“Calm down, you beastly man. I’m just being friendly.”
“Well, be friendly somewhere else,” Roy muttered darkly, so low I almost couldn’t pick out the individual words. When he turned his gaze back to me, his eyes were a little softer.
“What in the hell did I do to get your panties in such a bunch?” Lorcan asked, and the question caused me to giggle a little.
Roy’s expression wasn’t as congenial. “You’re being a flirt, as usual.” Then he faced me. “And you, my pretty new neighbor, would do well to stay as far away from Lorcan as possible.”
I swallowed hard at the mention of me as his ‘pretty neighbor’. So, I figured it was safe to say Roy was definitely interested. Not that it would have taken a genius to figure that much out—owing to the intensity of the looks he’d been giving me the whole time I was here with Marty and Finn.
Marty… what about McFly? I asked myself.
Marty and I aren’t anything, other than friends, I responded. It’s not like he’s let it be known he’s interested. And, furthermore, it’s important to have a male friend who’s just that—a friend. In your experience, friends stick around longer than boyfriends do.
Right.
And there’s also the fact that Finn loves him…
Yes, there was that.
McFly and I are definitely better as friends, I resolved. And that means…
I looked up at Roy again and swallowed hard. He was definitely attractive…
“Beast,” Lorcan grumbled.
“Parasite,” Roy muttered.
“Ahem,” I started, interrupting them both with a quick, apologetic smile. Then I looked at Roy. “The reason I came in today was to ask you a favor.”
“A favor?” he repeated as he paced away from the bar, almost smiling now that Lorcan had lost whatever pissing contest they’d just had. When Roy returned, he’d filled a plastic tumbler with iced tea and placed a lemon garnish at the top of the glass. He pushed the drink towards me.
“Iced tea with lemon, right? I remember you ordered that last time you were here.”
I blinked, amazed and shocked. “How on earth did you remember that?”
“I’ve got a good memory,” he answered with a shrug and then knocked on his noggin with a big smile. He had nice teeth and full lips… lips that begged to be…
Poppy! I yelled at myself. Jeez!
“And he’s got the hearing abilities of a wolf,” Lorcan answered with a laugh. Roy glared at him, and Lorcan took another swig of his drink. “Not to mention he usually smells like one.”
“Well, thank you for the iced tea,” I said to Roy, deciding to ignore Lorcan’s comment for the time being.
“You are more than welcome… Poppy,” he answered, and the way he said my name made it sound like it was a dirty word. I felt my heart start pounding. “Now, what can I help you with? You said you were here to ask me a favor,” he finished as I wrung the lemon twist into the iced tea.
I took a sip. “I was wondering if I could leave a few brochures for my store with you?”
“Of course,” Roy answered.
“Thank you,” I said with a broad smile and handed him a handful of the brochures in question.
“Cures for all ailments, huh?” Roy asked as he read through the first page of the brochure.
“Yes,” I answered with a little smile.
“Good looking brochure,” Roy continued, and the smile he gave me suggested the brochure wasn’t the only thing he found good looking. My heart started up again, making me feel a little winded.
“Oh, thanks, one of Haven Hollow’s residents did it for me. Marty Zach.”
“Marty Zach?” Lorcan repeated, snorting into his glass. A fleck of the viscous red liquid splattered onto his cheek. He licked it off absently, never taking his eyes off me. For whatever reason, the action made my cheeks heat all over again.
“Yeah. Do you know him?” I asked.
Roy laughed. “Everyone knows Marty.”
“Though some of us wished we didn’t,” Lorcan added.
“Why is that?” I asked, immediately feeling prickly towards him. Marty had been nothing but kind to me and I wasn’t about to let anyone put my new friend down.
Roy resumed polishing the bar with a sigh. “Lorcan’s referring to Ophelia, the owner of the realty company in town.”
“I know who Ophelia is,” I almost interrupted.
“Right, neither of us dislikes Marty,” Roy finished.
“Why does Ophelia have such a problem with him?” I asked, deciding to get to the bottom of this mystery.
“She just hates that Haven Hollow has become ‘touristy’ and ‘kitschy’,” he started, using air quotes. “And she includes Marty’s ghost exorcisms in that description.”
“Ophelia Ponsobby,” Lorcan spat the words out and then waved them away with an unconcerned, yet well-manicured hand. “That nasty hag can gargle with an old man’s bollocks for all I care,” he spat, draining the last of his drink.
I inhaled my next sip of iced tea and drowned my laugh, because I could tell Roy didn’t appreciate Lorcan’s perspective. Lorcan set his now empty drink on the bar top and leaned over, touching me on the back as he whispered: “Though she’d do well with some male sport in her life, aye?”
“Into the basement,” Roy snapped at Lorcan, shoving a thick, calloused finger into Lorcan’s face as he pushed Lorcan’s hand off me. “Sleep it off and when you’re sober enough, go home, you careless lush.”
There was a frozen split second where I was convinced Lorcan was about to vault the bar and send one of those pale fists into Roy’s handsome face. Lorcan’s full, almost pouty lips pulled slightly off his teeth. I hadn’t quite noticed how prominent his incisors and bicuspids were until he ran his tongue across them absently.
Then Lorcan smiled again. It was just a twitch of his lips, the expression devoid of much warmth. It didn’t stretch up into the deep green of his eyes. They were fathomless, and it wasn’t unlike staring into the gaping dark of the Mariana Trench. Something lurked beneath his stare.
It was then that I decided there was something very wrong with the people of this town.
“Have it your way, Osbourne. Put the libation on my tab, will you?” Lorcan half-turned, caught my eye and the grin turned wicked. After what I’d seen in his eyes for that split second, the lascivious edge to the expression didn’t warm me. I couldn’t conceal a shiver as his eyes raked over me, and my heart threw itself violently at my ribs, attempting a panicked escape.
“Dia dhuit, my lovely,” he said, and blew me a kiss over his shoulder as he sauntered off.
“What a tool,” Roy muttered when Lorcan disappeared into the back, presumably to sleep off his indulgence on a cot somewhere. I was surprised Roy had mentioned his basement because it didn’t seem like these two were friends… so why not just send Lorcan home? Why offer up his basement?
“He was okay,” I answered, not wanting Roy to think too much of it. I wasn’t offended by Lorcan, so I didn’t figure Roy should be… well, not on my account, anyway.
Roy managed to look even more stoic when he frowned. His heavy brows pushed down, shadowing the nimbus gray of his eyes. If he’d been sitting down, with his hand propped under his chin, he’d have been a dead ringer for The Thinker.