Chapter 5
?
— Handful —
Eleven weeks. Not that I was counting. Okay, I absolutely was counting — which would’ve gotten a laugh out of the version of me who sat in church a couple months back, watching Dutch run church with Maya asleep on his chest, thinking why does everybody track this kid by the week?
I’d been smug about it. Sworn up and down I’d never once told a soul how many weeks old I was. Apparently it was catching.
Now here I was. Eleven weeks since I’d first sat down at The Velvet Hour — Velvet, as the regulars called it.
I guessed I was a regular now. Eleven weeks of the same stool, the same drink — always an Old Fashioned, because damn, Austen made a killer Old Fashioned — the same book — Pride and Prejudice, which I was grinding through a few pages at a time.
Just hit the part where Wickham showed up smiling, lying about everyone who’d ever done him wrong.
Eleven weeks of not flirting with her staff.
Eleven weeks of tipping thirty percent, keeping my hands on the bar, and my eyes where they belonged.
On Wednesday, she’d said yes. One date. Her rules. Somewhere quiet, not a club thing, no surprises.
Now, three hours before the date. I was standing in my room in a T-shirt and jeans, looking at the contents of my closet when Indira knocked.
“Dutch said you needed help.”
“Dutch has a big mouth.”
“Dutch has excellent instincts.” She walked in without waiting for an invitation, Maya on her hip - not a newborn anymore but not quite a person yet, somewhere in the middle where her eyes tracked movement and her hands grabbed anything within reach.
Indira looked at my closet. Then she looked at me. Her expression was the one she reserved for marketing proposals that needed to be burned and started over.
“No,” she said.
“I haven’t even—”
“Whatever you’re thinking, no.” She shifted Maya to her other hip and opened the closet door wider with her free hand. Pushed past the row of flannels and black T-shirts and the jacket I wore on runs. Found something near the back.
“This.” She pulled out a navy button-down I’d forgotten I owned.
I’d bought it for the sister-in-law’s birthday dinner, the one where she’d made it clear: no cuts, no black T-shirts, dress properly.
It had been hanging there since, pressed between a hoodie and a leather jacket, waiting for a reason to wear it again.
“Too formal,” I said.
“Not formal enough.” She held it up against my chest, one-handed, eyeing it critically. Maya reached for the collar. “Roll the sleeves to the elbows. Wear it untucked. Clean jeans — not those, the dark ones. Black boots.”
“Anything else?”
“Shower.”
I shot her a look. “I was going to shower.”
“Shower twice.” She hung the shirt on the back of the door and looked at me. “Where are you taking her?”
“Fir & Salt in Willowbrook. Bea’s recommendation.”
Indira’s brow went up. “Never heard of it.”
“That’s kind of the point.”
She considered that, then held Maya out toward me. “Take her a minute.”
I took her without thinking. Maya came easy — she always did with me — just a small sound as she figured out where she wanted her head and then she was settled, cheek warm against my shoulder. She reached up and found a fistful of my hair and held on.
I let her. Tilted my head a little to give her better reach while Indira crouched to deal with her shoe.
“She’s going to be trouble,” I said. “When she’s older. Going to break hearts and bust balls at the same time. Nobody’s going to see it coming.”
“She’s fourteen weeks old,” Indira protested.
“I know what I’m saying. She’s got the look.” Maya made a soft noise, not asking for anything, just registering my voice. “She’s got a whole club full of uncles though. Nobody gets close without passing inspection.”
Indira looked up from the floor. “Speaking of.”
“What?”
“Think about what you just said.” She stood. “About Maya. About her potential dates - which are very, very, very far off in the future - needing to pass what will no doubt be a very thorough inspection by all of you. Her uncles.”
I nodded. Sure. Yeah. I said that.
“Austen’s somebody’s daughter.”
I nodded again. Yeah. That tracks. Austen’s got parents.
“She might have brothers. Maybe uncles. Men who’ve known her since she was small — who feel exactly what you feel right now about that baby in your arms.”
Oh.
Maya pulled my hair. I didn’t move.
Indira watched my face. “You already convinced her to give you tonight — that was the hard part. Just remember she’s got a father while you’re sitting across from her.
It’ll keep you honest.” She reached for Maya, who made a sound of protest when she left my shoulder.
Indira resettled her on her hip and moved toward the door.
She stopped. “One last piece of advice, Handful.”
