3. Three #2
“Of course not,” Toni replied before I could come up with a response. She pushed out the two open chairs at our table with her foot.
Dalton crossed and sat next to Toni, leaving the only open chair for Knox. It happened to be next to me.
“Hey,” I said to him when he sat. “How are things?”
Knox looked as if he was caught between discomfort and amusement. He leaned into the amusement. “Things are fine. How are they with you?”
As much as I didn’t want to admit it to myself, there was no getting around it. I was often awkward in social situations. I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Well, Lex and I went to knock out a nest of ghouls in the Garden District, and what was supposed to be three or four turned into thirty,” I said. “They were all over the place, under porches and stuff. It was a real mess.”
Dalton’s eyebrows moved toward his hairline. “Seriously? I haven’t heard of any ghouls wandering the Garden District.”
I held out my hands and shrugged. “I hadn’t either. The woman who hired us was adamant. She said there were only three. When we started flushing them out, they came in from every direction. They were like ants.”
“Huh.” Dalton scratched his cheek. “You got away, obviously. Should we put together a team to take them out?”
I almost laughed at the question before catching myself. “No. We got them all.” I thought better of it. “We got all we saw. I guess it wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world to send out a patrol in case there are more up and down the streets in that area.”
“You killed 30 ghouls?” Dalton’s eyes narrowed.
“Lex helped me.” I gestured to my friend, who already had a blonde on his lap and three brunettes hanging on his every word. He’d forgotten Toni and I were even in the bar.
“That’s still a lot of ghouls,” Dalton said. “I’ll take a team out to check. What area were you in?”
He took down the information. The server showed up to get our orders, right as the music began.
Weirdly, even though I loved jazz, live music was not a favorite. I often found it too loud, and if one part of the band didn’t click, it all came across as terrible. While several of the initial bands were good, by the time the fourth band took the stage, terrible was officially on the table.
“What the hell?” Knox groused as they started playing a weird mix of heavy metal and jazz that made me wonder if I was in a fever dream.
“It’s bad,” I agreed, my eyes scanning the band members. I almost fell out of my chair when I recognized the singer. “Wait. I know him.”
Knox followed my gaze. “Who?”
“The singer.” I scowled. “His name is Brett Hayes, but he calls himself Blade.”
Everybody at my table rolled their eyes, so I allowed myself to relax a bit. Apparently bad music could bond us all.
“Did you like him when you met him?” Toni asked, suddenly looking hopeful. She was constantly trying to hook me up with people because she believed my dating life was tragic.
“Did you not just hear the part where he calls himself Blade?” I challenged. “He’s a total tool.”
“And a terrible musician,” Dalton added.
“The worst,” I agreed. “His father is Archie Hayes. He’s the son of the woman who hired us. He didn’t want to pay us. I didn’t ratchet up the bill despite the differential between the ghouls we were told about and the number we ended up taking out.”
“I know Archie Hayes.” Dalton leaned back in his chair. “He’s a real jerk. We tried to buy a building from him for the new pack headquarters about two years ago. He wouldn’t budge on price even though the building had been sitting empty for three years. Last time I checked, it’s still empty.”
“He’s not my favorite person,” I confirmed. “I deposited the check right away because I’m fairly certain he’s the type to stop payment.”
“I don’t know many people who like him,” Dalton replied. “He is respected, but that’s not the same.”
I shifted on my chair and glared at Blade. If it were possible, seeing him perform made me hate him even more. “They’re definitely not going to win.”
Knox chuckled. “Definitely not.”
TWO HOURS LATER, I SAID GOODBYE to Dalton and Knox, who were still entrenched with their beers and having a good time mocking the bands. The live music was letting up, so they were staying to have some quality brother time. At least that’s how Dalton referred to it.
It hadn’t been bad hanging out with Knox, but it wasn’t entirely comfortable either.
“I’ll walk you home,” I said to Toni as we left.
“I was going to call an Uber,” she said. “How about I drop you off at home?”
I considered it, but the glint in her eye told me that was a bad idea. She was drunk enough to give me a hard time, and I wasn’t in the mood. “I’ll wait with you until your Uber picks you up.”
She didn’t argue. I was magically strong — the vampire and witch in me made for a terrific combination — and she wasn’t. She wasn’t anything really. She didn’t have a lick of magic at her disposal, and my magic often confused her.
“Two minutes,” she said after ordering the Uber. The smile she sent me froze my innards. She was not going to let me off the hook. “So,” she said.
“So,” I shot back, practically daring her to take it to a weird place. That turned out to be a bad idea, because Toni was not afraid to take anything to a weird place.
“So you and Knox were kind of chummy,” she said, a small smile curving her lips. “You two seemed pretty comfortable with one another.”
Where the hell was she getting that idea? “Um … we didn’t really talk.”
“You mocked the bands together.”
“We all mocked the bands.”
“Uh-huh.” She wasn’t buying what I was selling. “You know, it’s okay if you have a bit of a crush on Knox. I don’t swing that way, and I find most men gross, but I can see why a woman might find him attractive. He has a lot of muscles and … stuff.”
I narrowed my eyes in warning. “I do not have a crush on him.”
She was the picture of innocence. “Did I say anything?”
“I do not have a crush on him,” I repeated. I wasn’t going to fall for her act. “You need to let that go. We worked a case together. Things got tense for a few minutes. Everyone survived, and we’re over it.”
“Uh-huh.” Toni didn’t even bother to hide what she really thought. “You should ask him out.”
“No way.” I vehemently shook my head. “It’s not happening. You can get that right out of your head.”
She chuckled. “I guess we’ll just have to see about that.”