
“Better make it very strong.”
“Late one last night, was it?”
He mutters something I can’t make out and Mick laughs.
“Anything to wash it down with?” Declan asks in normal tones.
“There’s something luminous by the magazines.”
I look in horror at the ice cooler beside me and scurry as quietly as I can to the other aisle as Declan’s footsteps sound across the floorboards.
Finally, I catch a glimpse of him through the space in the shelves. Or part of him anyway. He stands with his back to me, examining Mick’s refrigerator. His curls are almost black from the rain, plastered to his head. The back of his neck peeks out over his raincoat.
I have the strangest urge to touch it.
It’s probably for the best.
Mary’s words at the castle come back to me and I frown, wishing I had asked her what she meant.
Declan grabs a bright blue bottle from the fridge and flicks the door closed. “You got your suit ready?” He calls to Mick. “Got the mothballs out?”
“Enough of that,” Mick chides as we move again. Declan to the counter. Me to the door.
“I don’t want to look too handsome, mind you,” Mick continues. “Wouldn’t want to take away from the groom.”
“Of course not.”
I wait just out of view, eyeing the way out like I’m Indiana Jones.
“I’ll have you know, I had many women chasing after me back in the day,” Mick says over the ding of the cash register. “Why your own grandmother—”
Declan cuts him off with a groan and I step into the main aisle, my fingers brushing the worn brass doorknob as Mick’s voice calls from the other end of the store.
“It’s still raining, my dear.”
Great.