I looked up. “Yeah.”
“Don’t fuck this up.”
“That’s the plan,” I replied with a grin.
“Good.” She paused. “The navy brings out your eyes. You look almost respectable.”
She left. Maya’s fist had left a small wrinkle in my T-shirt, right over my chest. I looked at it for a second, then pulled the shirt off and went to shower.
?
Fir & Salt was exactly what Bea had described. Side street off the main drag, no sign you’d notice unless you were looking — small, dim, the kind of place that ran on word of mouth and kept its regulars.
I was twenty minutes early.
The host put me at the corner table by the window, which Bea had told me to ask for.
Fir & Salt, she’d said when I’d gone to her on Thursday asking for help finding somewhere suitable for a first date with someone special.
Menu’s local, changes every few weeks. The wine list is short.
Ask for the corner table — better light, more room.
I sat there with a glass of water for twenty minutes before the door opened and Austen walked in.
She was wearing something green. Dark green. I didn’t know enough about women’s clothes to describe it beyond that, but it did something to her hair and her eyes that made me forget what I’d planned to say when I stood up. “You’re here,” was all I managed. Smooth, Handful. Real smooth.
“I’m here.” She looked me over. The navy button-down, the rolled sleeves, the boots. Her expression was playful. “You clean up well.”
“I had help.”
“I’d never have guessed.” She looked me over once more, unhurried. “I didn’t know you came in colors other than black.” She sat down across from me. I waited until she was settled, then took my chair. She glanced toward the door. “You drove? I didn’t see a bike outside.”
“Parked the bike two blocks away. Didn’t want to make an entrance.”
“You continue to surprise me.”
“Good. Keep you on your toes.” I pulled my chair in. “A man shows all his cards on a first date, what’s he got left for the second?”
“You’re assuming there’s a second.”
“I’m an optimist.”
She laughed.
The corner gave us room, like Bea had promised — but the candle between us pulled everything in close.
It was real, not electric, and it threw soft light across Austen’s face.
Her hair was down, which I hadn’t seen before — at the bar she kept it up, out of the way, practical. Down, it made her seem less armored.
“Rules check.” She held up one finger. “Somewhere quiet.”
“Quiet.” I glanced around the room. Couple at the far table, a man reading alone at the bar. Nobody who knew either of us.
She ticked it off. Second finger. “Not a club thing.”
“Not a club thing. Nobody from Venom knows we’re here. Bea and Indira, that’s it.”
Third finger. “No surprises.”
“No surprises. Menu’s local. Wine list is short. I’ve been told the food is excellent.”
She studied the three ticked fingers, then looked up at me. Something in her expression had gone warm. Amused. “You did your research. I’m impressed.” The corner of her mouth lifted. And just like that, the nerves I’d been carrying since Wednesday settled.
I’d never been nervous in front of a woman in my life. I filed that away to think about later.
She picked up the menu. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, we’re having dinner.”
Here was what I learned about Austen Wicker over two hours and a bottle of Pinot Noir that neither of us finished.
Her parents were English professors at a small college in Vermont.
Her father specialized in Victorian poetry.
Her mother taught post-colonial literature, had opinions about everything and voiced them in a way that made you feel like you were being graded.
They’d named their daughters Austen and Emma — both Jane Austen related — and had expected both of them to go into academia.
Emma was a lawyer in Chicago now — not academia, but close enough in the parental ranking of acceptable professions. Austen had wanted a bar.
“A bar,” I said trying to picture what her parents had thought of that.
“A bar.” She broke a piece of bread in half.
“I told them when I was nineteen. My mother didn’t speak to me for a week.
My father sent me a reading list — economic theory, hospitality management, a biography of someone who’d opened a speakeasy during Prohibition.
His way of saying he disagreed but respected the craft.
We landed on a business degree as the compromise.
Gave me the numbers, the logistics, enough to actually run the place. ”
“They ever been to Velvet?”
“Vermont’s a long way. My father’s flown out three times — he sits at the bar, examines the woodwork and orders increasingly difficult cocktails to test my skills.
I’ve never failed yet. My mother came once.
She interrogated the staff.” She smiled.
“They’re proud of me. They just don’t always know how to say it. ”
Remember she’s got a father. Indira’s voice, clear as anything. The man who flew from Vermont to sit at his daughter’s bar. I filed that away next to everything else.